Roxana by Daniel Defoe, ed. Melissa Mowry

(Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2009).“Rare is that edition that gives us a fresh interpretation of a primary work, but that is precisely what Melissa Mowry has accomplished in this excellent edition. The introduction details Roxana’s place in Defoe’s career and the ways the novel evokes his Dissenter politics, while also shedding new light on the novel’s imbrication in debates about political sovereignty, feminism, and prostitution. The supplementary materials are all artfully chosen to produce fresh readings of the novel. Finally, the inclusion of some of the alternate endings written for Roxana, along with a brief reception history of Defoe’s work, invites speculation about changes in the representation of gender and sexuality over the course of the long eighteenth century in Britain.” — Scarlet Bowen, University of Colorado