Anna St. Ives
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Published in 1792, Anna St. Ives stands as one of the most radical novels of the English Jacobin literary movement, a passionate and intellectually charged epistolary romance set against the turbulent backdrop of revolutionary-era Europe. Thomas Holcroft chronicles the story of Anna St. Ives, a principled and enlightened young woman torn between Frank Henley, a virtuous man of humble origins who embodies Godwinian idealism, and Coke Clifton, a rakish aristocrat whose villainy tests the limits of reason and moral reform. The novel argues boldly that virtue and rational thought are superior to rank and privilege, presenting a heroine of remarkable agency and conviction for her time. Holcroft, a self-educated playwright, novelist, and political radical and close associate of William Godwin, crafts a narrative that is at once a love story and a philosophical manifesto, illustrating the Enlightenment belief in the perfectibility of humankind. The epistolary format lends the novel an intimate urgency, allowing multiple voices to clash and evolve across its pages. This Oxford University Press edition, edited with an introduction by Peter Faulkner, situates the novel within its rich literary and political context, making it an indispensable text for scholars of eighteenth-century fiction — and leaving the reader to wonder whether reason alone can truly conquer the darkest impulses of human nature.
Author: Thomas Holcroft
Format: Hardback
Published: 1970, Oxford University Press
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Published in 1792, Anna St. Ives stands as one of the most radical novels of the English Jacobin literary movement, a passionate and intellectually charged epistolary romance set against the turbulent backdrop of revolutionary-era Europe. Thomas Holcroft chronicles the story of Anna St. Ives, a principled and enlightened young woman torn between Frank Henley, a virtuous man of humble origins who embodies Godwinian idealism, and Coke Clifton, a rakish aristocrat whose villainy tests the limits of reason and moral reform. The novel argues boldly that virtue and rational thought are superior to rank and privilege, presenting a heroine of remarkable agency and conviction for her time. Holcroft, a self-educated playwright, novelist, and political radical and close associate of William Godwin, crafts a narrative that is at once a love story and a philosophical manifesto, illustrating the Enlightenment belief in the perfectibility of humankind. The epistolary format lends the novel an intimate urgency, allowing multiple voices to clash and evolve across its pages. This Oxford University Press edition, edited with an introduction by Peter Faulkner, situates the novel within its rich literary and political context, making it an indispensable text for scholars of eighteenth-century fiction — and leaving the reader to wonder whether reason alone can truly conquer the darkest impulses of human nature.