Marius and Delia

A masterpiece of early modern prose fiction, Marius & Delia was lost to readers for 300 years. Published without an imprint in the mid-1690s, the title page of Marius & Delia identified the author only by the initials D. M. A handwritten attribution on the only known surviving copy credited the work to Deborah Milton, daughter of poet and polemicist John Milton.

Marius & Delia draws together elements from picaresque fiction, Cervantes, Jonson and Restoration comedy to create a unified narrative centered upon a father-daughter relationship, played out against a realistic backdrop of late 17th-century political turmoil-featuring plots and counterplots, peopled by counterfeiters, con artists, alchemists, would-be regicides and all-cause rogues.

This transformative and subversive text exerted a powerful, if cryptic, influence upon the subsequent development of the English novel. Its critiques of gender politics and dominant ideologies – the discourses of patriarchy, property and accumulation – forced it underground in its own time, while establishing its relevance to ours.

This edition includes the complete text of Deborah Milton’s novel, accompanied by a comprehensive introduction, explanatory notes and glossary, as well as other ancillary materials pertinent to its textual history. Essays by five leading scholars explore its significance and offer essential insights to its interpretation.