ABSTRACT
272‘The Memoirs of the Court of the King of Bantam’ was first published in the 1698 edition of The Histories and Novels, printed for Samuel Briscoe. An Advertisement to the Reader explains THE Stile of the Court of the King of Bantam, being so very different from Mrs. Behn’s usual way of Writing, it may perhaps call its being genuine in Question; to obviate which Objection, I must inform the Reader, That it was a Trial of Skill, upon a Wager, to shew that she was able to write in the Style of the Celebrated Scarron, in Imitation of whom ’tis writ, tho’ the Story be true.’ Paul Scarron (1610–60) was a French writer of burlesque fiction whose work was very popular in England in translations such as the Comical Romances by J. Davis (1665). The ‘Advertisement to the Reader’ was probably written by Charles Gildon since he signed the dedication of the 1698 volume to Simon Scroop, replacing the dedication of Oroonoko to Maitland which had been used as a general dedication to the 1696 editions.
