Mary Tighe's unpublished novel Selena is without doubt one of the nice unknown treasures of British Romanticism. accomplished in 1803, this significant, compulsively readable, superbly written, and psychologically astute courtship novel is ultimately to be had in a scholarly version that finds Mary Tighe to were as proficient a fiction author as she used to be a poet. The heritage of this extraordinary work's lengthy trip from manuscript to print is just one of the tales Harriet Kramer Linkin recounts during this scrupulously annotated version in response to the single identified replica of the manuscript, at the moment a part of the nationwide Library of Ireland's holdings. Linkin's creation situates the unconventional in its historic context, attracts consciousness to major points of the plots and characters, and makes a powerful case for Selena's value for realizing the heritage of the radical, fiction through ladies, Anglo-Irish fiction, silver-fork novels, and the Romantic interval. Explanatory notes clarify imprecise references and contexts, establish allusions to different writers, and supply translations of any non-English or archaic phrases. Selena itself is a revelation in its frank therapy of the darker features of Tighe's global, together with mom and dad who mistreat, cheat, or fail their youngsters and spouses who dedicate adultery or betray each other emotionally. whilst, it's very good in its gorgeous and relocating portrayals of romantic love, of the prospect and value of girl friendship, of the tricky necessity of selecting experience over sensibility, and of the necessity for girls and males to settle on self-enhancing vocations. This remarkable novel is destined to open up new methods of considering via students of the Romantic period and the historical past of the novel.