
The Algerine Captive
or, The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill
Royall Tyler(Author)
Random House Inc (Publisher)
Published on 9. July 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-375-76034-1 (ISBN)
Description
A predecessor of both the nativist humor of Mark Twain and the exotic adventure stories of Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Richard Dana, Royall Tyler's The Algerine Captive is an entertaining romp through eighteenth-century society, a satiric look at a variety of American types, from the backwoods schoolmaster to the southern gentleman, and a serious exposé of the horrors of the slave trade. "In stylistic purity and the clarity with which Tyler investigates and dramatizes American manners,” the critic Jack B. Moore has noted, The Algerine Captive "stands alone in our earliest fiction.” It is also one of the first attempts by an American novelist to depict the Islamic world, and lays bare a culture clash and diplomatic quagmire not unlike the one that obtains between the United States and Muslim nations today.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Random House USA Inc
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
3 B&W ILLUS
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
341 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-375-76034-1 (9780375760341)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
12/2007
Modern Library
€4.49
Available for download
Persons
Caleb Crain is the author of American Sympathy: Men, Friendship, and Literature in the New Nation. He lives in Brooklyn.