Roxana by Daniel Defoe

Roxana by Daniel Defoe

"Roxana", Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own "wicked" life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. A resourceful adventuress, she is also an unforgiving analyst of her own susceptibilities, who tells us of the price she pays for her successes. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced - by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past. Unlike Defoe's other penitent anti-heroes, however, she fails to triumph over these weaknesses. The novel's drama lies not only in the heroine's "vast variety of fortunes", but in her attempts to understand the sometimes bitter lessons of her life as a "Fortunate Mistress". Defoe's achievement was to invent, in "Roxana", a gripping story-teller as well as a gripping story. Using the rare first edition text, this edition includes an introduction, study notes, textual history and a map, and may be of interest to students of English literature, especially 18th century.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780192824592
ISBN 10	0192824597
Title	Roxana
Author	Daniel Defoe
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1996-12-01
Number of pages	391
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable