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Written in the radical Jacobin context of the 1790s, Mary Hays’s novel lies at the intersection of reason, as theorised by William Godwin, and feeling, as portrayed by Claude-Adrien Helvétius, both seen as sources of virtue and truth. Emma vacillates between these two faculties of the mind in order to propel into action an early feminist mode of expression and agency fuelled by her reading practices, particularly when she comes across Rousseau’s Julie; or, The New Heloise. I argue that such reading practices prove to be perilous, or rather quixotic, as they highlight a female enthusiast whose laudable intellect and eloquence are eclipsed by her overriding passions, which, contrary to Helvétius’s sensationism, obstruct the development of her own character.
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