Roxana: Or, the Fortunate Mistress (Broadview Editions) - Softcover

Defoe, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551118076 ISBN 13: 9781551118079

Publisher: Broadview Press Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

Unusual book

About this title

Review:

"Rare is that edition that gives us a fresh interpretation of a primary work, but that is precisely what Melissa Mowry has accomplished in this excellent edition. The introduction details Roxana's place in Defoe's career and the ways the novel evokes his Dissenter politics, while also shedding new light on the novel's imbrication in debates about political sovereignty, feminism, and prostitution. The supplementary materials are all artfully chosen to produce fresh readings of the novel. Finally, the inclusion of some of the alternate endings written for Roxana, along with a brief reception history of Defoe's work, invites speculation about changes in the representation of gender and sexuality over the course of the long eighteenth century in Britain." -- Scarlet Bowen, University of Colorado

From the Back Cover:

Almost three hundred years after its first publication, Roxana continues to challenge readers, who, though compelled by Roxana's story, are often baffled by her complex relationships to her children, her fortune, and her vices. As one of Daniel Defoe's four major fictions, Roxana has long been understood as central to the history of the novel, and provides readers with Defoe's sharpest and most specific commentary on the complexities of life in seventeenth-century London. This edition offers a range of contemporary documents that will help readers understand the struggles of Roxana's life as series of metaphoric engagements with pressing issues of her time.

About this edition

• Publisher: Broadview Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1551118076
• ISBN 13: 9781551118079
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 420
• Editor: Mowry Melissa