Zofloya: Or the Moor (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

Charlotte Dacre (Author), Kim Ian Michasiw (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1999 | ISBN-10: 0192839349 | ISBN-13: 978-0192839343

'Few venture as thou hast in the alarming paths of sin.' This is the final judgement of Satan on Victoria di Loredani, the heroine of Zofloya, or The Moor (1806), a tale of lust, betrayal, and multiple murder set in Venice in the last days of the fifteenth century. The novel follows Victoria's progress from spoilt daughter of indulgent aristocrats, through a period of abuse and captivity, to a career of deepening criminality conducted under Satan's watchful eye. Charlotte Dacre's narrative deftly displays her heroine's movement from the vitalized position of Ann Radcliffe's heroines to a fully conscious commitment to vice that goes beyond that of 'Monk' Lewis's deluded Ambrosio. The novel's most daring aspect is its anatomy of Victoria's intense sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya that transgresses taboos both of class and race. A minor scandal on its first publication, and a significant influence on Byron and Shelley, Zofloya has been unduly neglected. Contradicting idealized stereotypes of women's writing, the novel's portrait of indulged desire, gratuitous cruelty, and monumental self-absorption retains considerable power to disturb. The introduction to this edition, the first for nearly 200 years, examines why Zofloya deserves to be read alongside established Gothic classics as the highly original work of an intriguing and unconventional writer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Michasiw's introduction is accessible, capacious in its knowledge of eighteenth-century gothic fiction, and informed regarding recent developments in gothic and Romantic studies. Besides providing a good general overview of Dacre's life and literary career, it deftly unpacks the issues raised by Zofloya's handling of race and female desire and explains Dacre's long absence from literary studies with force and efficiency. -- Michael Gamer, Romantic Circles Reviews, December 1998 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

The protagonist of Charlotte Dacre's best known novel, Zofloya, or the Moor (1806) is unique in women's Gothic and Romantic literature, and has more in common with the heroines of Sade or M.G. Lewis than with those of Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Smith or Jane Austen. No heroine of Radcliffe or Austen could exult, as Victoria does in this novel, that "there is certainly a pleasure...in the infliction of prolonged torment." The sexual desires and ambition of Dacre's protagonist, Victoria, drive her to seduce, torture and murder. Victoria is inspired to greater criminal and illicit acts by a seductive Lucifer, disguised as a Moor, before she too is plunged into an abyss by her demon lover. The text's unusual evocations of the female body and feminine subject are of particular interest in the context of the history of sexuality and of the body; after embarking on a series of violent crimes, Victoria's body actually begins to grow stronger and decidedly more masculine. Among the documents included as appendices to this volume are a selection of Dacre's poetry and excerpts from Bienville's Nymphomania, a medical treatise of the time aimed at a lay audience that focuses largely on the dangerous powers of women's imagination; inspired by improper novels, it is alleged that women may plunge into madness, violence and death—much as does the protagonist of Zofloya herself. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192839349
• ISBN-13: 978-0192839343
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,733,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 'there is certainly a pleasure...in the infliction of prolonged torment', March 10, 2010

By 

Autumn - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zofloya (Broadview Literary Texts Series) (Paperback)

Zofloya is both fascinating to study and a really good read. The main character, Victoria, is a strikingly unusual protagonist and very much subverts the conventions of what was thought to be appropriate 'women's literature' at the time Dacre was writing. It works on a bunch of levels - you can analyse the moral structure of the novel, the images of violence, look at it in context of orientalist writing, compare it to Sade...or just enjoy the great writing that compels you to turn the pages as quickly as any modern Gothic novel would. This is one of my favourite books. I normally just buy the cheapest edition of a book, but in this case I'd highly recommend the Broadview copy for the interesting introductions and helpful contextual materials at the back.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Two novels in one, November 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Zofloya: or The Moor (World's Classics) (Paperback)

This actually seems like two separate novels. The first section describes Victoria, a spoiled woman who's mother leaves her father for a libertine. The first Volume and a half describe her life and her attempts at becoming her own woman. But the telling is quick and boring. The second half tells of only a few months of Victoria's life, and her strange love for Zofloya, the moorish servant of her husband's brother. Fromt his point on, the novel becomes a harrowing tale of murder and revenge. Intensely violent, and very entertaining, the second half almost makes of for the rather lackluster beginning.

6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Poisoned Pages, March 26, 2001

By 

kimberly oliva (chicago, illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zofloya (Broadview Literary Texts Series) (Paperback)

The text is of particular interst for its depiction of "subtle poison that which is extracted from and administered by books" (Dacre)The act of writing and reading are "sovereign poisons," an interesting notion from a woman writer in the early 19th century.