Lodore (Broadview Literary Texts Series) [Paperback]

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Author), Lisa Vargo (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1551110776 | ISBN-13: 978-1551110776 | Publication Date: January 31, 1997 | Edition: First Edition

Beset by jealousy over an admirer of his wife's, Lord Lodore has come with his daughter Ethel to the American wilderness; his wife Cornelia, meanwhile, has remained with her controlling mother in England. When he finally brings himself to attempt a return, Lodore is killed en route in a duel. Ethel does return to England, and the rest of the book tells the story of her marriage to the troubled and impoverished Villiers (whom she stands by through a variety of tribulations) and her long journey to a reconciliation with her mother. Lodore's scope of character and of idea is matched by its narrative range and variety of setting; the novel's highly dramatic story-line moves at different points to Italy, to Illinois, and to Niagara Falls. And in this edition, which includes a wealth of documents from the period, the reader is provided with a sense of the full context out of which Shelley's achievement emerged.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Not the one book author that Frankenstein sometimes make her seem, Mary Shelley was a complex and committed social thinker whose novels reveal her deep concern with the impact of the emerging Victorian social dynamic upon the lives of women. While Lodore reflects Shelley's conviction of the importance to the new bourgeois family model of the ‘genuine affections of the human heart,' it shows us too, in the person of the remarkable Fanny Derham, the consequences for a free-thinking and independent woman who has learned ‘to be afraid of nothing.' Vargo's splendid edition resituates Shelley within the 1830s milieu of successful literary women like Landon and Hemans who understood their readers and their marked, and within a culture that was moving rapidly away from the exuberant Romanticism of only two decades earlier. With its illuminating critical introduction, and its extensive contextualizing appendices, this exceptional edition will alert readers anew to the complexity and sophistication of Shelley's mind and art.” (Stephen C. Behrendt )

"This volume marks yet another excellent addition to Broadview's expanding list of literary writings that have long been out of print." (Nineteenth-Century Literature )

"Vargo has provided a much-needed, comprehensive edition of the text." (University of Toronto Quarterly )

From the Publisher

The Broadview Literary Texts series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, though lesser-known literature.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 555 pages
• Publisher: Broadview Press; First Edition edition (January 31, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551110776
• ISBN-13: 978-1551110776
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,142,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous insite to Mary Shelley's life, September 28, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Bryan, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lodore (Hardcover)

I loved this book. Mystically it brought me a better understanding of Mary Shelley's life. Unfortunately I was forced to read it in a dusty room in the basement of Cambridge's library because no one has it in stock. The publisher MUST reprint this book because it is an absolute must for all Mary Shelley fans. Don't just stop at Frankenstein, there is so much more grotesque writing of Mary Shelley to experience.