Manley, Delarivier
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(?1663-1724) UK playwright and author who has come to be ranked along with Aphra Behn and Eliza Haywood for the strength and wit of her work as an independent female writer (see Feminism). Her New Atalantis "scandal fiction" sequence [for a tentative indication of its complicated publishing history see Checklist] is an extended anti-Whig Satire of contemporary life, cursorily disguising her many targets through a narrative purporting to record an exploratory visit by Astraea the Goddess of Justice to New Atalantis, a defective Utopia located on an Island on Earth, and can be described as Proto SF; the second volume of the text edges towards a description of Utopia. The accuracy of her assaults on contemporary figures was much resented, and in 1709 she spent a week in jail before being bailed; her 1710 trial for seditious libel resulted in her discharge. The earlier Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians [for subtitle see Checklist] (1705) is similar to the New Atalantis. [JC]
Delarivier Manley
born Jersey: 7 April 1663 [circa 1670 has also been given]
died London: 11 July 1724
works
series
New Atalantis
- Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality, of Both Sexes: From the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean: Written Originally in the Italian, and Translated from the Third Edition of the French (London: John Morphew and James Woodward, 1709) [New Atalantis: binding unknown/]
- Secret Memoirs Written Originally in Italian, and Translated from the Third Edition of the French: The Second Volume (London: John Morphew and James Woodward, 1709) [New Atalantis: binding unknown/]
- New Atalantis (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1991) [rev vt of the above two: dj and spine give The New Atalantis vulgarly: edited and corrected by Ros Ballaster: hb/portrait of Delarivier Manley]
- Memoirs of Europe, Towards the Close of the Eighth Century, Written by Eginardus, Secretary and Favourite to Charlemagne; and Done into English by the Translator of the New Atalantis (London: John Morphew, 1710) [New Atalantis: binding unknown/]
- Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality, of Both Sexes: From the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean (London: John Morphew, 1716) [omni: published in two volumes: volume one contains the two volumes of Secret Memoirs and Manners ... above: volume two contains Memoirs of Europe above: New Atalantis: binding unknown/]
- Court Intrigues in a Collection of Original Letters from the Island of the New Atalantis (London: John Morphew and James Woodward, 1711) [coll: containing "The Unknown Lady's Pacquet of Letters Taken from her by a French Privateer in her Passage to Holland; Or, the Lady's Pacquet Broke Open" as published in Memoirs of the Court of England (1707) by the Comtesse d'Aulnoy (see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy): for a further sorting of this material, see The Selected Works of Delarivier Manley below: New Atalantis: binding unknown/]
individual titles
- Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians; Being a Looking-glass for ..... ........ in the Kingdom of Albigion ....: Translated from the Italian Copy Now Lodg'd in the Vatican ... and Never Before Printed in any Language (London: Albigion [ie John Barber], 1705) [binding unknown/]
- The Selected Works of Delarivier Manley (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2005) edited by Rachel Carnell [coll: published in five volumes: containing New Atalantis and other similar texts including "The Unknown Lady's Pacquet of Letters Taken from her by a French Privateer in her Passage to Holland; Or, the Lady's Pacquet Broke Open" (1707) and "The Remaining Part of the Unknown Lady's Pacquet of Letters" (1708): hb/nonpictorial]
about the author
- Rachel Carnell. A Political Biography of Delarivier Manley (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008) [hb/]
links
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