English Women Staging Islam, 16961707

Delarivier Manley and Mary Pix were among the groundbreaking female wits, who debuted their original plays for the public stage in 169596. Two of these plays contain explicitly Islamicate themes. Manleys The Royal Mischief expands on The Travels of Sir John Chardin into Persia(1686), and Pixs Ibrahim draws on Rycauts History of the Turkish Empire (1687). Continuing this interest, Manleys Almyna (17067) responds to the newly translated Arabian Nights Entertainments (170417), and Pixs The Conquest of Spain (1705) engages the history of Islamic Spain recounted in The Life of the Most Illustrious Monarch Almanzor (1693). These plays have been modernized and annotated in this edition, most for the first time. This edition also includes appendices with excerpts from historical sources and a select bibliography.