A Simple Story (novel)

A Simple Story is a novel by English author and actress Elizabeth Inchbald. Published in February 1791 as an early example of a "novel of passion", it was successful and became widely read in England and abroad. It went into a second edition in March 1791, and is still in print today.

The story is told in two parts. The first relates the ill-advised romance between a flighty young heiress, Miss Milner, and her guardian Dorriforth. The second follows the adolescence of their virtuous daughter Matilda, whom Dorriforth has rejected out of pain at Miss Milner's moral failings as his wife. The contrast between Miss Milner and Matilda expresses Inchbald's critique of women's "fashionable" education, which she thought placed too much emphasis on personal appearance and sensibility.