The Secret Life Of Aphra Behn

Author : Janet Todd
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 830 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2013-09-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781448212545

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The Secret Life of Aphra Behn by Janet Todd Pdf

'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'.

Author : Janet Todd
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 612 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0813524555

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The Secret Life of Aphra Behn by Janet Todd Pdf

"Behn is a mass of contradictions: a high Tory who disliked traditional power structures; a powerful, autonomous woman who depended on men's approval; a woman who desired men and women and who became involved in intense political activity, yet craved case. This readable, fast-paced book uncovers Behn's assertive, duplicitous, sensual character and illustrates the openly erotic nature of her writings, her explorations of desire, sexual excitement and disappointment, which later made her a byword for lewdness. It reveals historical sources and court cases behind some of her most famous 'fictions'.".

Author : Aphra Behn
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : English drama (Comedy)
ISBN : 0192834517

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The Rover by Aphra Behn Pdf

Aphra Behn (1640-89) was both successful and controversial in her own lifetime; her achievements are now recognized less equivocally and her plays, often revived, demonstrate wit, compassion and remarkable range. This edition brings together her most important comedies in a single volume: The Rover, her best-known play; The Feigned Courtesans, a lively comedy of intrigue; The Lucky Chance, a comedy with a bitter edge, which takes a satirical look at marriage customs; and the dazzling and popular farce, The Emperor of the Moon. All the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation.

Author : Aphra Behn
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 1736
Category : Great Britain
ISBN : IND:30000108799739

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Love-letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn Pdf

Author : Janet Todd
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 570 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2017-11-02
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781448216956

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Aphra Behn: A Secret Life by Janet Todd Pdf

'Fascinating scholarship. Todd conveys Behn's vivacious character and the mores of the time' New York Times '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 of the erotic and bisexual, political propagandist, 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. In this revised biography, 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 nineteen 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'. Janet Todd, novelist and internationally renowned scholar, was president of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, and a Professor at Rutgers, NJ. An expert on women's writing and feminism, she has written about many writers, including Jane Austen, the Shelley Circle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Aphra Behn. 'Ground-breaking it reads quickly and lightly. Even Todd's throwaway lines are steeped in learning' Women's Review of Books 'A major biography; of interest to everyone who cares about women as writers' Times Higher Education Supplement

Author : Janet Todd
Publisher : Bitter Lemon Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2016-03-10
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781908524607

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A Man of Genius by Janet Todd Pdf

"Strange and haunting, a gothic novel with a modern consciousness." —Philippa Gregory "A haunting, sophisticated story about a woman discovering the truth about herself and the elusive, possibly illusive, nature of genius." —Sunday Times "Mesmerizing, haunting, imbued with a complete sense of historical verisimilitude" —Times Literary Supplement "A psychologically haunting and disturbing tale as full of mystery, exotic foreign places, and questions of parentage as any penned by her protagonist." —Library Journal "Thrilling and heartbreaking, a gothic novel with emotional heart and depth." —Foreword Reviews "A darkly mischievous novel about love, obsession and the burden of charisma, played out against the backdrop of Venice's watery, decadent glory." —Sarah Dunant "A mesmerizing story of love and obsession in nineteenth-century Venice: dark and utterly compelling." —Natasha Solomons Set in bustling Regency England and decaying Venice, A Man of Genius portrays a psychological journey from safety into secrecy and obsession. After a troubled childhood, Ann achieves independence earning her living as an author of Gothic novels. Within a group of male writers, she meets and is enthralled by the supposed poetic genius, Robert James. They become uneasy lovers. Ann and Robert travel from London through a Europe exhausted by the Napoleonic Wars. They arrive in a Venice of spies and intrigue, where their relationship becomes tortuous and Robert descends into near madness. Forced to flee with a stranger, Ann delves into her past to be jolted by a series of revelations about her lover, her parentage, the stranger, and herself.

Author : Derek Hughes,Janet Todd
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2004-11-25
Category : Drama
ISBN : 0521527201

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The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn by Derek Hughes,Janet Todd Pdf

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.

Author : Nadine Akkerman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2018-06-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192555847

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Invisible Agents by Nadine Akkerman Pdf

It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's gaze, then how many more like her lurk in the archives? Nadine Akkerman's search for an answer to this question has led to the writing of Invisible Agents, the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies, demonstrating that the allegedly-male world of the spy was more than merely infiltrated by women. This compelling and ground-breaking contribution to the history of espionage details a series of case studies in which women — from playwright to postmistress, from lady-in-waiting to laundry woman — acted as spies, sourcing and passing on confidential information on account of political and religious convictions or to obtain money or power. The struggle of the She-Intelligencers to construct credibility in their own time is mirrored in their invisibility in modern historiography. Akkerman has immersed herself in archives, libraries, and private collections, transcribing hundreds of letters, breaking cipher codes and their keys, studying invisible inks, and interpreting riddles, acting as a modern-day Spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long remained hidden by history.

Author : Aphra Behn
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 461 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2003-08-28
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780141958873

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Oroonoko, the Rover and Other Works by Aphra Behn Pdf

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.

Author : Janet Todd
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1996-03-28
Category : Drama
ISBN : 0521471699

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Aphra Behn Studies by Janet Todd Pdf

Aphra Behn was England's first professional woman writer, but her status as a major author has only recently become clear. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Behn was denigrated for her 'unwomanly' subject matter and intellectual immodesty. In the twentieth century she has been increasingly viewed as an important dramatist and poet of the Restoration and a founder of the English novel. This book sets Behn firmly in an historical context of political factions, theatre developments and colonial encounters, and includes chapters on each of the genres in which she wrote: drama, fiction, poetry and translation, and on other aspects of her life, from her publishing struggles to her involvement in American slavery. It is an important resource for those studying seventeenth-century English literature and drama, and to those interested in the development of women's writing.

Author : Aphra Behn
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 78 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 1690
Category : Electronic
ISBN : BL:A0020150538

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The widdow Ranter; or, The history of Bacon in Virginia, a tragi-comedy [ed. by G.J.]. by Aphra Behn Pdf

Author : David Womersley
Publisher : Wiley-Blackwell
Page : 632 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2001-04-25
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 063121285X

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A Companion to Literature from Milton to Blake by David Womersley Pdf

This definitive Companion provides a critical overview of literary culture in the period from John Milton to William Blake. Its broad chronological range responds to recent reshapings of the canon and identifies new directions of study. The Companion is composed of over fifty contributions from leading scholars in the field, its essays offer students a comprehensive and accessible survey of the field from a wide range of perspectives. It also, however, gives researchers and faculty the opportunity to update their acquaintance with new critical and scholarly work. The volume meets the needs of an intellectual world increasingly given over to inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary study by covering philosophical, political, cultural and historical writing, as well as literary writing. Unlike other similar volumes, the main body of the Companion consists of readings of individual texts, both those commonly and less commonly studied.

Author : Mark Blackwell
Publisher : Bucknell University Press
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0838756662

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The Secret Life of Things by Mark Blackwell Pdf

This collection enriches and complicates the history of prose fiction between Richardson and Fielding at mid-century and Austen at the turn of the century by focusing on it-narratives, a once popular form largely forgotten by readers and critics alike. The volume also advances important work on eighteenth-century consumer culture and the theory of things. The essays that comprise The Secret Life of Things thus bring new texts, and new ways of thinking about familiar ones, to our notice. Those essays range from the role of it-narratives in period debates about copyright to their complex relationship with object-riddled sentimental fictions, from anti-semitism in Chrysal to jingoistic imperialism in The Adventures of a Rupee, from the it-narrative as a variety of whore's biography to a consideration of its contributions to an emergent middle-class ideology.

Author : John Fletcher
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2014-05-29
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9781408143803

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The Tamer Tamed by John Fletcher Pdf

The Tamer Tamed is the subtitle or alternative title to John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, a comedic sequel and reply to The Taming of the Shrew. The plot switches the gender roles of Shakespeare's play: the women seek to tame the men. Katherine (the "shrew" of the original) has died, and Petruchio takes a second wife, Maria. Maria denounces her former mildness and vows not to sleep with Petruchio until she "turn him and bend him as [she] list, and mold him into a babe again." After many comedic exchanges and plot twists, Petruchio is finally "tamed" in the eyes of Maria, and the play ends with the two reconciled. The play is seen to reflect how society's views of women, femininity, and "domestic propriety" were beginning to change. It is said that Fletcher wrote this play to attract Shakespeare's attention - the two went on to collaborate on at least three plays together. This brand new New Mermaid edition offers unique and fresh insight into the critical interpretation of the play. It builds on current critical foundations (the relationship with Taming of the Shrew, gender relations etc) and suggests different areas of interest (popular associations of the shrew, the question of reputation, and a re-examination of the play's structure). as well as examining stage history and recent productions.

Author : Janet Todd
Publisher : Fentum Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2020-05-12
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1909572071

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Don't You Know There's a War On? by Janet Todd Pdf

Joan revisits her life, blighted by WW2, drawing her daughter into her imaginings and desires. The boundaries between them collapse.