Lennox’s second novel, The Female Quixote, is a forerunner of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. In the absence of any broader education, the understanding of Lennox’s heroine Arabella about the world around her has been drawn entirely from seventeenth-century French romances. Lennox comically displays the pitfalls of Arabella’s failure to distinguish between fiction and reality. She expects lovers to fall at her feet, sees danger and disguise in commonplace situations, and breaks social strictures regarding appropriate female behavior. Arabella’s illusion that the world conforms to the conventions of the romance novel gives her a confidence in herself and her position that is overturned by her eventual re-education. By showing the absurdity of Arabella’s fantasy, Lennox subtly exposes how little power women in eighteenth-century society actually enjoyed. Rationalism triumphs over fantasy in the novel, and Arabella learns about her real position in society. Although modern readers may find Lennox’s comedy repetitious at times, the novel is still saved by the likeability of its main character—readers are disappointed when she finally succumbs to social convention, and touched by the genuine hilarity of the situations she creates for herself. Yet while readers may laugh at Arabella’s naivety, Lennox’s exposure of the dangers of letting the imagination run wild does bring into question the eighteenth-century practice of limiting women’s education. EG-G