Political Crimes and Fictional Alibis: The Case of Delarivier Manley
1990; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 23; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2739182
ISSN1086-315X
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Economic and Social Studies
ResumoWHEN DELARIVIER' MANLEY WAS ARRESTED for seditious libel in 1709, according to her later account of the inquest, fiction was her alibi?2 She had written Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality, of Both Sexes. From the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean (1709), the provocative allegorical satire on sexual and political corruption among the Whigs who then controlled the government of Queen Anne. Like an earlier work that was probably also by Manley, The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians (1704), The New Atalantis was particularly intent upon libeling Sarah Churchill, then Lady Marlborough, and the Whig ministers closest to her. Both books were huge successes; the first went through at least six editions in as many years. The New Atalantis was so popular that Sarah Churchill anxiously wrote to Queen Anne complaining that notwithstanding the prosecution it was being sold at every shop.3
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