Author Description

Product Description This collection of literature attempts to compile many classics that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them. Review "the editions deserve great credit for the enthusiasm of their approach... The introductions by eminent scholars put the thoughts of the author and the history of the time into clear perspective. Oxford should be given credit for making the classics accessible for all rather than just crib notes for students." --Jonathan Copeland, Lincolnshire Echo 03/09/1996 About the Author Eleanor Ty is Assistant Professor of English at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario. From the Publisher The Broadview Literary Texts series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, though lesser-known literature. From the Back Cover In November of 1795, after William Godwin requested a sketch of Mary Hays’ life, she arrived at the idea of Memoirs of Emma Courtney. Godwin followed up his request with a “hint” that a fictional exploration of the painful experience she had undergone in her relationship with William Frend might help her to come to terms with it. It was to be an “instructive rather than self indulgent” work. The resulting novel is one of the most interesting and important explorations of gender-related issues of the time. Emma is exposed to a series of situations―motherlessness, orphanhood, poverty, dependence, and more―which encourage her to reflect “on the inequalities of society, the source of every misery and vice, and on the peculiar disadvanteges of my sex.” The novel quickly became viewed as “a scandalous disrobing in public” but it has endured as much on the basis of its readability as on its pointed social commentary.