Oroonoko (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)

by Ashra Behn, George Jay Smith (Contribution by), Janet Todd (Contribution by)

Overview

First published in 1688, Oroonoko follows the tragic love story of a charismatic African prince and his beloved Imoinda. The eponymous hero is tricked into slavery and sold to European colonists in Surinam. Behn's moving and deeply empathetic tale is structured as a first-person account of Oroonoko's life, love, rebellion, and execution. 

This Warbler Classics edition includes an historically illuminating article by George Jay Smith from 1925 and an essay that provides context for Oroonoko, Behn's most famous story, by Janet Todd, whose biography Aphra Behn: A Secret Life was published in 2017.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781954525863
Publisher:	Warbler Classics
Publication date:	10/15/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	104
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is often cited as the first known professional female writer. She was an English playwright, poet, translator, essayist, and fiction writer who pioneered the modern novel. Her stories appeared eighty years before Richardson's Pamela (1740), which is commonly called the first English novel.
George Jay Smith (1866-1938) earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University and taught English language and literature at Columbia University.
Janet Todd is a former President of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, and Emerita Professor of English Literature at the University of Aberdeen. She is the author of Aphra Behn: A Secret Life (2017).

Table of Contents

Contents

Epistle Dedicatoryvii

The History of the Royal Slave.1

Endnotes69

A Long-Forgotten "Hit" by George Jay Smith72

Oroonoko: Historical and Political Contexts by Janet Todd88