Moths: Ouida (Broadview Edition) - Tapa blanda

"This impressive edition of Ouida's Moths brings a little-known novel by one of Victorian England's most eccentric novelists to the attention of twenty-first-century readers. Natalie Schroeder's helpful introduction situates the author and her work in their historical and cultural moment, while the appendices offer a rich selection of supplementary material. Most fascinating are the accompanying texts that document Victorian views of divorce and the `marriage market,' a debate in which Ouida herself participated in paradoxical and controversial ways in both her fictional and journalistic writing. An excellent edition that is up to Broadview's usual high standards." - Lynn Voskuil, University of Houston "Eccentric, extravagant, an incurable fantasist and lifelong dog-lover, Ouida was one of the most popular romantic novelists of the late Victorian age. Credited (perhaps wrongly) with naming the New Woman, Ouida produced numerous novels that show unconventional heroines struggling with convention in high society and exotic settings. This new edition of Moths provides an excellent introduction for the general reader, while its scholarly material on historical and social background, contemporary responses, and biographical detail provides an invaluable resource for specialists." - Gail Cunningham, Kingston University

First published in 1880, Moths addresses such Victorian taboos as adultery, domestic violence, and divorce in vivid and flamboyant prose. The beautiful young heroine, Vere Herbert, suffers at the hands of both her tyrannical mother and her dissipated husband, and is finally united with her beloved, a famous opera singer. Moths was Ouida's most popular work, and its melodramatic plot, glamorous European settings, and controversial treatment of marriage make it an important, as well as a highly entertaining, example of the nineteenth-century "high society" novel. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a broad range of contextual documents, including contemporary reactions to Ouida's fiction and a selection of nineteenth-century writings on marriage, feminism, and the aristocracy.