- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Broadview Press; illustrated edition edition (Mar 26 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1551111209
- ISBN-13: 978-1551111209
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 363 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,934,561 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"With this edition of Sarah Fielding's popular final novel, Peter Sabor widens our access to the work of this respected and path-breaking writer of the mid-eighteenth century, until recently remembered, if at all, as Henry's sister and as 'the Author of David Simple,' her first novel. The pleasures of this entertaining narrative of a female Welsh noble savage, kidnapped and transposed into a sophisticated and corrupt English society by a rakish nobleman, are heightened by Sabor's expert placement of the novel in the introduction and appendices, particularly with respect to the latest biographical scholarship and suggestive contemporary parallels such as Françoise de Graffigny's 1748 Letters Written by a Peruvian Princess and Frances Burney's 1778 Evelina." (Betty Schellenberg )
"Peter Sabor deserves high praise for this beautiful edition of Sarah Fielding's The History of Ophelia. Sabor discusses Fielding's work in fiction, drama, and criticism, and provides a rich selection of contemporary documents and illustrations. Most striking are the questions he poses and answers. Did Fielding rework an unfinished manuscript by her brother Henry? How may Ophelia write back to Samuel Richardson's Clarissa? If the novel looks forward to gothic fiction, how may it subject the notion of gothic terror to comic deflation? In all, this edition makes an essential contribution to our current debates about and growing interest in Sarah Fielding." (Carolyn Woodward )
"Peter Sabor deserves high praise for this beautiful edition of Sarah Fielding's The History of Ophelia. Sabor discusses Fielding's work in fiction, drama, and criticism, and provides a rich selection of contemporary documents and illustrations. Most striking are the questions he poses and answers. Did Fielding rework an unfinished manuscript by her brother Henry? How may Ophelia write back to Samuel Richardson's Clarissa? If the novel looks forward to gothic fiction, how may it subject the notion of gothic terror to comic deflation? In all, this edition makes an essential contribution to our current debates about and growing interest in Sarah Fielding." (Carolyn Woodward )
Book Description
In the mid-eighteenth century, Sarah Fielding (1710-68) was the second most popular English woman novelist, rivaled only by Eliza Haywood. The History of Ophelia, the last of her seven novels, is an often comic epistolary fiction, narrated by the heroine to an unnamed female correspondent in the form of a single protracted letter. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and valuable appendices that contain contemporary reviews of the novel, Richard Corbould's illustrations to the Novelist’s Magazine edition, and excerpts from Sarah Fielding’s Remarks on Clarissa.
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5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Piquant satire of English lords and ladies, Nov 8 2010
By Patto - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: The History of Ophelia (Paperback)
Tom Jones brought Henry Fielding lasting fame. But the novels of his sister Sarah, although immensely popular in her day, are now mainly of interest to scholars. Ophelia, her last novel, was out of print for two hundred years.The critics were lukewarm about the novel when it appeared in 1760, but the reading public loved Ophelia. It was also an international hit in German and French translations.
The heroine is a beautiful orphan whose aunt raises her in the wilds of Wales to safeguard her from the hypocrisies of English society. One day the handsome young Lord Dorchester wanders by their humble cottage. Captivated by the natural beauty and manners of sixteen-year-old Ophelia, he abducts her.
Dorchester plans to make Ophelia his mistress by first winning her love. He introduces her as his ward to the social whirl in London. A kind of Noble Savage, Ophelia sees through the duplicity of polite society, and her innate purity and clear-eyed honesty protect her from a multitude of evils.
The novel offers some quite original plot complications and lots of witty social commentary on everything from masquerades to card parties to Bedlam. Ophelia is a delightful tour guide to the curious world of lords and ladies in late eighteenth-century England.
Sarah Fielding, a learned spinster proficient in Greek and Latin, wrote novels to make ends meet. The work she probably cared most about was her translation of Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates. I'm thankful that Fielding put aside her Greek labors for long enough to write Ophelia.
I wish I could convey the ineffable charm of this novel - the lively antique flavor of every sentence and the unique combination of irony and sentiment. I suggest reading the book first, then the excellent introduction for background and insights.
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