Belmour: A Modern Edition

Introduces to the modern audience to the only novel of English sculptress Anne Damer. Belmour chronicles the tangled romances of a group of eighteenth-century English aristocrats. The plot centres on Lord Belmour's pursuit of the lovely and slightly mysterious Emily Melville.

ANNE DAMNER (1748-1828) was born in Kent to an aristocratic family. In 1767 she married John Damer but separated from him after seven years. Her father's secretary, the philosopher David Hume, allegedly inspired her to pursue a career as a sculptress at a time when few women did so. Among her best-known subjects are Lord Admiral Nelson and King George III. Giuseppe Ceracchi, cast her as the Muse of Sculpture in a full-length statue that graced the entrance of the British Museum for more than one hundred years. Belmour (1801) was her only novel.

JONATHAN DAVID GROSS is a professor of English at DePaul University and the director of the DePaul Humanities Center. He previously edited The Sylph (Northwestern, 2007) and Emma; or, The Unfortunate Attachment (2004), both by Lady Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. He is the author of Byron: The Erotic Liberal (2001), and edited Byron's "Corbeau Blanc" The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne (1997).