[Rarebooks] fa: MARIA EDGEWORTH - LEONORA - Two Vols./First Edition 1806

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 2. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/ll5gs8c

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Maria Edgeworth: Leonora. By Miss Edgeworth. In Two Volumes. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1806. FIRST EDITION. Two volumes, 8vo, in early/period half navy blue calf and marbled boards; [2], 291, [1] pp.; [2], 291, [1] pp. Sadleir 773. Bindings worn and rubbed with scuffing to the marbled paper, spines darkened, loss to bottom fore-corner of vol. II; both vols. with intermittent damp-stain throughout, most noticeable on the preliminaries and first 20 leaves or so.

First edition of Edgeworth's entertaining epistolary novel about the friendship between a virtuous noblewoman and the Continental coquette (a  "she-wolf of France") who sets about seducing her husband. "Contemplating in this work a much more important object than merely the amusement of the reader, Miss Edgeworth endeavours to shew the bad tendency of some of the principles of the modern school, and particularly those which relate to the conduct of the ladies…[But] the strict moralist, on account of the familiar way in which the intrigues of the gay world are mentioned, will perhaps fear for the effects of these volumes in the hands of young persons" (Monthly Review, August, 1807).