A Discovery of New Worlds

The first modern edition of Aphra Behn's translation of a charming and witty dialogue by the French writer Bernard de Fontenelle. Although over three hundred years old, Fontenelle's dialogues in a garden over five nights are still a surprisingly painless way to learn about the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars, even though new planets were later discovered and modern science has filled out many details Fontenelle could not have known. This is no lecture, but a conversation with the cut and thrust of intelligent argument as the Marchioness challenges each of the astronomer's assertions and requires him to explain the evidence. Aphra Behn's translation, one of the earliest, adds the feminine wit of a leading dramatist to Fontanelle's work. 'The general applause this little book has met with," she writes in a Preface, "both in France and England, made me attempt to translate it into English. The reputation of the author, the novelty of the subject in vulgar language and the author's introducing a woman as one of the speakers in these five discourse were further motives for me to undertake this little work; for I thought an English woman might adventure to translate anything a French woman may be supposed to have spoken.'