Issue #0

Oroonoko Or, the Royal Slave

or, The royal slave.

Plot

"Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, the story of an African prince's enslavement by British colonists and his journey from West Africa to the Caribbean, is the first literary work in English to portray the global interactions of that interlocking structure that came to be known as "the triangular trade." This edition features a generous selection of thematically organized historical materials that illuminate the three corners of the Atlantic triangle: West Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. Excerpts from contemporary literary works by Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Richard Steele, and Daniel Defoe enrich our understanding of the literary contexts for Behn's portrayal of "blackness" in Oroonoko, and selections from later dramatizations of Oroonoko demonstrate the evolution of British attitudes toward racial difference in the century following the publication of Behn's work."--Jacket.