to the Scottish writer Mary Brunton. Jacson's authorship was not suggested until 1823. There were further false attributions in the early twentieth century to Alethea Lewis. Despite the financial motives behind her writing activity, Jacson never abandoned her moral purpose, so that her novels are didactic, all featuring a heroine in relatively high society. Through them she shows strong creative insight, especially into burgeoning relationships and marriage. In most cases her heroines discern flaws in the perceptions of themselves and others. There is much irony in the portrayal of several minor characters. Rhoda was preferred to Jane Austen's Emma by Maria Edgeworth, from whom the Jacson sisters received a social call in 1818. It was also recommended by Sydney Smith. Isabella ("By the author of Rhoda": London: Henry Colburn & Co., 1823) was written in a calmer period of Jacson's life. The "self-righteous loquacity" of Mrs. Nesbit has been compared to Mrs. Norris in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. The French translation of this by Mme Collet in 1823, Isabelle Hastings, was wrongly ascribed to William Godwin. Even her diaries, kept from 1829 until her death, were thought for a time to be her brother's. Jacson is also known to have written a religious pamphlet, Every Day Christianity (1816). See also Maria Elizabetha Jacson References Bibliography Chawton House Library: Isabella (PDF); Things by their Right Names (PDF). Both retrieved 29 September 2022. Orlando Project: Retrieved 19 November 2010. Subscription required for most information. Percy, Joan. "An Unrecognized Novelist: Frances Jacson (1754–1842)." The British Library Journal 23.1 (1997): 81–97. Reproduces an 1814 water colour portrait of Frances Jacson. 1754 births 1842 deaths 18th-century English novelists 19th-century English novelists 18th-century British women writers 19th-century English women writers English women novelists Pseudonymous women writers Anglican writers People from Bebington 18th-century English women 18th-century English people 18th-century pseudonymous writers 19th-century pseudonymous writers