Published anonymously in 1797, Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette grabbed American interest with its ripped-from-the-headlines story of sex and scandal. A steady best seller for decades, the seduction novel was passed down through generations; indeed, its heroine became better known than the book's author. A year later, Foster's lesser-known follow-up, The Boarding School, provided an equally compelling portrait of women at the turn of the nineteenth...