Series ✦ Penny’s Take
The Adventures of Rivella
(Mary) Delarivier Manley · 1999
70/100
👍 Worth It
Delarivier Manley writing herself into a novel in 1714 — fictionalising her bigamous marriage, her literary battles, and her romantic life through the frame of a dialogue between two men talking about her — is a fascinatingly strange and bold act, and scholars of early women's writing rightly treat it as significant. For general readers without that context it will be a slog, but the Broadview critical edition makes it navigable. A meaningful piece of literary history for the reader who wants it.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: illicit marriage, sexual reputation, seduction themes in 18th-century amatory fiction conventions · not suitable for general family audiences. We still scored it 70; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety62
substance74
craft70
originality78
accuracy80
hype62
age-fit72
human-eye68
Penny’s verdict70
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