In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, “conduct books” were a popular genre designed to instruct young people, particularly women, on proper moral behavior and social etiquette. Among the most influential was Reverend James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women (1766), a widely read text that promoted a vision of femininity rooted in piety, modesty, and domestic subservience. Fordyce advised women to cultivate a gentle and yielding nature, prioritizing the comfort and happiness of men while concealing their own intelligence to appear more agreeable. This perspective was fiercely criticized by progressive thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft, who, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), condemned Fordyce’s use of “lover-like phrases” to cajole women into a state of intellectual and emotional dependency (Wollstonecraft, M. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Penguin Classics, 2011, p. 99).

For Mary Bennet, who feels invisible and unloved due to her plainness, Fordyce’s writing initially offers a lifeline. His work validates her intellectual pursuits by valuing a “well-regulated mind and a properly formed understanding” over the superficial beauty prized by her mother (61). However, this validation is double-edged, as it still situates female worth entirely in its appeal to discerning men. The novel charts Mary’s intellectual journey through and beyond this limiting framework, particularly after her father dismisses Fordyce’s work as intellectually flimsy. Her eventual rejection of Fordyce’s ideals in favor of more radical thinkers emphasizes her development from a young woman seeking external approval to one who defines her own intellectual and personal worth.

Hadlow develops Mary Bennet even further, showing how Mary is later influenced by the Romantic movement when Tom Hayward introduces her to contemporary poetry. The publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, primarily authored by William Wordsworth with contributions by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is widely considered the starting point of the English Romantic movement. This collection revolutionized poetry by rejecting the formal, elevated language of the 18th century in favor of what Wordsworth, in his famous preface to the 1800 edition, called the “language really used by men” (Wordsworth, W. Lyrical Ballads. Penguin Classics, 2007, p.1). Central to this new literary sensibility was a focus on nature, the lives of common people, and the importance of emotion. Wordsworth defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” arising from “emotion recollected in tranquility” (13), arguing that its purpose was to evoke deep feeling and provide pleasure—a stark contrast to the emotional regulation and rational thought espoused by contemporary conduct literature. This Romantic philosophy is connected to the concept of the sublime: the experience of being overwhelmed by something vast and powerful, such as a dramatic natural landscape, which produces a sense of awe, terror, and spiritual transcendence.

Mary’s introduction to Wordsworth’s poetry challenges her detached, rational approach to life. Mr. Hayward’s insistence that works like “Tintern Abbey” must be read with “the heart as well as the head” pushes her to engage with the world through feeling and direct experience (249). This philosophical shift culminates in Mary’s visit to the Lake District, where Wordsworth and several other poets of the Romantic movement lived. This location is the physical embodiment of the sublime conveyed in Wordsworth’s poetry. Here, Mary encounters the wild, untamed force of nature that serves as a primary catalyst for her emotional liberation. The climb up Scafell, with its majestic view, prompts an overwhelming emotional response, making her feel as though she has become “a living soul” (267). This encounter with the sublime is a critical turning point, signifying her move beyond intellectual abstraction toward a fuller, more integrated way of being.