Dive into one of the earliest English novels! Aphra Behn's Oroonoko is a groundbreaking work that explores themes of love, honor, betrayal, and the brutal realities of slavery. Set against the backdrop of Surinam in South America, this novella combines adventure, tragedy, and sharp social commentary. Follow the story of Oroonoko, an African prince of noble character, who is betrayed into slavery and separated from his beloved Imoinda. The narrative unravels his tragic fate as he conf...

The story is set in the 17th century and revolves around the eponymous character, Oroonoko, who is a prince and a powerful warrior from the kingdom of Coramantien (present-day Ghana). Oroonoko is renowned for his bravery and leadership skills. He falls in love with Imoinda, a beautiful and virtuous woman who is also of noble birth.The novel explores the themes of love, honor, betrayal, and the brutality of slavery. Oroonoko and Imoinda's love faces numerous challenges, including the interf...

"A man that has all the virtues that can adorn a human mind." Oroonoko, a powerful African prince and brilliant general, falls deeply in love with the beautiful Imoinda. Their romance is shattered when they are both betrayed and sold into slavery, eventually reuniting on a sugar plantation in the English colony of Surinam. Renamed "Caesar" by his captors, Oroonoko cannot be broken by the chains of his station. Aphra Behn's narrative is a searing, tragic exploration of the "noble savage," t...

When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples ‘in the first state of innoc...

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a spy for Charles II, a playwright, poet, and novelist, and the first English woman to make a living from writing. Her pen name was Astrea. Ernest A. Baker (1869-1941) was an English writer and historian of literature. In 1905, 216 years after Mrs Behn's death, he introduced this collection of ten of her novels in the language of his day, a form which was not a facsimile of her texts. This ebook, prepared 329 years after her death, silently corrects some typos, a...

A prince in chains. A love that defies fate. A story that still echoes through history. In Oroonoko, a noble African prince is betrayed, captured, and sold into slavery in a distant land—far from the life he once knew. Despite his circumstances, he holds onto his dignity, courage, and deep love, creating a powerful and emotional journey that explores the strength of the human spirit. As the story unfolds, themes of honor, loyalty, and injustice come sharply into focus, offering readers a m...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

This work is presented in the form of letters exchanged between two fictional characters, Philander, a nobleman, and his sister-in-law, Sylvia. The story portrays a complex and controversial romantic relationship between the two characters. Through the series of letters, the narrative reveals their passionate and often tumultuous affair, exploring themes of love, desire, betrayal, and the societal norms of the time.Aphra Behn was a trailblazing figure in English literature, known for her b...

The Elizabethan age had almost departed and the world had seen the rise of great European empires that continued to hunt with mischief between themselves as they traversed the globe in search of more spoils and territories.In England the Civil War had brought about the Will of Parliament and the replacement of the Crown as the governing body. But with these Puritan times, and the subsequent Restoration, Poetry had entered a golden age. John Milton, John Dryden, Ben Jonson are but a...

It is perhaps not altogether easy to appreciate the multiplicity of difficulties with which the first editor of Mrs. Behn has to cope. Not only is her life strangely mysterious and obscure, but the rubbish of half-a-dozen romancing biographers must needs be cleared away before we can even begin to see daylight. Matter which had been for two centuries accepted on seemingly the soundest authority is proven false; her family name itself was, until my recent discovery, wrongly given; the very ...

The Elizabethan age had almost departed and the world had seen the rise of great European empires that continued to hunt with mischief between themselves as they traversed the globe in search of more spoils and territories. In England the Civil War had brought about the Will of Parliament and the replacement of the Crown as the governing body. But with these Puritan times, and the subsequent Restoration, Poetry had entered a golden age. John Milton, John Dryden, Ben Jonson are but a few of...

Oroonoko is a short novel by Aphra Behn (1640-1689), published in 1688, concerning the love of its hero, an enslaved African in Surinam in the 1660s, and the author's own experiences in the new South American colony. Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.