Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Novels of Mrs. Aphra Behn

The Novels of Mrs. Aphra Behn

Behn, Aphra

Paperback

Fiction Anthologies

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ISBN10: 1150188774
ISBN13: 9781150188770
Publisher: General Books
Pages: 122
Weight: 0.82
Height: 0.56 Width: 9.01 Depth: 5.98
Language: English
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1905. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION To most people nowadays the name of Aphra Behn conveys nothing more intelligible than certain vague associations of license and impropriety. She is dimly remembered as the author of plays and novels, now unread, that embodied the immorality of Restoration times, and were all the more scandalous in that they were written by a woman. Her works are to be found in few libraries, and are rarely met with at the booksellers'. Although they were republished in an expensive form and in a limited edition in 1871, they have now been many years out of print. Nor is this much to be regretted. Her novels are worth reprinting now and again, not because they are more clever, but because they are less offensive to modern taste than her comedies; and in addition to their intrinsic merits, they have an interest for the student of literature. But a general reprint of the plays would hardly be justified, at least, in anything like a cheap and popular form. This is a case where, for many reasons, it is best to have one's reading done by proxy. The obstacles which she herself has set to our appreciation have done her an injustice. In dismissing her merely as a purveyor of scandalous amusement in a profligate age, we are apt to give her none of the credit due to a long career of arduous work and of persevering struggle against adverse circumstances. Mrs. Behn was not only the first Englishwoman who became a novelist and a playwright, but the first of all those numerous women who have earned their livelihood by their pens. We can form a better idea of the once popular Astrea from her works than from the scanty memorials that have come down to us; more is known of her personal character than about the events of her life. The so-called History of the Life and Memoirs...

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