Quoted from 'one of Sir Walter Scott's works of biography', in chapter entitled 'Oroonoko': '"The editor was acquainted by an old lady of family, who assured him that in her younger days Mrs. Behn's novels were as currently upon the toilette as the works of Miss Edgeworth at present; and described with some humour her own surprise when the book falling into her hands after a long interval of years, and when its contents were quite forgotten, she found it impossible to endure at the age of fourscore what at fifteen she, like all the fashionable world of the time, had perused without an idea of impropriety."'