Edward Kimber, The Happy Orphans

Edited by Jan Herman and Beatrijs Vanacker

Critical Texts 29

Modern Humanities Research Association

1 June 2015  •  298pp

ISBN: 978-1-781887-42-4 (paperback)  •  RRP £14.99, $19.99, €17.99

ISBN: 978-1-781887-43-1 (JSTOR ebook)

EnlightenmentEnglishFrenchTranslationFiction


The first edition (paperback ISBN 978-1-90732-218-1) of this book is now out of print, but a revised second edition with the ISBNs given above will be published in due course.

Edward Kimber’s The Happy Orphans, published in 1759, revolves around the orphaned twins, Edward and Lucy, who are reunited with their family after numerous adventures and turns of fate.

The Happy Orphans is the English adaptation and translation of Crébillon’s Les Heureux Orphelins (1754), itself a translation and adaptation of Eliza Haywood’s The Fortunate Foundlings (1744). Kimber’s novel attests to the complex modes of transfer for novels crossing between Britain and France in the eighteenth century.

This critical edition aims to promote a wider understanding of the transcultural dimensions of the Rise of the Novel. It also highlights the distinctive literary quality and position of The Happy Orphans in a concluding analysis that sheds light on a central theme – the narrative intertwinements of Virtue and Providence.

Jan Herman is a professor of French literature at KU Leuven. His research focuses on the rhetorics and poetics of the novel from the medieval period to the eighteenth century. Beatrijs Vanacker is a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven – Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). Her research focuses on pseudotranslation and on the transcultural dimensions of the Rise of the Novel in the eighteenth century.

Bibliography entry:

Herman, Jan, and Beatrijs Vanacker (eds), Edward Kimber, The Happy Orphans, Critical Texts, 29 (MHRA, 2015)

First footnote reference: 35 Edward Kimber, The Happy Orphans, ed. by Jan Herman and Beatrijs Vanacker, Critical Texts, 29 (MHRA, 2015), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Herman and Vanacker, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Herman, Jan, and Beatrijs Vanacker (eds). 2015. Edward Kimber, The Happy Orphans, Critical Texts, 29 (MHRA)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Herman and Vanacker 2015: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Herman and Vanacker 2015: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)


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