Eliza Fowler Haywood (c.1693–1756), was a writer, actress and publisher. Largely neglected for two hundred years, Haywood attracted a surge of interest in the 1980s, and is now understood to be one of founders of the novel form, as well as a nurturer of important authors, including Susannah Centlivre. Haywood was a prolific writer, but is best remembered today for her first published work, Love in Excess, or, The Fatal Enquiry, which appeared in the same year as Robinson Crusoe was published, the short novella Fantomina, or, Love in a Maze and The Anti-Pamela, or, Feign’d Innocence Detected, a sizzling retort to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded.
