Plans of Education with Remarks on the Systems of Other Writers by Clara Reeve

Clara Reeve (1729–1807) is primarily known as the author of the Gothic novel The Old English Baron (1778) and for her reflections on genre theory and literary history in The Progress of Romance (1785). Published in 1792, the epistolary work Plans of Education is aimed at improving the human condition through the education of women. Education for women was regarded as an essential task, both by conservative and radical intellectuals in the eighteenth century (Schnorrenberg, Women Stud 9:263–273, 1982, 264). Reeve, in Plans of Education, seems to represent the conservative side, but some clues, including the names of the characters, hint that the attitude of the text is not entirely the same as the attitude of the author. In addition to the text’s significance in the history of gender politics, a clear class consciousness is visible throughout. The text also presents a vision of a secluded female community, as a kind of traditionalist utopia, where the education should take place.