Cœlebs in Search of a Wife by Hannah More

Poet, playwright, essayist, and tract writer Hannah More, known as a counter-revolutionary Evangelical reformer and abolitionist, published her first and only novel Cœlebs in Search of a Wife, Comprehending Observations on Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals anonymously in 1808; a second edition with an additional chapter followed shortly in 1809. As the phenomenon of a religious novel it provoked comment and controversy. Its twenty-three-year-old bachelor narrator, “Cœlebs” (meaning unmarried), relates his encounters with fashionable, nubile prospects in London before he visits the Hampshire home of his deceased father’s friend, where he meets his ideal partner. This fusion of religion and cultural ideology was a curious best seller. Though garnering cautious and stinting reviews about the gravitational pull of religion and the stiffened narrative, Cœlebs went through twelve London editions circulating over 14,000 copies and was subsequently translated into French and German. Combining both cautionary and exemplary character studies, the novel is symptomatic of More’s career in its daring to teach and preach about religion and reform, this time with the additive of a marriage.