Overview
Long neglected as the first American novel, Mr. Penrose narrates the adventures of a British youth who flees an unhappy home life to seek his fortune on the high seas. Having learned the sailor's trade, Penrose survives a series of nautical mishaps, only to be cast adrift on the Mosquito Coast. When rescue finally comes, Penrose refuses to abandon the new home he has made among the Indians. Equal parts travel narrative, adventure tale, and natural history, the novel reflects on some of the most pressing moral and social issues of its time: imperialism, racial equality, religious freedom, and the nature of ethical, responsible government. Mr. Penrose contains the first unequivocal critique of slavery in a transatlantic novel and the most realistic portrayals of Native Americans in early American fiction. In the afterword to this paperback edition, Sarah Wadsworth imparts new research on the author and his career, shedding light on the novel's subjects and timely themes, and situating Mr. Penrose at the forefront of the American literary canon.
Full Product Details
Author: William Williams ,
Sarah Wadsworth ,
David Howard Dickason
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Imprint: Indiana University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 2.70cm
, Length: 21.00cm
Weight: 0.499kg
ISBN: 9780253010476
ISBN 10: 0253010470
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 09 November 2013
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
<p>This new paperback edition of Williams's novel makes a significant contribution to early American literary and cultural studies. It is well suited to contribute to new scholarly trends, which are moving solidly in the direction of transatlantic study, colonialism, ecocriticism, and indigenous people studies.--Paul Gutjahr, Professor of English, Indiana University
Sarah Wadsworth expertly positions Williams's novel to contribute to current transnational and postnational scholarship. In this timely edition, she demonstrates that including Mr. Penrose in the conversation about the earliest American novels helps to reveal the rich, complicated nature of their history. - Cristine Levenduski, Associate Professor of English, Emory University This new paperback edition of Williams's novel makes a significant contribution to early American literary and cultural studies. It is well suited to contribute to new scholarly trends, which are moving solidly in the direction of transatlantic study, colonialism, ecocriticism, and indigenous people studies. - Paul Gutjahr, Professor of English, Indiana University We should be grateful for this partial recovery of an eighteenth-century novel, the original text of which is to be found in Indiana University's Lilly Library. - Times Literary Supplement
<p> This new paperback edition of Williams' novel makes a significant contribution to early American literary and cultural studies. It is well-suited to contribute to new scholarly trends, which are moving solidly in the direction of transatlantic study, colonialism, ecocriticism, and indigenous people studies. --Paul Gutjahr, author of The Book of Mormon: A Biography--Paul Gutjahr author of The Book of Mormon: A Biography
Author Information
William Williams (1727-1791) was a professional painter and landscape artist who tutored a young Benjamin West. Williams primarily resided in Philadelphia and New York and is thought to have written Mr. Penrose shortly before the Revolutionary War. David Howard Dickason (1907-1974) was Professor of English at Indiana University and a specialist in American literature. He discovered William Williams's original manuscript at Indiana University's Lilly Library. Sarah Wadsworth is Associate Professor of English at Marquette University. She is author of In the Company of Books: Literature and Its ""Classes"" in Nineteenth-Century America and (with Wayne A. Wiegand) of Right Here I See My Own Books: The Woman's Building Library at the World's Columbian Exposition.
