Delarivier Manley: 'The New Atalantis'

by Ros Ballaster (Editor), Alan Freeman (Editor)

Overview

"An erotic scandal chronicle so popular it became a byword... Expertly tailored for contemporary readers. It combines scurrilous attacks on the social and political celebritites of the day, disguised just enough to exercise titillating speculatuion, with luscious erotic tales."
—Belles Lettres
This story concerns the return of to earth of the goddess of Justice, Astrea, to gather information about private and public behavior on the island of Atalantis. Manley drew on her experience as well as on an obsessive observation of her milieu to produce this fast paced narrative of political and erotic intrigue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814754788
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	03/01/1992
Series:	NYU Press Women's Classics Series , #1
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Ros Ballaster is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Oxford and professorial fellow in English at Mansfield College. Two monographs, Seductive Forms: Women’s Amatory Fiction 1684-1740 (Oxford UniversityPress, 1992) and Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England 1662-1785 (Oxford UniversityPress, 2005), investigate the importance of fantasy in the shaping of the eighteenth-century English novel.

Editorial Reviews

Manley (1663-1724) was in her day as well known and potent a political satirist as Jonathan Swift. A fervent Tory, she interweaves sexual and political allegory in an acerbic vilification of her Whig opponents. The story concerns the return to earth of the goddess of Justice, Astrea, to gather information about private and public behavior on the island of Atalantis. Originally published in 1709 as Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes, from the New Atalantis. Edited with an introduction by Rosalind Ballaster. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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