![[Behn, Aphra 1640 - 1689]. - LOVE - LETTERS BETWEEN A NOBLEMAN And His SISTER; With the History of Their Adventures. In Three Parts](https://www.tavbooks.com/pictures/16347.1.jpg)
Author: [Behn, Aphra 1640 - 1689].
Title: LOVE - LETTERS BETWEEN A NOBLEMAN And His SISTER; With the History of Their Adventures. In Three Parts
Description: London: Printed for D. Brown, J. Tonson, J. Nicholson, B. Tooke and G. Strahan, 1718. 5th edition (NCBEL II, 980; O'Donnell, p. 76). Binding appears to be later 18th C / early 19th C. full-paneled calf, with gilt perimeter rule to boards. Raised bands. Maroon title label in second spine compartment. Date gilt stamped to spine base. [14], 505 pp. Divisional dated t.p. ["The Second Part"] follows p. [124]. Divisional dated t.p. ["The Third Part"] follows p. [288]. 8vo: [A] - Ii8, Kk4 [Kk2 missigned Kk3]. 5" x 8". General binding wear, with spine showing some thin vertical stress cracks. Front joint starting to slight degree. Book label to front paste-down, with offset to ffep. O5 lacks upper corner [no text affected]. A VG copy. Aphra Behn is considered by many to be England's first professional female writer and she is the first woman whose writing won her burial in Westminster Abbey. She was probably born in Kent the daughter of Bartholomew & Elizabeth Denham Johnson. She traveled to Surinam in 1663-1664 and married a Dutch merchant who died of the plague in 1665. In 1666 she served as an agent for the British government as she was sent to Antwerp to gather information about exiled Cromwellians and to relay Dutch military plans. She first achieved literary celebrity as a playwrite, entering the theatre in 1760 where she produced more than 17 plays. Her speciality was the "Spanish comedy" of intrigue where she manipulates a number of couples into a complexity of intrigues, mistaken identities, duels, practical jokes and the rest. Her best known play is The Rover (1677) set in Naples. A number of her plays deal with her central theme, an attack on forced marriages. In her later years she wrote fiction, producing more than a dozen novels. In the present work, a woman submits first to incest then to face-saving but degrading marriage. Blain notes: "AB was generous and popular with her peers but often vilified in print. She had more than one lover, some poems hint at love between women. Her works (where sex is as central as in those of her friend Rochester and other contempories) often question expectations about women; the filth so long alleged is not to be found" [Blain. FEMINIST COMPANION, p. 78]. According to Viginia Woolf, who, in her "A Room of One's Own", wrote: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." This volume publishes love letters purporting to have passed between Ford Grey, Earl of Tankerville and his sister-in-law Henrietta Berkeley (cf. Lowndes Vol III, p. 1402 who so identifies the letter writers). Somewhat uncommon in the trade, with RBH showing 1977 as their last market listing for this title.
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See more books from our catalog: Literature
Title: LOVE - LETTERS BETWEEN A NOBLEMAN And His SISTER; With the History of Their Adventures. In Three Parts
Description: London: Printed for D. Brown, J. Tonson, J. Nicholson, B. Tooke and G. Strahan, 1718. 5th edition (NCBEL II, 980; O'Donnell, p. 76). Binding appears to be later 18th C / early 19th C. full-paneled calf, with gilt perimeter rule to boards. Raised bands. Maroon title label in second spine compartment. Date gilt stamped to spine base. [14], 505 pp. Divisional dated t.p. ["The Second Part"] follows p. [124]. Divisional dated t.p. ["The Third Part"] follows p. [288]. 8vo: [A] - Ii8, Kk4 [Kk2 missigned Kk3]. 5" x 8". General binding wear, with spine showing some thin vertical stress cracks. Front joint starting to slight degree. Book label to front paste-down, with offset to ffep. O5 lacks upper corner [no text affected]. A VG copy. Aphra Behn is considered by many to be England's first professional female writer and she is the first woman whose writing won her burial in Westminster Abbey. She was probably born in Kent the daughter of Bartholomew & Elizabeth Denham Johnson. She traveled to Surinam in 1663-1664 and married a Dutch merchant who died of the plague in 1665. In 1666 she served as an agent for the British government as she was sent to Antwerp to gather information about exiled Cromwellians and to relay Dutch military plans. She first achieved literary celebrity as a playwrite, entering the theatre in 1760 where she produced more than 17 plays. Her speciality was the "Spanish comedy" of intrigue where she manipulates a number of couples into a complexity of intrigues, mistaken identities, duels, practical jokes and the rest. Her best known play is The Rover (1677) set in Naples. A number of her plays deal with her central theme, an attack on forced marriages. In her later years she wrote fiction, producing more than a dozen novels. In the present work, a woman submits first to incest then to face-saving but degrading marriage. Blain notes: "AB was generous and popular with her peers but often vilified in print. She had more than one lover, some poems hint at love between women. Her works (where sex is as central as in those of her friend Rochester and other contempories) often question expectations about women; the filth so long alleged is not to be found" [Blain. FEMINIST COMPANION, p. 78]. According to Viginia Woolf, who, in her "A Room of One's Own", wrote: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." This volume publishes love letters purporting to have passed between Ford Grey, Earl of Tankerville and his sister-in-law Henrietta Berkeley (cf. Lowndes Vol III, p. 1402 who so identifies the letter writers). Somewhat uncommon in the trade, with RBH showing 1977 as their last market listing for this title.
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Price: US$ 1375.00 Seller: Tavistock Books, ABAA
- Book number: 16347.1
- Book number: 16347.1
See more books from our catalog: Literature