"Suddenly rich men are hard to deal with & poor authors must bear with rich booksellers” : Charlotte Smith’s love-hate relationship with Cadell & Davies

This paper details the problematic relationship Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) enjoyed/endured with her publishers Thomas Cadell and William Davies. From an analysis of her letters, the paper outlines Smith’s love-hate relationship with Cadell & Davies and details the performative roles she adopted in order to get what she wanted from them. It then undertakes a literary analysis of some of her early novels to demonstrate how her heroines used some of the same devices, in order to advance themselves, within Smith’s novels.