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8vo, 190 x 110 mms., pp. [xvi], 319, 332 - 380, contemporary panelled calf, skilfully rebacked, with red morocco labels; corners a bit worn, but a very good copy. It is not clear when Riviere Manley (c. 1670 - 1724) became Mary De La Riverere Manley, though it might have been when she was travelling with John Manley. Her first book was Letters by Mrs Manley, published in 1696, but which were withdrawn from publication and not republished until after her death. She is perhaps best-known for work, Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality of both Sexes, from the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean in 1709. The Memoirs of Europe was the first of two volumes, in which Manley, as a Tory, tries to expose whig corruption with racy descriptions of naughty sexual behaviour. Her ODNB biographer, Ros Ballaster concludes a very good account of her life and publications with this comment: "Manley's plays and prose works were highly successful and popular in her own time, though they failed to secure her the financial and political patronage she craved. The remarkably accurate scandalous and political references in her prose works may now be obscure, but her energetic style and plotting made her an important contributor to the development of the modern novel as a vehicle for entertainment. Her clear-sighted exposure of sexual double standards, if leavened with sexual voyeurism and a taste for the scandalous and perverse, reveals her to be an early exponent of Enlightenment feminism.". Seller Inventory # 8595
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