Love in Excess

Love in Excess (1719–1720) is Eliza Haywood's best known novel. It details the amorous escapades of Count D'Elmont, a rake who becomes reformed over the course of the novel. Love in Excess was a huge bestseller in its time, going through multiple reissues in the four years following its initial publication.In terms of booksales, it was comparable to the contemporaneous Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe. A work of amatory fiction, Love in Excess offers many models of female desire, and ultimately articulates the early-18th century "cultural shift toward a compassionate model of marriage." The conflict of public behavior, expectations, and decorum vs. individual and private longings and desires. The novel also directly examines and illustrates the ways in which women and female desire are silenced by societal conventions.