Maiden burst upon the literary scene, published to sensational reviews. Critics celebrated it as a "brilliant comic satire" and novelist Cynthia Buchanan as a superb storyteller, "a powerful voice" whose prose style is stunning. Maiden charts the riotous adventures of a thirty-year-old retro-virgin in rhinestones as she battles the flesh markets of Southern California in 1970. A female Don Quixote, this brave and eccentric heroine plunges forth on a mythic quest for her Dream Man of chivalry. Maiden is a classic of American literature.Cynthia Buchanan's Maiden, which first appeared in 1972, remains one of the most highly reviewed first novels in publishing history. A penetrating and original commentary on the deadly life of the American dream, Maiden is both hilarious 'and powerful social satire. Listed among "best" titles by The New York Times Book Review and the American Library Association, and lauded by the Encyclopedia Britannica as a premier novel, it is taught in American literature courses at Harvard and other major universities.Maiden charts the riotous adventures of a thirty-year-old retro-virgin inrhinestones as she battles the flesh markets of 1970's southern California.A female Don Quixote, this brave and eccentric heroine plunges forth ina mythic quest for her Dream Man of chivalry. A monstrous yet lovableromantic, Fortune Dundy is one of the great heroines in American fiction.