The Wanderer or Female Difficulties is the tale of a penniless emigree from Revolutionary France trying to earn her living in England while guarding her own secrets. Combining the best elements of the Gothic and historical novels, this newly appreciated work is an extraordinary piece of Romantic fiction. Burney's tough comedy offers a satiric view of complacent middle-class insularity that echoes Godwin and Wollstonecraft's attacks on the English social structure. The problems of the new feminism and of the old anti-feminism are explored in the relationship between the heroine and her English patroness and rival, the Wollstonecraftian Elinor Joddrel, and the racism inherent within both the French and British empires is exposed when the emigree disguises herself as a black woman. This edition is fully annotated with appendices on the French Revolution, race relations, amusements, and geography and a previously unpublished manuscript revealing the connection between The Wanderer and Camilla.
- ISBN10 0341804029
- ISBN13 9780341804024
- Publish Date 8 October 2018 (first published 22 February 2001)
- Publish Status Unknown
- Imprint Franklin Classics
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 478
- Language English