‘Heroines of their own romance’: Creative Exchanges between Life-Writing and Fiction, the ‘Scandalous Memoirists’ and Charlotte Lennox

This article examines the creative relationship between lives and stories and the intrinsic relationship between autobiography and fiction, with particular attention to the ‘scandalous memoirists’ of the mid-eighteenth century. By using the more flexible concept of life-writing, the article highlights the porous nature of genres at this time and the way in which strict categorisation has limited understandings of literary exchanges. Concluding with Charlotte Lennox, the article demonstrates the potential in recognising fluidity of genre and challenges the superficial division between the ‘respectable’ Lennox and the ‘scandalous’ memoirists.