[Rarebooks] fa: LADY MORGAN - FRANCE - 1817 First Ed. w/ MS. Marginalia (by FRANCIS JEFFERY?)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 1. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y8ccjsam

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Lady Morgan: France. London: Printed by Henry Colburn, 1817. FIRST EDITION. Two volumes bound in one, large 4to (28 cm), early half calf and plain boards, gilt-lettered spine title, marbled page edges; [iii]-xv, [1], 252, 248, cxv, [1] pp. Joints cracked but holding, bumping/wear to the corners; scattered mostly light spotting, but contents generally quite clean and bright. With an engraved plate of musical notation (not mentioned in Sadleir). Without the half-title, if called for (Sadleir thinks it unlikely it ever existed). Surprisingly, the verso of b1 carries a prominent "Advertisement" from the publisher attacking Lady Morgan for delaying the work's publication and damaging its prospects. Sadleir 1771.

The title-page bears the signature of F. Jeffrey (dated 1817), who presumably also inscribed the penciled corrections and occasionally acerbic annotations in the margins. It is not difficult to believe that this owner/annotator was Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), co-founder and editor of the legendary Edinburgh Review and one of the preeminent literary and social critics of his time. Several of his annotations have had some letters and partial words trimmed away during a later (but not recent) rebinding.

Lady Morgan (ca. 1781-1859), née Sydney Owenson, was a high-spirited, reform-minded Irish-born novelist who in mid-career turned her efforts to non-fiction works. The present work, an examination of French society and culture under the Bourbon Restoration, proved controversial, the conservative Quarterly Review accusing her of impiety and Jacobinism. In 1837 the British government awarded Lady Morgan a pension, reputed to be the first ever granted to a woman.