Belinda
3.67 (3,255 ratings by Goodreads)
Paperback Oxford Worlds Classics English
By (author) Maria Edgeworth , Edited by Linda Bree


Description
It is singular, that my having spent a winter with one of the most dissipated women in England should have sobered my mind so completely.

Maria Edgeworths 1801 novel, Belinda, is an absorbing, sometimes provocative, tale of social and domestic life among the English aristocracy and gentry. The heroine of the title, only too conscious of being advertised on the marriage market, grows in moral maturity as she seeks to balance self-fulfilment with achieving material success. Among those whom she encounters are the socialite Lady Delacour, whose brilliance and wit hide a tragic secret, the radical feminist Harriot Freke,
the handsome and wealthy Creole gentleman Mr Vincent, and the mercurial Clarence Hervey, whose misguided idealism has led him into a series of near-catastrophic mistakes. In telling their story Maria Edgeworth gives a vivid picture of life in late eighteenth-century London, skilfully showing both the
attractions of leisured society and its darker side, and blending drawing-room comedy with challenging themes involving serious illness, obsession, slavery and interracial marriage.


Product details

Format Paperback | 560 pages
Dimensions 126 x 193 x 25mm | 390g
Publication date 01 May 2020
Publisher Oxford University Press
Publication City/Country Oxford, United Kingdom
Language English
Edition Revised
Edition Statement 2nd Revised edition
ISBN10 0199682135
ISBN13 9780199682133
Bestsellers rank 187,805