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This article posits elite metropolitan culture centred on London's West End as a significant force shaping Romantic-period suburbs. It furthermore explores the experiences that elite women – from the affluent middling ranks, the gentry, and the nobility – had of suburban homes. I consider three key types of suburban: West End relationships characterized, respectively, by transplantation of the beau monde to the suburbs, middling-rank emulation of fashion, and retreat from the West End. I explore whether or not these various suburban–West End interpenetrations allow women to achieve physical health, emotional well-being, social standing, and financial stability. Ultimately, I argue that Smith presents a suburban retreat occupied by noble and gentry characters as most successful in these terms. This investigation intervenes in debates on the suburbs taking place in literary Romanticism and more generally in the field of pre-railway suburban history. In particular, I move beyond the social ranks and lifestyles conventionally included in suburban scholarship, such as virtuous middling-rank activity. This article moreover reveals Charlotte Smith – whose writing on rural and natural places and landscapes scholars have celebrated – as an astute commentator on (sub)urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]