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The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret (Broadview Literary Texts)
The Wonder A Woman Keeps a Secret - Broadview Literary Texts Author:Susanna Centlivre, John O'Brien Susanna Centlivres play The Wonder (1714) was one of the most popular works on the eighteenth-century English stage. Set in Lisbon, the plot interweaves two romantic intrigues around one "secret": the heroine Violante is hiding her best friend, Isabella (who is the sister of her own lover, Don Felix) from Isabellas father who wishes ... more »to marry her off to a rich but decrepit old merchant. Because she is sworn to secrecy, Violante cannot reveal Isabellas whereabouts, nor can she explain to Felix why Isabellas new lover, a dashing British soldier, happens to be about the house, prompting Felixs intense jealousy. Centlivres critique on the tyrannical patriarchs in the world of the play is at the same time a veiled critique of similar conditions in Augustan-era Britain. This Broadview edition includes contemporary responses (by Richard Steele and Arthur Bedford), biographical accounts, selections of Centlivres poetry, and early nineteenth-century criticism (by Elizabeth Inchbald and William Hazlitt).« less