GUNNING, Susannah.

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Pamphlets related to the Elizabeth Gunning scandal. First editions of the initial three works in the pamphlet war, a scandal nicknamed the "Gunninghiad" by Horace Walpole. The controversy stemmed from letters allegedly forged by Gunning in hopes of securing a prosperous marriage for her daughter, Elizabeth. Gunning (1739/40-1800) was a novelist whose works "achieved both a mild degree of popularity and a certain amount of ridicule for their excessively sentimental plots" (ODNB). She supposedly used these talents to compose romantic letters purportedly from George Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford, to Elizabeth (1769-1823), either to compel Blandford to marry her daughter or to encourage George Campbell, Marquess of Lorne - allegedly the real object of Elizabeth's affections - to propose. It is unclear if her husband, General Gunning, was involved but, in actual or feigned shock, he disowned them, after which they lived in France as social exiles.The war is commonly considered to comprise seven pamphlets, published between 1791 and 1792. "The first three texts conduct a trial in the public sphere of the guilt or innocence of Mrs Gunning and her daughter, or alternatively, of the Bowens, and possibly General Gunning" (Beebee, p. 69). The third pamphlet is a defence by Essex Bowen (1734-1793), a relative of the General (and, later, the lover of the cross-dressing soldier Mary Anne Talbot). Bowen and his wife were accused of either assisting the General in forging the lett

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