Charlotte Dacre

Dacre was one of three legitimate children of John King, born Jacob Rey (c. 1753–1824), a Jewish moneylender of Portuguese Sephardic origin, who was also a blackmailer and a radical political writer well known in London society. ==Work==

'' in 1803 In 1798 Charlotte King published with her sister Sophia a volume of Gothic verses, Trifles of Helicon, and dedicated it to her bankrupt father to show 'the education you have afforded us has not been totally lost'. She used some of the poems from Trifles of Helicon in Hours of Solitude (1805), published under the pseudonym Charlotte Dacre, which confirms the identity between Dacre and King. She wrote verses for the Morning Post and Morning Herald under the name Rosa Matilda. Also in 1805 she published The Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer, a Gothic tale of sexual repression and misbehaviour. In the preface Dacre claims the book was written at the age of eighteen and left untouched for three years during journeys abroad. She wrote a total of four novels: The Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer (1805), Zofloya, or the Moor (1806), The Libertine (1807), and The Passions (1811). Of her four major novels, Zofloya, or the Moor is the most well-known and sold well on its release in 1806. It has been translated into German, French and Italian. The novel follows the corruption of the strong and sexually ruthless heroine Victoria, and her gradual enslavement to the charismatic Moorish servant Zofloya (later revealed to be Satan). ==Influence==

Despite all four of her novels being re-issued by Arno Press from 1972 to 1974, Charlotte Dacre remained in virtual obscurity for nearly two centuries until the recovery of Zofloya in the 1990s by feminist scholars. Zofloya has since become a staple work of Gothic curriculum. Her work was admired by some of the literary giants of her day and her novels influenced Percy Bysshe Shelley, who thought highly of her style and creative skills. Shelley's first two Gothic novels, Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne were largely influenced by Zofloya. She is believed to be one of the numerous targets of Lord Byron's satirical poem English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, mentioned in the lines: ==Partial bibliography==

• Trifles of Helicon, with her sister Sophia King • Hours of Solitude (Poems) (1805) • Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer (1805) • Zofloya (1806) • The Libertine (1807) • The Passions (1811) • George the Fourth, a Poem (1822) ==References==