Uncovers African influences on the Western imagination during the eighteenth century, paying particular attention to the ways Ethiopia inspired and shaped the work of Samuel Johnson.

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, originally titled The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale, though often abbreviated to Rasselas, is an apologue about bliss and ignorance by Samuel Johnson. The book's original working title was "The Choice of Life". The book was first published in April 1759 in England. Early readers considered Rasselas to be a work of philosophical and practical importance and critics often remark on the difficulty of classifying it as a novel.

"She Stoops to Conquer" is a comedy play written by the Anglo-Irish playwright Oliver Goldsmith. It was first performed in London in 1773. The play is a classic of English literature and is known for its humor, wit, and exploration of social class distinctions. The plot revolves around the attempts of two young men, Marlow and Hastings, to court the wealthy Miss Kate Hardcastle and her cousin Constance Neville. Mistaken identities, misunderstandings, and comedic situations ensue when Marlow mistakes the Hardcastle home for an inn and behaves differently towards Kate than he does towards ladies of his own class. The title, "She Stoops to Conquer," refers to the central plot point where Kate pretends to be a barmaid to win over Marlow, who is shy and awkward around upper-class women but more confident with women of lower social status.

If you could tell your mum anything, what would it be? Samuel Johnson, Amanda Keller, Vika and Linda Bull, Guy Pearce, Elizabeth Tan, Rebecca Gibney, Peter Helliar, Clare Wright, Hilde Hinton, Gillian O'Shaughnessy, Adam Spencer, Brooke Davis, Lawrence Mooney, Patti Newton, Shane Jacobson, Julie Koh, Susie Youssef, Lehmo, Favel Parrett, Matilda Brown and many more ... A heartfelt, honest and very human book of letters that will make you smile and make you cry. It is the perfect gift for the mum in your life. And a reminder to tell her how you feel before it is too late.

In Samuel Johnson’s classic philosophical tale, the prince and princess of Abissinia escape their confinement in the Happy Valley and conduct an ultimately unsuccessful search for a choice of life that leads to happiness. Johnson uses the conventions of the Oriental tale to depict a universal restlessness of desire. The excesses of Orientalism—its superfluous splendours, its despotic tyrannies, its riotous pleasures—cannot satisfy us. His tale challenges us by showing the problem of finding happiness to be insoluble while still dignifying our quest for fulfillment. The appendices to this Broadview edition include reviews and biographies, selections from the sequel Dinarbas (1790), and the complete text of Elizabeth Pope Whately’s The Second Part of the History of Rasselas (1835). Selections from Johnson’s translation of the travel narrative A Voyage to Abyssinia, as well as his Oriental tales in the Rambler, are also included, along with another popular tale, Joseph Addison’s “The Vision of Mirzah,” and selections from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters.

Telling how Rasselas and his companions escape from the bland pleasures of their perfectly happy valley in Abissinia to Egypt, to study how people live, the book is a parable and a pilgrimage in which all manner of subjects are discussed--flying machines, poetry, marriage, madness.