208 Pages
by
Routledge
208 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Elizabeth Cooper's The Rival Widows, or Fair Libertine provides a unique opportunity to restore to scholarly and pedagogical attention a neglected female writer and a play with broad and significant implications for studies of eighteenth-century history, culture and gender. Following the adventures of Lady Bellair, a "glowing, joyous young Widow," the storyline regenders standard expectations... Read more
Contents: General editors' preface; Introduction; The Rival Widows, or Fair Libertine. Appendix A : Elizabeth Cooper's announcement of her benefit performance, The Grub Street Journal 226 (25 April 1734); Appendix B: Review of The Rival Widows, The Prompter 34 (7 March 1735); Appendix C: Argument in support of the proposed Licensing Act, The Daily Gazetteer (6 and 8 June 1737); Appendix D: Lord Chesterfields address to Parliament against the proposed Licensing Act ; Appendix E: The Licensing Act of 1737; Appendix F: Elizabeth Cooper's preface to The Muses Library (1737); Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Tiffany Potter teaches English at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her research addresses issues of gender, sexuality, and race in the eighteenth-century, with special interest in cultures of libertinism in England and ideas of femininity and indigeneity in North America.
'This edition also offers relevant and useful historical materials, such as an early review of The Rival Widows, arguments for and against the Licensing Act, the actual text of the Act, and Cooper’s preface to the anthology of poetry she edited, etc. The explanatory footnotes accompanying the comedy are painstakingly thorough; the elucidation of allusions provides a trove of information about eighteenth-century daily life. [...]Potter’s editorial approach to presenting this comedy to contemporary readers is to preserve absolute fidelity to the first and only printing of The Rival Widows.' Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research
