A new single-volume edition of an early anti-slavery novel
When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko's noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn's visit to Surinam, Oroonoko reflects the author's romantic views of native peoples as being in "the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin." The novel also reveals...
A new single-volume edition of an early anti-slavery novel
When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy ...
"Historical Backgrounds" is an especially rich collection of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century documents about colonizers and slaves in the new world. Topically arranged-"Montaigne on America," "The Settling of Surinam," "Observers of Slavery, 1654-1712," "AfterOroonoko: Noble Africans in Europe," and "Opinions on Slavery"-these selections create a revealing context for Behn's unusual story. Illustrations and maps are also included. "Criticism" begins with an overview of responses to Behn and Oroonoko, from learned and popular writers of her time to Sir Walter Scott and Virginia...
"Historical Backgrounds" is an especially rich collection of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century documents about colonizers and slaves in the new world...
Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a popular poet, author of the influential novel "Oroonoko" and one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration theatre. This book contains a selection of her poetry.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a popular poet, author of the influential novel "Oroonoko" and one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration the...
Aphra Behn was among the wittiest and most prolific playwrights of her day
The Widow Ranter is a tragi-comedy, The False Count concerns the marriage of a young woman to a much older man whilst The Lucky Chance ran into instant criticism for immorality. The Rover is her most famous comedy and Abdelazar is her only tragedy.
Aphra Behn was among the wittiest and most prolific playwrights of her day
The Widow Ranter is a tragi-comedy, The False Count concerns the m...
"I m no tame sigher, but a rampant lion of the forest," says Willmore, the Rover, on shore after a long voyage. "I have a world of love in store," he claims, searching through the streets for a woman to prove it. When he meets two young Spanish woman "I love mischief," says one all the chemistry of comic satire lets loose.
The Rover roamed the English stage for a century and has been rediscovered in our own time as a theatrical masterpiece of wit and daring. Aphra Behn (1640 1689) combined dramatic genius and training with personal experience that gave her rare insight into...
"I m no tame sigher, but a rampant lion of the forest," says Willmore, the Rover, on shore after a long voyage. "I have a world of love in store," ...
Aphra Benn was a phenomenon: a lone female who was by turns a well-respected playwright, a spy, a convict, and the author of 'Oroonoko', the first English novel. Behn tells the (reputedly true) story of an African Prince, betrayed into slavery, who tires of the perfidy of the whites and leads a slave revolt for freedom - with tragic consequences. The atrocities Behn described shocked Restoration England and greatly advanced the cause of abolitionism. Behn's innovative novel also gave females a literary voice; as Virginia Woolf wrote ..".it was she who earned [women] the right to speak their...
Aphra Benn was a phenomenon: a lone female who was by turns a well-respected playwright, a spy, a convict, and the author of 'Oroonoko', the first Eng...
I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave, to entertain my reader with adventures of a feigned hero, whose life and fortunes fancy may manage at the poet's pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn it with any accidents but such as arrived in earnest to him: and it shall come simply into the world, recommended by its own proper merits and natural intrigues; there being enough of reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the addition of invention.
I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave, to entertain my reader with adventures of a feigned hero, whose life and fortunes fan...
