The Noble Slaves (Paperback)

Paperback. This is the first ever critical edition of Penelope Aubins The Noble Slaves, a novel that shows women as both moral exemplars and independent adventurers in foreign lands. Its tales of seduction, imprisonment, and escape engage with contemporary debates about arbitrary authority and slaveryparticularly in relation to the lives of women. In one brief and fast-paced novel, Aubin brings together the aristocratic romance and the world of trade with the themes of empire and colonialism. Sometimes assessed as a pious conservative or a popular sensationalist, Aubin used fiction as a vehicle for addressing the deepest moral and political concerns of her time, and The Noble Slaves will allow new readers to understand her importance to the history of the novel.The appendices to this Broadview Edition include contemporary fiction and historical documents on slavery, piracy, and Orientalism. The framing narrative in The Noble Slaves takes the form of a series of shipwrecks, periods of captivity, escapes, and the eventual reunion of two married couples. Penelope Aubin reworks the story of a castaway in Robinson Crusoe but makes women the central characters. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.