The Emigrants: "Oh, Hope! thou soother sweet of human woes!"

Charlotte Turner Smith was born on 4th May 1749 in London. Her early years were dominated by her mother’s early death and her father’s reckless spending. At age 15 she married Benjamin Smith in order to rid her father of his gambling debts. Charlotte was later to write that she now become a "legal prostitute". Benjamin was violent, unfaithful, more reckless with monies than her father and completely unsupportive with her writing that she had begun to spend more time on.

In 1766, Charlotte an...