Book Description
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 reflects the author’s romantic views of native peoples as being in "the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin." The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude toward slavery: while she favored it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.

Card catalog description
"Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, the story of an African prince's enslavement by British colonists and his journey from West Africa to the Caribbean, is the first literary work in English to portray the global interactions of that interlocking structure that came to be known as "the triangular trade." This edition features a generous selection of thematically organized historical materials that illuminate the three corners of the Atlantic triangle: West Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. Excerpts from contemporary literary works by Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Richard Steele, and Daniel Defoe enrich our understanding of the literary contexts for Behn's portrayal of "blackness" in Oroonoko, and selections from later dramatizations of Oroonoko demonstrate the evolution of British attitudes toward racial difference in the century following the publication of Behn's work."--BOOK JACKET.

About the Author
Aphra Behn (c. 1640–1689), born in Kent, England, claimed to have visited the British colony of Surinam, where Oroonoko is set. She wrote poetry, short stories, stage plays, and political propaganda for the Tory party, as well as her great amorous and political novel, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister. Janet Todd is Francis Hutcheson Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow and an honorary fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"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 reflects the author's romantic view of native peoples as in 'the first state of innocence, before man 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 rule, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality." This new edition of Oroonoko is based on the first printed version of 1688, and includes a chronology, further reading and notes. In her introduction, Janet Todd examines Aphra Behn's views of slavery, colonization and politics, and her position as a professional woman writer in Restoration.

FROM THE CRITICS

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