Ellen Raskin  (March 13, 1928 – August 8, 1984) was an American children's writer and illustrator. She won the 1979 Newbery Medal for The Westing Game, a mystery novel, and another children's mystery, Figgs & Phantoms, was a Newbery Honor Book in 1975.

In 2012 The Westing Game was ranked number nine all-time among children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with a primarily-U.S. audience.

Life
Raskin was born in Milwaukee and grew up during the Great Depression. She was educated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a major in fine art.

Raskin was an accomplished graphic artist. In New York City she worked as a commercial artist for about 15 years. Among other things, she designed more than 1000 dust jackets for books, including the first edition of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, the 1963 Newbery Medal winner.

In 1957, she married graphic designer Roy Kuhlman, but they soon divorced. In 1960 she married Dennis Flanagan, editor of Scientific American.

Raskin died at the age of 56 on August 8, 1984, in New York City, as a result of a connective-tissue disease.

Education
At the age of 17, Ms. Raskin entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the intention of majoring in journalism. However, after visiting an art exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute, she changed her major to fine arts.

Works

Children's picture books
Raskin wrote and illustrated twelve picture books, published by Atheneum Books except as noted.
Nothing Ever Happens on My Block, 1967
Silly Songs and Sad, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1967
Spectacles, 1968
Ghost in a Four-Room Apartment, 1969
And It Rained, 1969
A & The, or, William T. C. Baumgarten Comes to Town, 1970
The World's Greatest Freak Show, 1971
Franklin Stein, 1972
Moe Q. McGlutch, He Smoked Too Much, Parents, 1973
Who, Said Sue, Said Whoo?, 1973
Moose, Goose & Little Nobody, 1976
Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, 1976

Children's novels
Raskin wrote four novels, all published by E. P. Dutton.
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), 1971
Figgs & Phantoms, 1974
The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues, 1975
The Westing Game, 1978

As illustrator
Raskin also illustrated more than twenty books by other writers.
 Happy Christmas: Tales for Boys and Girls, edited by Claire H. Bishop, Ungar, 1956
 The bound Man and other stories, by Ilse Aichinger, transl. by Eric Mosbacher, New York: Noonday Press, 1956
 A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas (1950); J. M. Dent, 1968
 Mama, I Wish I Was Snow, Child You'd Be Very Cold, by Ruth Krauss, Atheneum, 1962
 Philosophy and History. The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, ed. Raymond Klibansky and H. J. Paton, 1963 (second edition)
 Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, selected by Dwight MacDonald, Crowell, 1965
 We Dickinson's, by Aileen Fisher and Olive Rabe, Atheneum, 1965
 The Jewish Sabbath, by Molly Cone, Crowell, 1966
 Paths of Poetry: Twenty-Five Poets and Their Poems, ed. Louis Untermeyer, Delacorte, 1966
 Songs of Innocence (Volumes 1 & 2), by William Blake (1789, 1794), music and illustrations by Ellen Raskin, Doubleday, 1966
 D. H. Lawrence: Poems Selected for Young People, ed. William Cole, Viking, 1967
 Ellen Grae, by Vera and Bill Cleaver, Lippincott, 1967
 Poems of Robert Herrick, ed. Winfield T. Scott, Crowell, 1967
 Probability: the Science of Chance, by Arthur G. Razzell and K. G. O. Watts, Doubleday, 1967 ‡
 This Is 4: the Idea of a Number, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1967 ‡
 Books: A Book to Begin On, by Susan Bartlett, Holt, 1968
 Inatuk's Friend, by Suzanne Stark Morrow, Atlantic/Little, 1968
 Lady Ellen Grae, by Vera and Bill Cleaver, Lippincott, 1968
 A Paper Zoo: A Collection of Animal Poems by Modern American Poets, edited by Renee K. Weiss, Macmillan, 1968
 Piping Down the Valleys Wild: Poetry for the Young of All Ages, edited by Nancy Larrick, Delacorte, 1968
 Symmetry, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1968 ‡
 We Alcotts, by Aileen Fisher and Olive Rabe, Atheneum, 1968
 Circles and Curves, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1969 ‡
 Come Along!, by Rebecca Caudill, Holt, 1969
 Shrieks at Midnight: Macabre Poems, Eerie and Humorous, edited by Sara and John E. Brewton, Crowell, 1969
 Three and the Shape of Three, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1969 ‡
 Elidor, by Alan Garner (1965), Walck, 1970
 Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti (1862), Dutton, 1970

 ‡ Raskin illustrated at least five volumes in a series of 32- and 48-page mathematics books by Arthur C. Razzell and Kenneth George Oliver Watts, which was inaugurated by Doubleday in 1964.

References

Further reading
 Ellen Raskin (Volume 579 of Twayne's United States Authors Series: Children's Literature), Marilynn Strasser Olson, Twayne Publishers, 1991;

External links

1928 births
1984 deaths
 American children's writers
 American children's book illustrators
 American mystery novelists
 Newbery Medal winners
 Newbery Honor winners
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
 Writers from New York City
 Writers from Milwaukee
 Artists from New York City
Artists from Wisconsin
 American women illustrators
 American women novelists
 American women children's writers
 Women mystery writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American women writers
 Novelists from New York (state)
 Novelists from Wisconsin
20th-century American women artists

Ellen Raskin


The  is a river in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. For about half its length it marks the border between Kanegasaki Town and Ōshū City. The river's origin is in the Ōu Mountains just west of Mt. Yakeishi (1548 meters). At its highest point it is called the  and flows south until it crosses National Route 397. There it turns west and follows 397 until it is stopped by the Ishibuchi Dam.

In 2013 a new dam was scheduled to be completed a little downstream called the Isawa Dam. When this dam is completed the Ishibuchi Dam and reservoir will be completely flooded. Many local residents are opposed to the construction of such a large dam as the water is being impounded to provide drinking and irrigation water for use in other places. Another fear is that the great weight of the water will trigger an earthquake destroying the dam and causing a major flood. One worker on the new dam was killed by a rockslide in the 2008 Iwate–Miyagi Nairiku earthquake. The Isawa River continues its course to the east-northeast until it empties into the Kitakami River in Mizusawa Ward, Ōshū.

History
In 802, after many battles with the Emishi, Sakanoue no Tamuramaro established Fort Isawa on the south side of the Isawa River where it joins the Kitakami. The location was in the very heart of the Isawa band of Emishi's territory. The Japanese invaders generally built their forts to the south of east or west flowing streams that empty into the Kitakami. The ruins are still preserved and there is a museum nearby with relics from the site.

An opposing Emishi fort called the Tonomi Palisade (鳥海冊, tonomi-saku) was established on the north side of the Isawa at an uncertain date. In the 11th century it was occupied by Abe no Munetō. In 1061, during the Zenkunen War (前九年合戦, zenkunen kassen), Abe no Munetō defeated the Minamoto forces in the Battle of Tonomi Palisade. The Tonomi Palisade was partly obliterated by the construction of the Tōhoku Expressway but there are still ruins preserved, a graveyard and a beautiful lotus pond on the site.

In 1356 a priest of the Soto Zen sect named  founded a temple, , on the north side of the Isawa River in the far west of what is now Kanegasaki. The site was chosen for its extreme isolation and remoteness to encourage meditation. During its golden age in the Kamakura period the temple claimed 408 branch temples in Kanto, Shizuoka, and Niigata.

The Tokugawa Shogunate banned Christianity in 1613, and by 1620 persecutions of Christians began to be seen in the fief of Sendai. In the Winter of 1623, a Portuguese priest named Diego de Carvalho and eight Japanese men were arrested on the upper reaches of the Isawa River where they had gone into hiding under the protection of Juan Goto, a local Christian leader. They were sent to Sendai where they were forced to stand in the freezing water of the Hirose River. Two of them drowned on the last day of the year and the rest of them died near where the Ohashi Bridge now stands on January 4, 1624.

Rivers of Iwate Prefecture
Rivers of Japan

Isawa River


Symphony No. 6 in F major, K. 43, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1767. According to Alfred Einstein in his 1937 revision of the Köchel catalogue, the symphony was probably begun in Vienna and completed in Olomouc, a Moravian city to which the Mozart family fled to escape a Viennese smallpox epidemic; see Mozart and smallpox.

The symphony is in four movements. Its initial performance was at Brno on 30 December 1767 The autograph of the score is today preserved in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków.

Movements and instrumentation
The instrumentation for the first performance was: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 horns; bassoon; strings and continuo. The flutes are used in the second movement in place of the oboes.  For the first time in a symphony, Mozart uses two obligatory viola parts.

This is Mozart's first four-movement symphony, in which he introduces the Minuet and Trio for the first time, a feature common in many of his symphonies thereafter. The movements are:
Allegro,
Andante,
Menuetto and Trio,
Allegro,

The Andante movement uses a theme from Mozart's early Latin opera Apollo et Hyacinthus, K. 38, in which "muted violins sing over pizzicato seconds and divided violas, a ravishing effect".

First performance
The symphony was included in a concert arranged by Count von Schrattenbach, brother of the Archbishop of Salzburg, given by the Mozart family (Leopold Mozart, the 11-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus, and the 15-year-old Maria) on 30 December 1767 at the Taverna in Brno. A local clergyman recorded: "I attended a musical concert in a house in the city known as the "Taverna", at which a Salzburg boy of eleven years and his sister of fifteen years, accompanied on various instruments by inhabitants of Brno, excited everyone's admiration"

Notes and references

Sources
Brown, A. Peter: The Symphonic Repertoire (Volume 2). Indiana University Press, Bloomington and London 2002 .
 Giglberger, Veronika: (Preface), translated by J. Branford Robinson. In Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Sinfonien I, edited by  . Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel 2005 ISMN M-006-20466-3.
Kenyon, Nicholas: The Pegasus Pocket Guide to Mozart Pegasus Books, New York 2006 .
Zaslaw, Neal: Mozart's Symphonies:Context, Performance Practice, Reception OUP, Oxford 1991 .

External links

06
1767 compositions
Compositions in F major

Symphony No. 6 (Mozart)


The League Championship Series (LCS) is the semifinal round of postseason play in Major League Baseball which has been conducted since 1969. In 1981, and since 1995, the two annual series have matched up the winners of the Division Series, and the winners advance to meet in the World Series. The LCS comprises the American League Championship Series (ALCS) and National League Championship Series (NLCS).

History
The League Championship Series was created in , when both the National League and the American League increased in size from ten teams to twelve with the addition, via expansion, of the Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres to the former and the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots (now the Milwaukee Brewers of the NL) to the latter. Both leagues then formed Eastern and Western Divisions, the first-place teams from which faced off in the LCS.

For its first sixteen seasons, the League Championship Series were best-of-five, using the  format in which the team without home field advantage hosted the first two games, and the team with it hosted the rest of the LCS, making it impossible for the disadvantaged team to win the series at home. It also allowed those teams the unusual luxury of starting a series at home, possibly having home-field advantage in a three-game series, and a guarantee that they play two games at home.

In , the LCS was lengthened to best-of-seven games in the  format with the team holding home-field advantage opening the series at home and playing the next three games on the road, before returning home for two more possible games. The disadvantaged team would have had more games played at home than on the road if the series ends in five games.

Since , the LCS has matched up the winners of the Division Series, which were added when both leagues realigned into three divisions.

Until , the home-field advantage in the LCS was allocated on a rotating basis between the two (three from 1995 through ) division champions; since 1998, that advantage is given to the team with the better regular season record, except that if a division champion faces a wild card team, the division champion always gets home-field advantage regardless of record.

As of , all thirty MLB teams have reached the LCS at least once. The Houston Astros and Milwaukee Brewers are the only teams to have played in both the ALCS and NLCS.  Four teams have never lost an LCS:  the Colorado Rockies (won in 2007), the Miami Marlins (won as the Florida Marlins in 1997 and 2003), the Tampa Bay Rays (won in 2008 and 2020), and the Texas Rangers (won in 2010, 2011, and 2023).  Out of this group, only the Marlins have won a World Series title; they did it both times they reached the NLCS.

See also
 League Championship Series Most Valuable Player Award

References

External links

League Championship Series at Baseball Almanac

Major League Baseball postseason
National League Championship Series
American League Championship Series
Recurring sporting events established in 1969
October sporting events
Annual events in Major League Baseball

League Championship Series


Nord-Est (English: North-East) is one of the ten departments (French: départments, singular départment) of Haiti. It is in the northeastern corner of the country, along the border with the Dominican Republic. Its capital is Fort-Liberté.

After the Haitian Revolution, the country was divided into only three departments: Nord, Ouest and Sud. The Nord-Est department was part of the Nord department.

Geography
The Départment du Nord-Est, with an area of 1,805 km², is the second smallest department of Haiti; only the Nippes department is smaller.

The department is bordered to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west by the Nord Department and to the south by the Centre Department. It borders the Dominican Republic to the east.

The only important river in the province is the Dajabón River, known also as Massacre. This river marks the Dominican-Haitian border from the Dominican city of Dajabón to its mouth.

The Massif du Nord mountain range, known in the Dominican Republic as Cordillera Central, runs from the northwest to the southeast along the southern half of the department.

The Pleine du Nord (in English, "Northern Plain"), with several savannas, is in the northern half of the department.

Population
The department had, in the 2003 census, a population of 308,385 persons: 150,525 men and 157,860 women, with 117,872 (38.22%) living in cities and towns. The population density was, in that year, of 171 persons/km².

The main cities are Fort-Liberté (the capital) and Ouanaminthe.

Administrative division
The department is divided into four arrondissements (like districts) and 13 communes (like municipalities). The "arrondissements" and their "communes" are:

 Fort-Liberté
 Fort-Liberté
 Perches
 Ferrier
 Ouanaminthe
 Ouanaminthe
 Capotille
 Mont-Organisé
 (le) Trou-du-Nord
 Trou-du-Nord
 Caracol
 Sainte-Suzanne
 Terrier-Rouge
 Vallières
 Vallières
 Carice
 Mombin-Crochu

Economy
The main economic activity in the department is agriculture, with many very small farms where beans, peanut, maize and other things are grown. In the mountains, coffee is grown.

Fishing is an important activity along the coast, and commerce is the main activity in Ouanaminthe.

References

Departments of Haiti

Nord-Est (department)


La Belle Assemblée (in full La Belle Assemblée or, Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine Addressed Particularly to the Ladies) was a British women's magazine published from 1806 to 1837, founded by John Bell (1745–1831).

Publishing history
The magazine was published as La Belle Assemblée from 1806 until May 1832. It became The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée from 1832 to 1837.  After 1837 the Belle Assemblée name was dropped when the magazine merged with the Lady's Magazine and Museum (itself a merger of The Lady's Magazine and a competitor) to become The Court Magazine and Monthly Critic.

It was published by John Bell from 1806 until his retirement in 1821, and by G. & W. Whittaker & Co. from 1823 to 1829.  Between these dates the magazine was listed as "Published for the proprietors".

Content
La Belle Assemblée is now best known for its fashion plates of Regency era styles, but until the 1820s it also published original poetry and fiction, non-fiction articles on politics and science, book and theatre reviews, and serialized novels, including Oakwood Hall by Catherine Hutton.  Other notable contributors to La Belle Assemblée include Mary Shelley.  Contributions from readers were also encouraged and published.

In the 1820s, changing expectations of the role of women in British society coincided with a marked decrease in the intellectual scope of La Belle Assemblée and its competitors, which increasingly focused on fashion and domestic pursuits.

Until spring 1822, the fashion plates were labeled a month ahead, e.g., the plates published in May 1810 were marked June 1810. Mary Ann Bell was a well known contributor to the fashion content in the publication.

The changes in the early 1820s may have resulted from John Bell's retirement some time in 1821.

Similar magazines
Similarly titled fashion publications included The Penny Belle Assemblée or Maids, Wives and Widows' Gazette of Fashions (1830s), the Weekly Belle Assemblée, and its successor the New Monthly Belle Assemblée (1834–1870).

See also
 Gallery of Fashion
 List of 18th-century British periodicals
 List of 18th-century British periodicals for women
 List of 19th-century British periodicals

Plates from La Belle Assemblée

References

External links

Plates from La Belle Assemblée
La Belle Assemblée Volume III

Fashion magazines published in the United Kingdom
Defunct women's magazines published in the United Kingdom
Magazines established in 1806
Magazines disestablished in 1837
Regency era
Women's fashion magazines
1806 establishments in the United Kingdom
1837 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
19th-century fashion

La Belle Assemblée


Travis Wade Swaggerty Jr. (born August 19, 1997) is an American professional baseball outfielder who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Amateur career
Swaggerty attended Denham Springs High School in Denham Springs, Louisiana, and played on their baseball team. As a senior, he batted .451 and was named to the Louisiana Sports Writers Association's Class 5A All State team. He was not drafted in the 2015 Major League Baseball draft and enrolled at the University of South Alabama where he played college baseball.

As a freshman in 2016 at South Alabama, Swaggerty appeared in 59 games, compiling a .303 batting average with four home runs, 27 RBIs, 12 doubles and 20 stolen bases. In 2017, as a sophomore, he appeared in and started 58 games, slashing .356/.484/.571 with 11 home runs, 60 RBIs, and 19 stolen bases. After the season, was named to the All-Sun Belt First Team. That summer, Swaggerty played for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team where he batted .328/.449/.406 in 19 games, and also briefly played collegiate summer baseball with the Brewster Whitecaps of the Cape Cod Baseball League. He was named a first-team preseason All-American by Baseball America, D1Baseball.com, and Perfect Game prior to his junior season along with being named the 2018 Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year. He finished his junior season batting .296 with 13 home runs, 38 RBIs, and a .455 on-base percentage over 57 games. He was named to the All-Sun Belt First Team for the second year in a row.

Professional career

Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates selected Swaggerty in the first round, with the tenth overall selection, of the 2018 Major League Baseball draft. He signed for $4.4 million and was assigned to the West Virginia Black Bears of the Low-A New York–Penn League, with whom he was named an All-Star. After hitting .288 with four home runs and 15 RBIs in 36 games for the Black Bears, he was promoted to the West Virginia Power of the Single-A South Atlantic League in August. He finished the season with the Power, batting .129 with one home run and five RBIs in 16 games. Swaggerty spent 2019 with the Bradenton Marauders of the High-A Florida State League and was named an All-Star. Over 121 games, he slashed .265/.347/.381 with nine home runs, forty RBIs, and 23 stolen bases. He did not play a minor league game in 2020 after the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

To begin the 2021 season, Swaggerty was assigned to the Indianapolis Indians of the Triple-A East. On May 27, he was placed on the 60-day injured list after dislocating his right shoulder. He later had season-ending surgery. Over 41 at-bats prior to the injury, he hit .220 with three home runs and seven RBIs. On November 19, 2021, the Pirates selected Swaggerty's contract and added him to their 40-man roster. He returned to the Indians to begin the 2022 season. In early May, he was placed on the injured list with a concussion but was activated just a week later.

On June 4, 2022, the Pirates promoted Swaggerty to the major leagues. At the time of his promotion, he was batting .280 with four home runs, 22 RBIs, and two triples over 35 games. He started in center field in a game against the Detroit Tigers on June 7, making his MLB debut. Swaggerty recorded his first major league hit against Atlanta Braves pitcher Max Fried on June 9. He was optioned back to Indianapolis on June 13.

Swaggerty was optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis to begin the 2023 season. In 17 games, he hit .200/.278/.369 with one home run, five RBI, and three stolen bases. He spent time on the injured list due to recurrent migraines, which he began experiencing in November 2022. On July 17, Swaggerty was designated for assignment by the Pirates. He was released by the team on July 19.

Chicago White Sox
On August 13, 2023, Swaggerty signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox. He was released on October 10, without having appeared in a game for the organziation.

Personal life
During Swaggerty's junior year at the University of South Alabama, his partner Peyton transferred to the school. Shortly after he was drafted, she was diagnosed with and treated for thyroid cancer. The couple married in December 2020 and they welcomed their first child, a daughter, in September 2021.

References

External links

South Alabama Jaguars bio

1997 births
Living people
People from Covington, Louisiana
Sportspeople from St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana
Baseball players from Louisiana
Major League Baseball outfielders
Pittsburgh Pirates players
South Alabama Jaguars baseball players
Brewster Whitecaps players
West Virginia Black Bears players
West Virginia Power players
Bradenton Marauders players
Indianapolis Indians players

Travis Swaggerty


Oberto Pelavicino or Pallavicino (1197-1269) was an Italian field captain under Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. He was a member of the noble Pallavicini family.

Pelavicino supported Frederick II against pope Gregory IX since 1234. Starting in 1250, he subdued the cities of Parma, Cremona, Piacenza, Pavia, and Brescia. Due to jealousness at Ezzelino III da Romano, Pelavicino joined the party  of the Guelphs and took a great part in the victory of the Lombardic-Guelphish League of towns over Ezzelino at the Battle of Cassano. For this, he was awarded with the cities of Milan, Como, Lodi, Novara, Tortona, and Alessandria.

When Charles I of Sicily invaded Lombardy, Pelavicino fought again for the Ghibellines, but was beaten several times.

1197 births
1269 deaths
Rulers of Milan
Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines
Oberto

Oberto Pallavicino


The Amitābha Buddha or Amitabha Buddha is an enormous Buddhist statue that was originally located in Hancui village in Hebei province, northern China. Dating to the 6th Century AD, it was given to the British Museum by the Chinese Government in 1938.

Discovery
The inscription on the sculpture's base records that it was dedicated at the Chongguang temple in Hancui village in Hebei in the fifth year of Kaihung of the Sui dynasty, which equates to the year 585 AD. The village of Hancui can no longer be identified for certain, but it is understood to be located south-west of the city of Baoding in Hebei province, a region which in the past was known for its white marble. The statue was donated by the art dealer C.T. Loo to the Chinese Government, who in turn presented it in 1938 to the British Museum to commemorate the Chinese Exhibition, which took place in London between 1935 and 1936.

Description
At nearly 6 metres high, the Amitābha Buddha is the largest ancient Chinese statue in the West. Although largely intact, the now missing hands would have been fixed into the arm sockets by dowels. The right hand would have been raised in the gesture of fearlessness (abhayamudra), and the left hand lowered in the gesture of bestowal (varadamudra). The figure was carved in high relief to reveal garments with very flat folds, which was typical of figurative art in the Sui period. The whole statue stands on a massive lotus base with a dedicatory inscription in Chinese. Traces of red paint have also been found on the back. The Amitābha Buddha was originally flanked by a smaller standing bodhisattva that is now in the Tokyo National Museum.

Buddhism in China
In Buddhist doctrine, Amitābha rules over the Western Paradise, a serene and heavenly land where those who repeatedly chant his name can be reborn. Amitābha was very popular during the Sui dynasty (589-618 AD), when many buddhist images were created for pious devotees. This colossal marble figure is thought to be one such work and may have been modelled on Indian bronze statuary brought to China through the Silk Road.

Gallery

References

Further reading
W. Zwalf (ed.), Buddhism: art and faith (London, The British Museum Press, 1985)
R.E. Fisher, Buddhist art and architecture (London, Thames & Hudson, 1993)
J Rawson, The British Museum Book of Chinese Art (London, British Museum Press, 2007)

Asian sculptures in the British Museum
Buddha statues
China–United Kingdom relations
Chinese sculpture
6th-century sculptures

Amitābha Buddha from Hancui


Rub-A-Dub-Dub was a British television series animated by Peter Lang and Alan Rogers of the Cut-Out Animation Co. They were previously famous for Pigeon Street. The series was produced by David Yates and Joe Wolf. The title is a reference to the nursery rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub.
Rub-A-Dub-Dub was animated in a similar way, yet all the characters were anthropomorphic animals. It ran in 1984, completing 25 episodes.

Episode structure
The episodes usually started off with the character Mother Goose and (most often) another character stood by a polka-dot patterned bathtub, with Mother Goose saying "Rub-a-dub-dub..." announcing that there was an item in the tub, an item that will then be relevant to the episode, e.g. "Rub-a-dub-dub, there's a kettle in the tub..." The line would then usually be followed up by another. In this case, the character King Crow appears at the window and says "...And King Crow wants his tea!"
The nursery rhymes themselves would be dotted in amongst the humorous dialogue between the animal characters.

Characters

Principal characters
Mother Goose: Could be considered the hostess of Rub-A-Dub-Dub. She begins every episode by saying "Rub-a-dub-dub, there's a... in the tub." She is a white goose, wearing what looks to be a yellow raincoat and hat, a blue skirt beneath the coat and blue shoes. She also wears pink tights with white spots.
Polly: An irritable parrot. She often gets annoyed with various characters, such as with Mother Goose when she asks her to make King Crow's tea. In this instance, she responds "I'm not gonna make it! Why does it always have to be me!? Humph!" She also often appears to be on the receiving end of bad luck, such as when she sets her dinner down before the television, leaves to get a drink, and then finds her dinner has been stolen, to which she responds: "EH! Where did it go?!" Polly had a red face and blue hands and legs, wore a green jumper with red sleeves and yellow shoes.
King Crow: The King who is a crow. He was awfully demanding of his servants such as Polly, on whom he intrudes into her TV-watching time, saying "Hello Polly, get me my pipe and bowl please!" He was also awfully energetic and bounced around a lot. Like all crows, King Crow was black with a yellow beak. He wore a stereotypical King's robe and crown, black and white striped stockings and black-and-white shoes.
Queen Duck: The wife of King Crow.
Al E. Gator: An alligator who was somewhat of an antagonist on the show. He was always causing trouble, such as tripping over Baa Sheep and causing him to fall in mud, or interrupting Polly's favourite TV show as "Tonight's Special Guest". He wore a red coat and a top hat. In one episode, he lost his violin bow. He does have a good side though, as he helped nurse Yankee Doodle back to health when the latter knocked himself out after doing his morning exercises.
Baa Sheep: A white sheep who wore red shoes. He once fell victim to Al E. Gator's mischief, when he tripped him over and caused him to fall into a muddy puddle. This dirtied his wool and left him displeased. He sang I do not like thee, Doctor Fell to him. Al E Gator simply laughed and asked "What did I do wrong?" before leaving. Baa was also close to Mother Goose, who cleaned him up in the eponymous tub after this incident.
Buzz Tiger: A tiger with melissophobia (fear of bees). He seemed to be romantically involved with Mary the giraffe.
Brian Lion: A lion who was good friends with Buzz and Blue.
Olga Ostrich: An ostrich who wore pink shoes. She once lost one of these shoes in one episode. She was also sat at the same restaurant as Polly when she had her dinner stolen.
The Penguin Trio: Three traveling penguins, who served as soldiers and musicians for King Crow as well as inattentive waiters at the restaurant.
Jack and Jill: Two twin pigs. They both wore blue and yellow tops and red shoes. Jack wore a yellow striped red hat and the Jill had blonde hair with two plaits with red bows. Jack was more heavily featured than his sister, although in Jack and Jill, Mrs. Mason's Basin and Jack Sprat they were featured together. They were Elsie Pig's children and had a baby sibling.
Elsie Pig: The mother of Jack and Jill and an unnamed baby. She wore a yellow and black dress and matching hat. She appeared to be a cleaner in the castle like Mother Goose.
Blue: A blue hippopotamus who wore a yellow raincoat and rain hat, similar to Mother Goose. He was featured on Polly's favorite Western TV show. He was due to face off in a duel with Yankee Doodle, before they were interrupted by Al E. Gator. He also appeared as Santa Claus in one episode and Little Boy Blue in another.
Yankee Doodle: A white rooster married to Mrs. Doodle. He was often seen jogging and weightlifting. He was featured on Polly's favorite Western TV show. He was due to face off in a duel with Blue the hippo, before being interrupted by Al E. Gator.
Mrs. Doodle: A brown hen who was married to Yankee Doodle.
Tom Cat: A young cat who went to London to see the Queen. The Queen Duck asked him to catch one of the mice in the castle, but ended up knocking all of the furniture over and was sent away. He was often depicted as a troublemaker who enjoyed stealing others' food.
Yellow Dog: A yellow dog who wears a blue sweater and often liked to make jokes.
Mice: Three mice that were often in some nursery rhymes, one dressed as a Chef, one as a Butcher, and one in a yellow top with red, green and blue stars. They appeared as the Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker in the show's eponymous rhyme and the Three Blind Mice.
Mary Giraffe: A giraffe who wore a blue sweatshirt with a giraffe number 11 and a pink skirt with pink shoes. She often appeared to be romantically involved with Buzz the Tiger.
Barney Owl: An owl who wore a purple coat and hat and glasses. He was married to an unnamed female owl, who was often seen with Queen Duck.
Roland Turtle: A green turtle who wore brown shoes and glasses with yellow edges. He had the ability to attach wheels to the bottom of his shell, as well as roller skates, use his shell as a boat and also travel by balloon.
Quincy the Spider: A spider who wore green, red and yellow roller skates who played the role of the Incy Wincy Spider.
Pat Cat: An orange, bespectacled cat who played the role of the teacher in Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Melody Moo: a red cow who appeared to be a bit of a performer, often seen singing at the Palm Court restaurant.
Ned the Horse: A white horse who wore red shoes. He is a bit of a troublemaker and does not speak at all. One time, he took King Crow's crown for being called a unicorn when he wore a candle on his head.

Episodes
01. Mary Mary
02. Jack and Jill
03. A Wise Old Owl
04. Tom Tom the Piper's Son
05. Baa Baa Black Sheep
06. Incy Wincey Spider
07. The House That Jack Built
08. Old King Cole
09. Hey Diddle Diddle
10. Star Light, Star Bright
11. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
12. Yankee Doodle
13. The Grand Old Duke of York
14. I Had a Cat
15. To Market, To Market
16. Three Men in a Tub
17. There Was an Old Woman
18. Christmas Comes
19. Little Bo Peep
20. Little Poll Parrot
21. It's Raining, It's Pouring
22. The Lion and the Unicorn
23. Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat
24. Poor Old Robinson Crusoe
25. One for the Money

Release
It was directed by Lee Bernhardi. It ran on Children's ITV from 17 October 1984 until 20 November 1984 and it also ran on The Disney Channel in the 80s in the United States, Saudi 2 in Saudi Arabia and Knowledge Network in Canada. The series was later distributed on VHS in two separate volumes in North America twice, both by Hi-Tops Video under its original titles 'Rub-a-Dub-Dub' Volume 1 & 2 in 1986–87, and re-released in 1989 under the titles 'Musical Mother Goose' and 'More Musical Mother Goose' respectively. The series was also released on VHS in the UK market by Thames Video under the title 'The Ultimate Nursery Rhymes Video' on 10 February 1992,  which has since not been distributed.

References

1984 British television series debuts
1984 British television series endings
1980s British animated television series
1980s British children's television series
1980s preschool education television series
Animated preschool education television series
Animated television series about birds
Animated television series about cats
Animated television series about dogs
Animated television series about horses
Animated television series about lions
Animated television series about mice and rats
Animated television series about penguins
Animated television series about pigs
Animated television series about turtles
British children's animated musical television series
British preschool education television series
English-language television shows
ITV children's television shows
Television series about cattle
Television series about chickens
Television series about sheep
Television series about spiders
Television series about tigers
Television series by Fremantle (company)
Television series by ITV Studios

Rub-a-Dub-Dub (TV series)


Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave is a work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), published in 1688 by William Canning and reissued with two other fictions later that year. It was also adapted into a play. The eponymous hero is an African prince from Coramantien who is tricked into slavery and sold to European colonists in Surinam where he meets the narrator. Behn's text is a first-person account of Oroonoko's life, love, rebellion, and execution.

Behn, often cited as the first known professional female writer, was a successful playwright, poet, translator and essayist.  She began writing prose fiction in the 1680s, probably in response to the consolidation of theatres that led to a reduced need for new plays. Published less than a year before she died, Oroonoko is sometimes described as one of the first novels in English. Interest in Oroonoko has increased since the 1970s, with critics arguing that Behn is the foremother of British female writers, and that Oroonoko is a crucial text in the history of the novel.

The novel's success was jump-started by a popular 1695 theatrical adaptation by Thomas Southerne which ran regularly on the British stage throughout the first half of the 18th century, and in America later in the century.

Plot Summary and Analysis

Plot Summary
Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave is a relatively short novel set in a narrative frame. The narrator opens with an account of the colony of Surinam and its inhabitants. Within this is a historical tale concerning the Coramantien grandson of an African king, Prince Oroonoko. At a very young age Prince Oroonoko was trained for battle, becoming an expert captain by the age of seventeen. During a battle the best general sacrifices himself for the Prince by taking an arrow for him. In sight of this event, the Prince takes the place of General. Oroonoko decides to honorably visit the daughter of the deceased general to offer the "Trophies of her Father's Victories", but he immediately falls in love with Imoinda and later asks for her hand in marriage.

The king hears Imoinda described as the most beautiful and charming in the land, and he also falls in love. Despite his Intelligence saying she had been claimed by Oroonoko, the king gives Imoinda the royal veil, thus forcing her to become one of his wives, even though she is already promised to Oroonoko. Imoinda unwillingly, but dutifully, enters the king's harem (the Otan), and Oroonoko is comforted by his assumption that the king is too old to ravish her. Over time the Prince plans a tryst with the help of the sympathetic Onahal (one of the king's wives) and Aboan (a friend to the prince). The Prince and Imoinda are reunited for a short time and consummate their marriage, but they are eventually discovered. Imoinda and Onahal are punished for their actions by being sold as slaves. The king's guilt, however, leads him to lie to Oroonoko that Imoinda has instead been executed, since death was thought to be better than slavery. The Prince grieves. Later, after winning another tribal war, Oroonoko and his men visit a European slave trader on his ship and are tricked and shackled after drinking. The slave trader plans to sell the Prince and his men as slaves and carries them to Surinam in the West Indies. Oroonoko is purchased by a Cornish man named Trefry, but given special treatment due to his education and ability to speak French and English (which he learned from his own French mentor). Trefry mentions that he came to own a most beautiful enslaved woman and had to stop himself from raping her. Unbeknownst to Oroonoko, Trefry is speaking of Imoinda who is at the same plantation.  The two lovers are reunited under the slave names of Caesar and Clemene.

The narrator and Trefry continue to treat the hero as an honored guest. The narrator recounts various entertaining episodes, including reading, hunting, visiting native villages, and capturing an electric eel. Oroonoko and Imoinda live as husband and wife in their own slave cottage, and once she becomes pregnant, Oroonoko petitions for their return to the homeland. After being put off with vague promises of the governor's arrival, Oroonoko organizes a slave revolt. The slaves, including Imoinda, fight valiantly, but the majority surrender when deputy governor Byam promises them amnesty. After the surrender, Oroonoko and Tuscan, his second-in-command, are punished and whipped by their former allies at the command of Byam. To avenge his honor, Oroonoko vows to kill Byam. He worries, however, that to do so would make Imoinda vulnerable to reprisal after his death.  The couple both decide that he should kill her, and so Imoinda dies by his hand. Oroonoko hides in the woods to mourn her and grows weaker, becoming unable to complete his revenge. When he is discovered, he decides to show his fearlessness in the face of death. Oroonoko cuts off a piece of his own throat, disembowels himself, and stabs the first man who tries to approach him. Once captured, he is bound to a post. Resigned to his death, Oroonoko asks for a pipe to smoke as Banister has him quartered and dismembered.

Analysis
The novel is written in a mixture of first and third person, as the narrator relates events in Africa secondhand, and herself witnesses, and participates in, the actions that take place in Surinam. The narrator is a lady who has come to Surinam with her unnamed father, a man intended to be the new lieutenant-general of the colony. He, however, dies on the voyage from illness. The narrator and her family are put up in the finest house in the settlement, in accord with their station, and the narrator's experiences of meeting the indigenous peoples and slaves are intermixed with the main plot of Oroonoko and Imoinda. At the conclusion of the narrative, the narrator leaves Surinam for London.

Structurally, there are three significant pieces to the narrative, which does not flow in a strictly biographical manner. The novel opens with a statement of veracity, wherein the narrator claims to be writing neither fiction nor pedantic history. She claims to be an eyewitness and to be writing without any embellishment or agenda, relying solely upon real events. A description of Surinam and the Southern American Indians follows. The narrator regards the indigenous peoples as innocent and living in a golden age. Next, she provides the history of Oroonoko in Africa: the betrayal by his grandfather, the captivity of Imoinda, and his capture by the slaver captain. The narrative then returns to Surinam and the present: Oroonoko and Imoinda are reunited, and Oroonoko and Imoinda meet the narrator and Trefry. The final section describes Oroonoko's rebellion and its aftermath.

Biographical and historical background
Oroonoko is now the most studied of Aphra Behn's novels, but it was not immediately successful in her own lifetime. It sold well, but the adaptation for the stage by Thomas Southerne (see below) made the story as popular as it became. Soon after her death, the novel began to be read again, and from that time onward the factual claims made by the novel's narrator, and the factuality of the whole plot of the novel, have been accepted and questioned with greater and lesser credulity. Because Mrs. Behn was not available to correct or confirm any information, early biographers assumed the first-person narrator was Aphra Behn speaking for herself and incorporated the novel's claims into their accounts of her life. It is important, however, to recognise that Oroonoko is a work of fiction and that its first-person narrator—the protagonist—need be no more factual than Jonathan Swift's first-person narrator, ostensibly Gulliver, in Gulliver's Travels, Daniel Defoe's shipwrecked narrator in Robinson Crusoe, or the first-person narrator of A Tale of a Tub.

There has been much debate about how Aphra Behn represents herself in Oroonoko, especially in "First Encounters of Europeans and Africans with Native Americans in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: White Woman, Black Prince and Noble Savages" by Violetta Trofimova. Trofimova writes "Aphra Behn and Oroonoko are marginal people in their society: she acts as a powerless woman (although she pretends to a considerable power in the colony), and he is a black man, an ex-prince and a slave deprived of rights and freedom."

Fact and fiction in the narrator

Researchers today cannot say whether or not the narrator of Oroonoko represents Aphra Behn and, if so, tells the truth. Scholars have argued for over a century about whether or not Behn even visited Suriname and, if so, when. On one hand, the narrator reports that she "saw" sheep in the colony, when the settlement had to import meat from Virginia, as sheep, in particular, could not survive there. Also, as Ernest Bernbaum argues in "Mrs. Behn's 'Oroonoko'", everything substantive in Oroonoko could have come from accounts by William Byam and George Warren that were circulating in London in the 1660s. However, as J.A. Ramsaran and Bernard Dhuiq catalogue, Behn provides a great deal of precise local colour and physical description of the colony. Topographical and cultural verisimilitude were not a criterion for readers of novels and plays in Behn's day any more than in Thomas Kyd's, and Behn generally did not bother with attempting to be accurate in her locations in other stories. Her plays have quite indistinct settings, and she rarely spends time with topographical description in her stories. Secondly, all the Europeans mentioned in Oroonoko were really present in Surinam in the 1660s. It is interesting, if the entire account is fictional and based on reportage, that Behn takes no liberties of invention to create Europeans she might need. Finally, the characterisation of the real-life people in the novel does follow Behn's own politics. Behn was a lifelong and militant royalist, and her fictions are quite consistent in portraying virtuous royalists and put-upon nobles who are opposed by petty and evil republicans/Parliamentarians. Had Behn not known the individuals she fictionalized in Oroonoko, it is extremely unlikely that any of the real royalists would have become fictional villains or any of the real republicans fictional heroes, and yet Byam and James Bannister, both actual royalists in the Interregnum, are malicious, licentious, and sadistic, while George Marten, a Cromwellian republican, is reasonable, open-minded, and fair.

On balance, it appears that Behn truly did travel to Surinam. The fictional narrator, however, cannot be the real Aphra Behn. For one thing, the narrator says that her father was set to become the deputy governor of the colony and died at sea en route. This did not happen to Bartholomew Johnson (Behn's father), although he did die between 1660 and 1664. There is no indication at all of anyone except William Byam being Deputy Governor of the settlement, and the only major figure to die en route at sea was Francis, Lord Willoughby, the colonial patent holder for Barbados and "Suriname." Further, the narrator's father's death explains her antipathy toward Byam, for he is her father's usurper as Deputy Governor of Surinam. This fictionalised father thereby gives the narrator a motive for her unflattering portrait of Byam, a motive that might cover for the real Aphra Behn's motive in going to Surinam and for the real Behn's antipathy toward the real Byam.

It is also unlikely that Behn went to Surinam with her husband, although she may have met and married in Surinam or on the journey back to England. A socially creditable single woman in good standing would not have gone unaccompanied to Surinam. Therefore, it is most likely that Behn and her family went to the colony in the company of a lady. As for her purpose in going, Janet Todd presents a strong case for its being spying. At the time of the events of the novel, the deputy governor Byam had taken absolute control of the settlement and was being opposed not only by the formerly republican Colonel George Marten, but also by royalists within the settlement. Byam's abilities were suspect, and it is possible that either Lord Willoughby or Charles II would be interested in an investigation of the administration there.

Beyond these facts, there is little known. The earliest biographers of Aphra Behn not only accepted the novel's narrator's claims as true, but Charles Gildon even invented a romantic liaison between the author and the title character, while the anonymous Memoirs of Aphra Behn, Written by One of the Fair Sex (both 1698) insisted that the author was too young to be romantically available at the time of the novel's events. Later biographers have contended with these suggestions, either to deny or prove them.

Models for Oroonoko

One figure who matches aspects of Oroonoko is the John Allin, a settler in Surinam. Allin was disillusioned and miserable in Surinam, and he took to over-indulging in alcohol and wild, lavish blasphemies so shocking that Governor Byam believed that the repetition of them at Allin's trial cracked the foundation of the courthouse. In the novel, Oroonoko plans to kill Byam and then himself, and this matches a plot that Allin had to kill Lord Willoughby and then commit suicide, for, he said, it was impossible to "possess my own life, when I cannot enjoy it with freedom and honour". He wounded Willoughby and was taken to prison, where he killed himself with an overdose. His body was taken to a pillory,

While Behn was in Surinam (1663), she would have seen a slave ship arrive with 130 "freight", 54 having been "lost" in transit. Although the African slaves were not treated differently from the indentured servants coming from Europe (and were, in fact, more highly valued), their cases were hopeless, and both slaves, indentured servants, and local inhabitants attacked the settlement. There was no single rebellion, however, that matched what is related in Oroonoko. Further, the character of Oroonoko is physically different from the other slaves by being blacker skinned, having a Roman nose, and having straight hair. The lack of historical record of a mass rebellion, the unlikeliness of the physical description of the character (when Europeans at the time had no clear idea of race or an inheritable set of "racial" characteristics), and the European courtliness of the character suggests that he is most likely invented wholesale. Additionally, the character's name is artificial. There are names in the Yoruba language that are similar, but the African slaves of Surinam were from Ghana.

Instead of from life, the character seems to come from literature, for his name is reminiscent of Oroondates, a character in La Calprenède's Cassandra, which Behn had read. Oroondates is a prince of Scythia whose desired bride is snatched away by an elder king. Previous to this, there is an Oroondates who is the satrap of Memphis in the Æthiopica, a novel from late antiquity by Heliodorus of Emesa. Many of the plot elements in Behn's novel are reminiscent of those in the Æthiopica and other Greek romances of the period. There is a particular similarity to the story of Juba in La Calprenède's romance Cléopâtre, who becomes a slave in Rome and is given a Roman name—Coriolanus—by his captors, as Oroonoko is given the Roman name of Caesar.

Alternatively, it could be argued that "Oroonoko" is a homophone for the Orinoco River, along which the colony of Surinam was established and it is possible to see the character as an allegorical figure for the mismanaged territory itself. Oroonoko, and the crisis of values of aristocracy, slavery, and worth he represents to the colonists, is emblematic of the new world and colonisation itself: a person like Oroonoko is symptomatic of a place like the Orinoco.

The name "Oroonoko" is also associated with tobacco.

Slavery and Behn's attitudes

According to biographer Janet Todd, Behn did not oppose slavery per se. She accepted the idea that powerful groups would enslave the powerless, and she would have grown up with Oriental tales of "The Turk" taking European slaves. Although it has never been proven that Behn was actually married, the most likely candidate for her husband is Johan Behn, who sailed on The King David from the German imperial free city of Hamburg. This Johan Behn was a slaver whose residence in London later was probably a result of acting as a mercantile cover for Dutch trade with the colony of Suriname under a false flag. One could argue that if Aphra Behn had been opposed to slavery as an institution, it is not very likely that she would have married a slave trader. At the same time, it is fairly clear that she was not happy in marriage, and Oroonoko, written twenty years after the death of her husband, has, among its cast of characters, no one more evil than the slave ship captain who tricks and captures Oroonoko. It can also be argued that Behn's attitude towards slavery can be exemplified through her characteristics of Oroonoko and Imoinda, both characters given significantly positive attributes.  Oroonoko was a strong, brave, heroic figure, while Imoinda was beautiful and pure in her ways.

The final words of the novel are a slight expiation of the narrator's guilt, but it is for the individual man she mourns and for the individual that she writes a tribute, and she lodges no protest over slavery itself. A natural king could not be enslaved, and, as in the play Behn wrote while in Surinam, The Young King, no land could prosper without a king. Her fictional Surinam is a headless body. Without a true and natural leader (a king) the feeble and corrupt men of position abuse their power. What was missing was Lord Willoughby, or the narrator's father:  a true lord. In the absence of such leadership, a true king, Oroonoko, is misjudged, mistreated, and killed.

One potential motive for the novel, or at least one political inspiration, was Behn's view that Surinam was a fruitful and potentially wealthy settlement that needed only a true noble to lead it. Like others sent to investigate the colony, she felt that Charles was not properly informed of the place's potential. When Charles gave up Surinam in 1667 with the Treaty of Breda, Behn was dismayed. This dismay is enacted in the novel in a graphic fashion: if the colony was mismanaged and the slaves mistreated by having an insufficiently noble ruler there, then the democratic and mercantile Dutch would be far worse. Accordingly, the passionate misrule of Byam is replaced by the efficient and immoral management of the Dutch. Charles had a strategy for a united North American presence, however, and his gaining of New Amsterdam for Surinam was part of that larger vision. Neither Charles II nor Aphra Behn could have known how correct Charles's bargain was, but Oroonoko can be seen as a royalist's demurral.

Historical significance
Behn was a political writer of fiction and for the stage, and though not didactic in purpose, most of her works have distinct political content. The timing of Oroonokos publication must be seen in its own context as well as in the larger literary tradition (see below). According to Charles Gildon, Aphra Behn wrote Oroonoko even with company present, and Behn's own account suggests that she wrote the novel in a single sitting, with her pen scarcely rising from the paper. If Behn travelled to Surinam in 1663–64, she felt no need for twenty-four years to write her "American story" and then felt a sudden and acute passion for telling it in 1688. It is therefore wise to consider what changes were in the air in that year that could account for the novel.

The year 1688 was a time of massive anxiety in Crown politics. Charles II had died in February 1685, and James II came to the throne later in the same year. James's purported Roman Catholicism and his marriage to an avowedly Roman Catholic bride roused the old Parliamentarian forces to speak of rebellion again. This is the atmosphere for the writing of Oroonoko.  One of the most notable features of the novel is that Oroonoko insists, over and over again, that a king's word is sacred, that a king must never betray his oaths, and that a measure of a person's worth is the keeping of vows. Given that men who had sworn fealty to James were now casting about for a way of getting a new king, this insistence on fidelity must have struck a chord. Additionally, the novel is fanatically anti-Dutch and anti-democratic, even if it does, as noted above, praise faithful former republicans like Trefry over faithless former royalists like Byam. In as much as the candidate preferred by the Whig Party for the throne was William of Orange, the novel's stern reminders of Dutch atrocities in Surinam and powerful insistence on the divine and emanate nature of royalty were likely designed to awaken Tory objections.

Behn's side would lose the contest, and the Glorious Revolution would end with the Act of Settlement 1701, whereby Protestantism would take precedence over sanguineous processes in the choice of monarch ever after. Indeed, so thoroughly did the Stuart cause fail that readers of Oroonoko may miss the topicality of the novel.

Literary significance
Claims for Oroonoko's being the "first English novel" are difficult to sustain. In addition to the usual problems of defining the novel as a genre, Aphra Behn had written at least one epistolary novel prior to Oroonoko. The epistolary work Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister predates Oroonoko by more than five years. However, Oroonoko is one of the very early novels of the particular sort that possesses a linear plot and follows a biographical model. It is a mixture of theatrical drama, reportage, and biography that is easy to recognise as a novel.

Oroonoko is the first European novel to show Africans in a sympathetic manner. At the same time, this novel is as much about the nature of kingship as it is about the nature of race. Oroonoko is a prince, and he is of noble lineage whether of African or European descent, and the novel's regicide is devastating to the colony. The theatrical nature of the plot follows from Behn's previous experience as a dramatist.  The language she uses in Oroonoko is far more straightforward than in her other novels, and she dispenses with a great deal of the emotional content of her earlier works. Further, the novel is unusual in Behn's fictions by having a very clear love story without complications of gender roles.

Critical response to the novel has been coloured by the struggle over the debate over the slave trade and the struggle for female equality. In the 18th century, audiences for Southerne's theatrical adaptation and readers of the novel responded to the love triangle in the plot. Oroonoko on the stage was regarded as a great tragedy and a highly romantic and moving story, and on the page as well the tragic love between Oroonoko and Imoinda, and the menace of Byam, captivated audiences. As the European and American disquiet with slavery grew, Oroonoko was increasingly seen as protest to slavery. Wilbur L. Cross wrote, in 1899, that "Oroonoko is the first humanitarian novel in English." He credits Aphra Behn with having opposed slavery and mourns the fact that her novel was written too early to succeed in what he sees as its purpose (Moulton 408). Indeed, Behn was regarded explicitly as a precursor of Harriet Beecher Stowe. In the 20th century, Oroonoko has been viewed as an important marker in the development of the "noble savage" theme, a precursor of Rousseau and a furtherance of Montaigne, as well as a proto-feminist work.

Recently (and sporadically in the 20th century) the novel has been seen in the context of 17th-century politics and 16th-century literature. Janet Todd argues that Behn deeply admired Othello, and identified elements of Othello in the novel. In Behn's longer career, her works center on questions of kingship quite frequently, and Behn herself took a radical philosophical position. Her works question the virtues of noble blood as they assert, repeatedly, the mystical strength of kingship and of great leaders. The character of Oroonoko solves Behn's questions by being a natural king and a natural leader, a man who is anointed and personally strong, and he is poised against nobles who have birth but no actual strength.

The New World setting
With Oroonoko, Aphra Behn took on the challenge of blending contemporary literary concerns, which were often separated by genre, into one cohesive work. Restoration literature had three common elements: the New World setting, courtly romance, and the concept of heroic tragedy. John Dryden, a prominent playwright in 1663, co-wrote The Indian Queen and wrote the sequel The Indian Emperour. Both plays have the three aspects of Restoration literature, and "Behn was certainly familiar with both plays", influencing her writing as seen in the opening of the tale. Behn takes the Restoration themes and recreates them, bringing originality. One reason Behn may have changed the elements is because Oroonoko was written near the end of the Restoration period. Readers were aware of the theme, so Behn wanted to give them something fresh. Behn changed the New World setting, creating one that readers were unfamiliar with. Challenging her literary abilities even further, Behn recreates the Old World setting. Behn gives readers an exotic world, filling their heads with descriptive details. Behn was the first person to blend new elements with the old Restoration essentials. The New World was set in the contemporary Caribbean, not in Mexico as previous centuries were accustomed to. The New World gave readers knowledge of a foreign place, "a colony in America called Surinam, in the West Indies". Behn paints a picture-perfect New World unspoiled by natives—one that contrasts with Dryden's previous work. Behn's New World seems almost utopian as she describes how the people get along: "with these People, ... we live in perfect Tranquility, and good Understanding, as it behooves us to do." This New World is unique during this period; it is "simultaneously a marvelous prelapsarian paradise and the thoroughly commercialised crossroads of international trade". It seems hard to believe that in such a romantic setting Behn can blend heroic tragedy, yet she accomplishes this effect through the character of Oroonoko. The Old World changes as Behn recreates the trade route back across the Atlantic to Africa, instead of Europe, becoming "the first European author who attempted to render the life lived by sub-Saharan African characters on their own continent." There were few accounts of coastal African kingdoms at that time. Oroonoko is truly an original play blending three important elements in completely original ways, with her vision of the New World constituting a strong example of the change.

Although Behn assures that she is not looking to entertain her reader with the adventures of a feigned hero, she does exactly this to enhance and romanticize the stories of Oroonoko. Ramesh Mallipeddi had stressed that "spectacle was the main mediator" for the representation of foreign cultures in the Restoration era. Therefore, Behn describes Oroonoko's native beauty as a spectacle of 'beauty so transcending' that surpassed 'all those of his gloomy race'. She completely romanticizes Oroonoko's figure by portraying him as an ideal handsome hero; however due to the color of his skin, his body is still constricted within the limits of exoticism. Oroonoko has all the qualities of an aristocrat, but his ebony skin and country of origin prevent him from being a reputable European citizen.  Due to these foreign qualities, his Europeaness is incomplete. He has the European-like education and air, but lacks the skin color and legal status. Behn uses this conflicting description of Oroonoko to infuse some European familiarity into his figure while still remaining exotic enough. She compares Oroonoko to well-known historical figures like Hannibal and Alexander and describes Oroonoko's running, wrestling and killing of tigers and snakes. Albert J. Rivero states that this comparison to great Western conquerors and kings translates and naturalizes Oroonoko's foreignness into familiar European narratives.

Character list

 Oroonoko – The protagonist of the story. Love interest of Imoinda. Oroonoko is the prince of Coramantien, who is sold into slavery in Surinam by European slave traders. Oroonoko later leads a slave revolt and is killed by his slave masters.
 Caesar – the English name that Oroonoko is given after he is sold into slavery. After Oroonoko's purchase, he is exclusively referred to by this name for the remainder of the text.
 Imoinda – The love interest of Oroonoko. After Oroonoko takes her virginity, the King of Coramantien sells her into slavery. Imoinda and Oroonoko eventually end up on the same plantation, marry, and have children. Imoinda's pregnancy is the impetus for their slave revolt, and she is eventually killed by Oroonoko.
 Clemene – The English name that Imoinda is given after she is sold into slavery. Imoinda is mostly referred to as Clemene after her purchase, but at the end of the text she is once again addressed as Imoinda.
 King of Coramantien – The elderly king and grandfather of Oroonoko. He hears rumors of Imoinda and takes her as a member of his harem. After Oroonoko takes Imoinda's virginity, the king sells her into slavery and lies to Oroonoko, telling him that she was instead executed.
 Governor Byam – the governor of Surinam and the owner of the plantation that Oroonoko and Imoinda are living on. He is expected to free Oroonoko and Imoinda, but never arrives.
 Trefrey''' – the slave owner that eventually purchases both Oroonoko and Imoinda.

 Themes

 Kingship
Aphra Behn herself held incredibly strong pro-monarchy views that carried over into her writing of Oroonoko. The idea that Behn attempts to present within the work is that the idea of royalty and natural kingship can exist even within a society of slaves. Although Oroonoko himself is a native who later becomes a slave, he possesses the traits of those typically required of a king within a typically civilized society. He is admired and respected by those who follow him, and even in death he keeps his royal dignity intact—as he would rather be executed by his owners than surrender his self-respect. Oroonoko's death can be viewed as being unjustified and outrageous as the death of any king would be when caused by those who fall below him, as even though the whites are the ones who enslaved him, they are portrayed as being the ones who are the true animals.

 Female narrative
The unnamed female narrator of the story serves as being a strong reflection of a woman's role in society throughout the 18th century, as well as being a reflection of Behn's own personal views regarding the major themes within her work. Women within this time period were most often expected to remain silent and on the sidelines, simply observing rather than actively contributing, and the narrator in Oroonoko is a portrayal of that.  A female narrator is also a way to voice the real world disagreements over women's rights, as well as slavery, to the fictional story.  The narrator's disgust surrounding the treatment of Oroonoko, as well as her inability to watch his murder, is a way in which Behn inserts her own voice and viewpoints into the story, as her feelings towards kingship, slavery and the slave trade have been established.  Likewise, the narrator's relatively inactive involvement in the story could also be viewed as a reflection of the way in which female writers of the time were viewed as well—silent and non contributing due to their male peers—especially with Behn herself being one of very few female authors of the time.

 Slavery and servitude
The view of slavery and other forms of forced servitude in Oroonoko is intentionally mixed. While Oroonoko himself is shown as wrongly imprisoned by the whims and cruelty of his European captors, the character himself comes out in direct support of slavery multiple times throughout the text. Slavery is depicted as a natural order of things, the weak overcoming the strong and using these lower people as tools in order to conduct busywork such as manual labor and chores in order to free the betters of society into perusing the more important work that must be done.  Oroonoko goes from being a warrior and prominent figure in his society to being captured and turned to slavery at his own expense. Oroonoko is seen as unjustly held in bondage as a singular entity rather than as a moral imperative for the evils of slavery in itself.

 Gender roles
Despite having little dialogue in Oroonoko, Imoinda is a multifaceted character; she exhibits both traditionally feminine and masculine traits. On one hand, Imoinda is characterized as submissive and frail, for instance, when she faints into Oroonoko's arms on two occasions. However, when the slaves make an effort to escape from their masters, Imoinda acts as a heroine and injures one of the slave masters that chased after them.

Women
Author

As a member of the "British female transatlantic experience" and an early canonical female author, Aphra Behn's writings have been the subject of various feminist analyses in the years since Oroonokos publication. Through the eponymous Oroonoko, and other periphery male characters, masculinity is equated with dominance throughout the text, a dominance which is supplemented by feminine power in the form of strong female characters. Behn challenges the predetermined patriarchal norm of favoring the literary merit of male writers simply because of their elite role in society. In her time, Behn's success as a female author enabled the proliferation of respect and high readership for up-and-coming women writers.

As an author who did not endure the brutality of slavery, Behn is considered a duplicitous narrator with dual perspectives according to research from G.A. Starr's "Aphra Behn and the Genealogy of the Man of Feeling". Throughout Behn's early life and literary career, Starr notes that "Behn was in a good position to analyze such a predicament... as a woman-single, poor, unhealthy-supporting herself by writing, and probably a Roman Catholic, she knew about marginality and vulnerability". As evident in this excerpt, Behn's attitude towards the "predicament" of slavery remained ambiguous throughout Oroonoko, due in part to her identity and inexperience with racial discrimination. Despite the fact that this story is told through Behn's perspective as a marginalized female author in a male-dominated literary canon, the cultural complexities of the institution of slavery are still represented through the lens of an outside source.

Throughout the novella, Behn identifies with Oroonoko's strength, courage, and intelligence but also includes herself in the same categorization of the higher European power structure. For example, in Albert Rivero's "Aphra Behn's 'Oroonoko' and the 'Blank Spaces' of Colonial Fictions," the author gives context to Oroonoko within a greater body of colonial fictions. Rivero describes Behn's novella as "the romance of decorous, upper class sentiments". The multi-layered components of Behn's publication parallel her ever-changing perception of racial tension throughout the novella. Behn as a duplicitous narrator plays into the ambiguity of her support for abolition, mixed with the control afforded to her because of her race and economic status.

Imoinda

Imoinda serves as a strong female character in Oroonoko due in part to Behn's emphasis on Imoinda's individuality. Behn's depiction of Imoinda is mostly unrelated to the central plot point within the text; the protagonist's journey of self-discovery. During the era in which the work was written, male heroism dominated the literary field. Most often, protagonist roles were designated to male characters, and with this, the voice of the female remained silent. In this sense, Behn's characterization of Imoinda as a fighter and a lively autonomous woman, despite the cultural climate of slavery and the societal norm to view females as accessories, prompted a sense of female liberation.

Behn's novel awakens the voice of the female that deserves more recognition in literature. Imoinda is Oroonoko's love interest in the novel, but this is not all she is. Rather than falling into the role of the typical submissive female, Imoinda frequently displays that she is strong enough to fight alongside Oroonoko, exemplified by her killing of the governor (Behn 68). Imoinda is portrayed as Oroonoko's equal in the work; where Oroonoko is described as "Mars" (16), Imoinda is described as "the beautiful black Venus" (16). Ultimately, their strengths of aggression and beauty are exemplified through mythological parallels. Comparisons with Mars, the God of war, in the beginning of the novella provides a framework for Oroonoko's rise as an admired warrior, while Imoinda's relation to divinity is more feminine from the start, drawing a connection between her appearance, and that of the powerful Venus, goddess of love and beauty in Roman myth. Imoinda being compared to a goddess of love is fitting of her character, for through reading the novella, readers can easily see that she is a character that is driven by love, particularly hers for Oroonoko. She fights alongside her husband to free themselves from slavery, and to obtain a better life for both themselves and their unborn child. By the end of her life, Imoinda obediently accepts her death at the hands of her husband, along with that of her unborn child, out of love, admiration, and respect for Oroonoko.

By paralleling Imoinda with a Roman goddess, she is given an air of prominence and power, a revolutionary concept in literature at the time. Behn herself was a revolutionary part of seventeenth-century literature, as she played the role of a female author, narrator, and character. Behn bases the story upon her trip to Surinam and, in the beginning of the text, she makes it clear that it is a "true story", presenting Oroonoko as both an anti-slavery and proto-feminist narrative combined.

In regards to Imoinda, In "The White Female as Effigy and the Black Female as Surrogate in Janet. Schaw's Journal of a Lady of Quality and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park" by David S. Wallace, "MacDonald emphasizes the whitening of the character of Imoinda--Oroonoko's wife--in every adaptation of the novella." Wallace also discusses how Imoinda is hypersexualized in this novel to desexualize white women. Wallace writes: "At least a few white, female authors became agents in this desexualization of white women and hyper-sexualization of their black counterparts."

Sexuality

One of the first attributes allotted to Imoinda in Oroonoko is her stunning and beautiful exterior. Behn depicts her as godlike in appearance, describing her as "the beautiful black Venus" (Behn 16). For example, Behn boasts about the hundreds of European men who are "vain and unsuccessful" (16) in winning her affections. Here, Behn raises Imoinda's appearance and value above the standards of a whitened sense of European beauty. By claiming that these "white men" are unworthy of her attention, she is granted greater merit than them (16). Furthermore, Behn states that Imoinda was of such high prominence that she was "too great for any but a prince of her own nation" (16). Though our female protagonist is once again linked to the male hero here, she is still evidently given an air of dominance over the men Behn describes.

When Imoinda is taken as the King's mistress, she does not give herself to him sexually simply because of his position in society. Though he makes advances towards the young Imoinda, she and the King never consummate their marriage; it isn't until Imoinda reunites with Oroonoko that she feels prepared to give up her virginity (29). With this, Behn connects a female's virtue with her sovereignty, indicating that Imoinda maintains autonomy over her own sexuality.

Imoinda is not the only female protagonist who symbolizes female sexuality. Based on her portrayal of, and attitude towards Oroonoko, Aphra Behn emphasizes the sexual freedom and desires of the female gender. She molds Oroonoko in her own image, depicting him with European features despite his "ebony" flesh (Behn 15). By doing so, she is not only creating a mirror image of herself, a hero who seeks to dismantle the institution of slavery, but she is also embodying the desires of female sexuality. Rob Baum claims that "Behn's attraction to Oroonoko is not engendered by his blackness but despite it" (14) and that she ultimately reveres him, not merely for his heroism, but for his overt physical attractiveness.

Adaptation

Oroonoko was not a very substantial success at first. The stand-alone edition, according to the English Short Title Catalog online, was not followed by a new edition until 1696. Behn, who had hoped to recoup a significant amount of money from the book, was disappointed. Sales picked up in the second year after her death, and the novel then went through three printings. The story was used by Thomas Southerne for a tragedy entitled Oroonoko: A Tragedy. Southerne's play was staged in 1695 and published in 1696, with a foreword in which Southerne expresses his gratitude to Behn and praises her work. The play was a great success. After the play was staged, a new edition of the novel appeared, and it was never out of print in the 18th century afterward. The adaptation is generally faithful to the novel, with one significant exception: it makes Imoinda white instead of black (see Macdonald), and therefore, like Othello, the male lead would perform in blackface to a white heroine. As the taste of the 1690s demanded, Southerne emphasises scenes of pathos, especially those involving the tragic heroine, such as the scene where Oroonoko kills Imoinda. At the same time, in standard Restoration theatre rollercoaster manner, the play intersperses these scenes with a comic and sexually explicit subplot. The subplot was soon cut from stage representations with the changing taste of the 18th century, but the tragic tale of Oroonoko and Imoinda remained popular on the stage. William Ansah Sessarakoo reportedly left a mid-century performance in tears.

Through the 18th century, Southerne's version of the story was more popular than Behn's, and in the 19th century, when Behn was considered too indecent to be read, the story of Oroonoko continued in the highly pathetic and touching Southerne adaptation. The killing of Imoinda, in particular, was a popular scene. It is the play's emphasis on, and adaptation to, tragedy that is partly responsible for the shift in interpretation of the novel from Tory political writing to prescient "novel of compassion". When Roy Porter writes of Oroonoko, "the question became pressing: what should be done with noble savages? Since they shared a universal human nature, was not civilization their entitlement," he is speaking of the way that the novel was cited by anti-slavery forces in the 1760s, not the 1690s, and Southerne's dramatic adaptation is significantly responsible for this change of focus.

In the 18th century, Oroonoko appears in various German plays:

 Anonymous: Oronocko, oder Der moralisirende [!] Wilde (1757)
 Klinger, Friedrich Maximilian: Der Derwisch. Eine Komödie in fünf Aufzügen (1780)
 Dalberg, Wolfgang Heribert Freiherr von: Oronooko ein Trauerspiel in fünf Handlungen (1786) (an adaptation of Behn)
 Schönwärt: Oronooko, Prinz von Kandien. Trauerspiel in 5 Aufzügen (1780?)

The work was rewritten in the 21st century as IMOINDA Or She Who Will Lose Her Name (2008) by Professor Joan Anim-Addo. The rewriting focuses on the story of Imoinda.

In 2012, a play by Biyi Bandele based on Oroonoko was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place.

Notes

 References
 Alarcon, Daniel Cooper and Athey, Stephanie (1995). Oroonoko's Gendered Economies of Honor/Horror: Reframing Colonial Discourse Studies in the Americas. Duke University Press.
 An Exact Relation of The Most Execrable Attempts of John Allin, Committed on the Person of His Excellency Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham. . . . (1665), quoted in Todd 2000.
 Baum, Rob, "Aphra Behn's Black Body: Sex, Lies & Narrativity in Oroonoko." Brno Studies in English, vol. 37, no. 2, 2011, pp. 13–14.
 Behn, Aphra. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 19 March 2005
 Behn, Aphra, and Janet Todd. Oroonoko. The Rover. Penguin, 1992.
 Behn, A., Gallagher, C., & Stern, S. (2000). Oroonoko, or, The royal slave. Bedford cultural editions. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
 Bernbaum, Ernest (1913). "Mrs. Behn's Oroonoko" in George Lyman Kittredge Papers. Boston, pp. 419–33.
 Brown, Laura (1990). Romance of empire: Oroonoko and the trade in slaves. St. Martin's Press, Scholarly and Reference Division, New York.
 Dhuicq, Bernard (1979). "Additional Notes on Oroonoko", Notes & Queries, pp. 524–26.
 Ferguson, Margaret W. (1999). Juggling the Categories of Race, Class and Gender: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko. St. Martin's Press, Scholarly and Reference Division, New York.
 Hughes, Derek (2007). Versions of Blackness: Key Texts on Slavery from the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge University Press.
 Hutner, Heidi (1993). Rereading Aphra Behn: history, theory, and criticism. University of Virginia Press.
 Klein, Martin A. (1983). Women and Slavery in Africa. University of Wisconsin Press.
 Macdonald, Joyce Green (1998). "Race, Women, and the Sentimental in Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko", Criticism 40.
 Moulton, Charles Wells, ed. (1959). The Library of Literary Criticism. Volume II 1639–1729.  Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.
 Parker, Matthew (2015). Willoughbyland: England's lost colony. London: Hutchinson.
 Porter, Roy (2000). The Creation of the Modern World.  New York: W. W. Norton.
 Ramsaran, J. A. (1960). "Notes on Oroonoko". Notes & Queries, p. 144.
 Rivero, Albert J. "Aphra Behn's 'Oroonoko' and the 'Blank Spaces' of Colonial Fictions." SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, vol. 39, no. 3, 1999, pp. 451. .
 Stassaert, Lucienne (2000). De lichtvoetige Amazone. Het geheime leven van Aphra Behn. Leuven: Davidsfonds/Literair.
 Todd, Janet (2000). The Secret Life of Aphra Behn.  London: Pandora Press.

External links

Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave, Literature in Context: An Open Anthology of Literature. 2019. Web.
 Oroonoko, scanned pages of a seventeenth-century edition of the theatrical adaptation by Thomas Southerne.

 Lecture: Behn's Oroonoko: ethnography, romance and history, by professor William Warner at the University of California Santa Barbara.
 An Annotated Bibliography on Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, by Jack Lynch, 1997.

 Further reading

 Todd, Janet (1996) Aphra Behn Studies. Great Britain: University Press, Cambridge.
 Backscheider, Paula R. (1999-02). "Aphra Behn Studies. Janet Todd, Aphra Behn". Modern Philology. 96' (3): 384–387. doi:10.1086/492770. ISSN 0026-8232
 Sim, Stuart (2008) Oroonoko, or, The History of the Royal Slave and Race Relations. Edinburgh University Press
 Beach, Adam R. (2010) Behn's Oroonoko, the Gold Coast, and Slavery in the Early-Modern Atlantic World''. Johns Hopkins University Press

1688 novels
English novels
British novellas
Novels by Aphra Behn
Novels about slavery
Novels set in Suriname
South America in fiction
17th-century English novels
Literary characters introduced in 1688

Oroonoko