An Essay on the Art of Ingenious Tormenting (Broadview Literary Texts) - Softcover

Bilger, Audrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551110962 ISBN 13: 9781551110967

Publisher: Broadview Press Ltd, 2003

Synopsis

Perhaps the first extended non-fiction prose satire written by an English woman, Jane Collier's An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753) is a wickedly satirical send-up of eighteenth-century advice manuals and educational tracts. It takes the form of a mock advice manual in which the speaker instructs her readers in the arts of tormenting, offering advice on how to torment servants, humble companions and spouses, and on how to bring one's children up to be a torment to others. The work's satirical style, which focuses on the different kinds of power that individuals exercise over one another, follows in the footsteps of Jonathan Swift and paves the way for Jane Austen. This Broadview edition uses the first edition, the only edition published during the author's lifetime. The appendices include excerpts from texts that influenced the essay (by Sarah Fielding, Jonathan Swift, Francis Coventry); excerpts from later texts that were influenced by it (by Maria Edgeworth, Frances Burney, Jane Austen); and relevant writings on education and conduct (by John Locke, George Savile, Dr. John Gregory).

About this title

About the Author:

Audrey Bilger is an Associate Professor of Literature at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA. She is the author of Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen.

About this edition

• Publisher: Broadview Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1551110962
• ISBN 13: 9781551110967
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 218
• Editor: Collier Jane