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The Wanderer
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The Wanderer Paperback - 2001

by Frances Burney; Margaret Anne Doody (Editor); Robert L. Mack (Editor)


From the publisher

The Wanderer or Female Difficulties is the tale of a penniless emigree from revolutionary France trying to earn her living in England while guarding her own secrets. Combining the best elements of the gothic and historical novels, this newly appreciated work is an extraordinary piece of Romantic fiction. Burney's tough comedy offers a satiric view of complacent middle-class insularity that echoes Godwin and Wollstonecraft's attacks on the English social structure. The problems of the new feminism and of the old anti-feminism are explored in the relationship between the heroine and her English patroness and rival, the Wollstonecraftian Elinor Joddrel, and the racism inherent within both the French and British empires is exposed when the emigree disguises herself as a black woman.

First line

THE earliest pride of my heart was to inscribe to my muchloved Father the first public effort* of my pen; though the timid offering, unobtrusive and anonymous, was long unpresented; and, even at last, reached its destination through a zeal as secret as it was kind, by means which he would never reveal; and with which, till within these last few months, I have myself been unacquainted.*

From the rear cover

'The Wanderer; of, Female Difficulties' is set in England during the period of the French Revolution. The story exhibits the ordeal of a penniless emigree escaping from the France of the guillotine and the Terror, and trying to earn her living while guarding her own secrets.

Details

  • Title The Wanderer
  • Author Frances Burney; Margaret Anne Doody (Editor); Robert L. Mack (Editor)
  • Binding Paperback
  • Pages 1008
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Oxford University Press, USA, Oxford
  • Date March 2001
  • ISBN 9780192837585 / 0192837583
  • Weight 1.44 lbs (0.65 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.72 x 5.1 x 1.73 in (19.61 x 12.95 x 4.39 cm)
  • Themes
    • Cultural Region: British
  • Dewey Decimal Code 823.6