1773

2 books

sort era

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral Phillis Wheatley
These are careful, formal couplets in the style of Pope, elegies and hymns mostly, so come patient. But when Wheatley, enslaved and barely twenty, tells the Earl of Dartmouth exactly why she loves freedom, the restraint cracks open and you feel history looking straight at you.
She Stoops to Conquer Oliver Goldsmith
You get a wonderfully playable comedy here, with Tony Lumpkin stirring up trouble and Kate Hardcastle disguising herself as a barmaid to find out what Marlow is really like. The plotting is deliberately tangled and theatrical, but the dialogue stays bright, mischievous, and surprisingly sharp about shyness and social performance.

2 books

sort era

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral Phillis Wheatley
These are careful, formal couplets in the style of Pope, elegies and hymns mostly, so come patient. But when Wheatley, enslaved and barely twenty, tells the Earl of Dartmouth exactly why she loves freedom, the restraint cracks open and you feel history looking straight at you.
She Stoops to Conquer Oliver Goldsmith
You get a wonderfully playable comedy here, with Tony Lumpkin stirring up trouble and Kate Hardcastle disguising herself as a barmaid to find out what Marlow is really like. The plotting is deliberately tangled and theatrical, but the dialogue stays bright, mischievous, and surprisingly sharp about shyness and social performance.