num_pages: 795
description: Considered by critics to be Barth's masterpiece, The Sot-Weed Factor has acquired the status of a modern classic. Set in the late 1600s, it recounts the wildly chaotic odyssey of hapless, ungainly Ebenezer Cooke, sent to the New World to look after his father's tobacco business &amp; to record the struggles of the Maryland colony in an epic poem. On his mission, Cooke experiences capture by pirates &amp; Indians; the loss of his father's estate to roguish impostors; love for a farmer prostitute; stealthy efforts to rob him of his virginity, which he's almost determined to protect; &amp; an extraordinary gallery of treacherous characters who continually switch identities. A hilarious, bawdy tribute to all the most insidious human vices, The Sot-Weed Factor has lasting relevance for all readers.
language: English
title: The Sot-Weed Factor
titlecomplete: The Sot-Weed Factor
characters: Bertrand Burton, Joan Toast, Captain Cairn, John McEvoy, Charles Calvert, Ebenezer Cooke
genres: Literary Fiction, Literature, Fiction, Humor, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Novels, The United States Of America, American, Classics
ratings_count: 7224
publisher: Flamingo