Anne Ford it was considered controversial for a woman to play the "masculine" viola da gamba, referred to at the time as the "viol di gambo". Ford gave a performance at Spring Gardens in 1761, "English airs". accompanying herself on the musical glasses. She also wrote a published work, "Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses". The instrument was comparable to the glass harp of Richard Pockrich consisting of individual glass goblets tuned with water, and preceded the 1761 mechanized armonica (Glass harmonica) invention of Benjamin Franklin and played by Marianne Davies. Ford's accomplishments risked being complicated by an infatuated lover, the
18th century in literature 18th century in literature Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the 18th century. European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama, satire, and novels) produced in Europe during this period. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 "Robinson Crusoe" is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary novel, the sentimental novel, histories, the gothic novel and the libertine novel.