Oroonoko and Other Writings

Author: Aphra Behn
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191509213
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
'I value fame almost as much as if I had been born a hero'. (Preface to The Lucky Chance). Aphra Behn (1640-89) achieved both fame and notoriety in her own time, enjoying considerable success for her plays and for her short novel Oroonoko, the story of a noble slave who loves a princess. Acclaimed by Virginia Woolf as the first English woman to earn her living by the pen, Behn's achievements as a writer are now acknowledged less equivocally than in the seventeenth century. As well as Oroonoko, this volume contains five other works of fiction ranging from comedy and high melodrama to tragedy. The Fair Jilt, Memoirs of the Court of the King of Bantam, The History of the Nun, The Adventure of the Black Lady, and The Unfortunate Bride are complemented by a generous selection of her poetyr, ranging from public political verse to lyrics and witty conversation poems. This selection demonstrates Behn's range, as well as her wit, compassion, and interest in the question of identity and self-representation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Oroonoko, the Rover and Other Works

Author: Aphra Behn
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141958871
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 461

Book Description
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 (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples ‘in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin’. The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude to African slavery – while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.

The Rover

Author: Aphra Behn
Publisher: Joe Books Ltd
ISBN: 1987955684
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Book Description
The magic of Naples during Carnival inspires love between a disparate group of local citizens and visiting Englishmen.

Oroonoko and Other Writings

Author: Aphra Behn
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 019953876X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn

Author: Derek Hughes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139826948
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
Traditionally known as the first professional woman writer in English, Aphra Behn has now emerged as one of the major figures of the Restoration. She provided more plays for the stage than any other author and greatly influenced the development of the novel with her ground-breaking fiction, especially Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister and Oroonoko, the first English novel set in America. Behn's work straddles the genres: beside drama and fiction, she also excelled in poetry and she made several important translations from French libertine and scientific works. This Companion discusses and introduces her writings in all these fields and provides the critical tools with which to judge their aesthetic and historical importance. It also includes a full bibliography, a detailed chronology and a description of the known facts of her life. The Companion will be an essential tool for the study of this increasingly important writer and thinker.

Oroonoko

Author: Aphra Behn
Publisher: The Floating Press
ISBN: 1775415600
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 115

Book Description
Aphra Behn was one of the first professional English female writers and Oroonoko was one of her earliest works. It is the love story between Oroonoko, the grandson of an African king, and the daughter of that king's general. The king takes the girl into his harem, and when she plans to escape with his grandson, sells her as a slave. When Oroonoko tries to follow her he is caught by an English slave trader and taken to the same West Indian island as his love.

The Secret Life of Aphra Behn

Author: Janet Todd
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1448212545
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 830

Book Description
'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn; for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds,' said Virginia Woolf. Yet that tomb, in Westminster Abbey, records one of the few uncontested facts about this Restoration playwright, poet, novelist and spy: the date of her death, 16 April 1689. For the rest secrecy and duplicity are almost the key to her life. She loved codes, making and breaking them; writing her life becomes a decoding of a passionate but playful woman. Janet Todd draws on documents she has rediscovered in the Dutch archives, and on Behn's own writings, to tell a story of court, diplomatic and sexual intrigue, and of the rise from humble origins of the first woman to earn her living as a professional writer. Aphra Behn's first notable employment was as a Royal spy in Holland; she had probably also spied in Surinam. It was not until she was in her thirties that she published the first of the 19 plays and other works which established her fame (though not riches) among her 'good, sweet, honey-candied readers'. Many of her works were openly erotic, indeed as frank as anything by her friends Wycherley and Rochester. Some also offered an inside view of court and political intrigues, and Todd reveals the historical scandals and legal cases behind some of Behn's most famous 'fictions'.

Approaches to Teaching Behn's Oroonoko

Author: Cynthia Richards
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 1603291717
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
Once merely a footnote in Restoration and eighteenth-century studies and rarely taught, Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave (1688), by Aphra Behn, is now essential reading for scholars and a classroom favorite. It appears in general surveys and in courses on early modern British writers, postcolonial literature, American literature, women's literature, drama, the slave narrative, and autobiography. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," provides not only resources for the teacher of Oroonoko but also a brief chronology of Behn's life and work. In part 2, "Approaches," essays offer a diversity of perspectives appropriate to a text that challenges student assumptions and contains not one story but many: Oroonoko as a romance, as a travel account, as a heroic tragedy, as a window to seventeenth-century representations of race, as a reflection of Tory-Whig conflict in the time of Charles II.

Dangerous Acquaintances

Author: Choderlos de Laclos
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780140441161
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Book Description
An epistolary novel chronicles the cruel seduction of a young girl by two ruthless, eighteenth-century aristocrats

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Author: John Milton
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1329726642
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
The classic epic poem from John Milton of Satan's war with heaven and his eventual temptation of humanity. A plan is laid out to save humankind which culminates in the last book Paradise Regained.