SOURCE: "Placing the Female," in Fetter'd of Free?: British Women Novelists, 1670-1815, edited by Mary Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski, Ohio University Press, 1986, pp. 101-23.

In the following excerpt, London examines plot, characterization, and garden imagery in Haywood's novel Love in Excess.

Eliza Haywood's most successful novel, Love in Excess; or The Fatal Inquiry centers on the amorous adventures of two brothers, with a neighboring baronet and his sister drawn in during the second volume as an added complication. The eldest brother, Count d'Elmont, returns to Paris after two years spent in a military career and is immediately besieged by various young women. Unattracted by marriage, he sets out to seduce Amena Sanseverin, thus provoking the jealousy of Alovisa who has already sent him a series of anonymous billets-doux. Amena then sends word to the count that she has been forbidden to see him and that night he...