[Rarebooks] fa: EDWARD DU BOIS - OLD NICK: A SATIRICAL STORY 1803 - (re. Cannabis, Mary Wollstonecraft, &c.) - 3 vols./Association Copy

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, May 6. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y7n6m7v3

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Edward Du Bois:] Old Nick; A Satirical Story. In Three Volumes. By the Author of A Piece of Family Biography. London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1803. Three volumes, tall 12mo (17 cm), in later half olive morocco, with the spines tooled in gilt and blind.

The second edition, with a new preface. Both this and the first edition (1801) are uncommon. While OCLC locates a plethora of "eBook" editions in libraries worldwide, hard copies are scarce on the ground. COPAC locates only one copy each of the first, second and Dublin editions. Bindings with modest wear to the extremities, occasional light spotting and toning to the leaves, else clean and sound, firmly bound. Title-pages with the early ownership signatures of "Emma Du Bois," presumably a relation of the author's.

Penniless London gent travels to a country home to act as tutor, befriends the family and falls in love with his friend's fiancée. "It were ungrateful to criticise severely what has much amused us, and has not failed to entertain, ...yet we must acknowledge that the story is in general not well connected; that it is, in many parts, improbable; and that some of the most striking characters are copied from other works. We suspect, however, that this story is intended only as the vehicle of humour, and that the author considers striking situations as of more importance than originality of character" (Critical Review, April, 1802). A witty survey of Regency-era morals and manners, with Du Bois taking satirical jabs at such targets as country squires, booksellers, Rousseau, Voltaire, Mary Wollstonecraft, etc. Though the novel's narrator is generally conservative in outlook, there are exceptions: at one point he paints a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a "kept woman" and at another argues against capital punishment. There is also a description of King's Bench debtors' prison and an unusual mention of cannabis ("amongst us moderns, better known by the vulgar term hemp") as a remedy for love.