"In considering the role of women in the social contract or, more pointedly, what happens when women as well as men desire sexual freedom, this book raises some important issues about the quest for sexual and social equality in the seventeenth century whilst providing much original and authoritative material on the literature of the period." Sixteenth Century Journal

• Introduction: the imperfect enjoyment; 1. Hobbes and the libertines; 2. The tyranny of desire: sex and politics in Rochester; 3. Absent from thee; 4. Playing trick for trick: domestic rebellion and the female libertine; 5. My masculine part: Aphra Behn and the androgynous imagination; Index.

"In considering the role of women in the social contract or, more pointedly, what happens when women as well as men desire sexual freedom, this book raises some important issues about the quest for sexual and social equality in the seventeenth century whilst providing much original and authoritative material on the literature of the period." Sixteenth Century Journal

• Introduction: the imperfect enjoyment; 1. Hobbes and the libertines; 2. The tyranny of desire: sex and politics in Rochester; 3. Absent from thee; 4. Playing trick for trick: domestic rebellion and the female libertine; 5. My masculine part: Aphra Behn and the androgynous imagination; Index.

"In considering the role of women in the social contract or, more pointedly, what happens when women as well as men desire sexual freedom, this book raises some important issues about the quest for sexual and social equality in the seventeenth century whilst providing much original and authoritative material on the literature of the period." Sixteenth Century Journal

• Introduction: the imperfect enjoyment; 1. Hobbes and the libertines; 2. The tyranny of desire: sex and politics in Rochester; 3. Absent from thee; 4. Playing trick for trick: domestic rebellion and the female libertine; 5. My masculine part: Aphra Behn and the androgynous imagination; Index.