This project report relates to The
English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of
Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, general
editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling,
2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In particular it offers fresh
commentary on the entries in the second volume [EN2],
which was co-edited by Peter Garside and Rainer Schöwerling,
with the assistance of Christopher Skelton-Foord and Karin
Wünsche. The present report is the fourth (and last) Update
in a series of annual Reports, each featuring information
that has come to light in the preceding year as a result
of activities in CEIR and through contributions sent by
interested individuals outside Cardiff.
The entries
below are organised in a way that matches the order of
material in the English Novel, 1770-1829. While
it makes reference to any relevant changes that may have
occurred in Updates 1-3, the 'base' it normally refers
to is the printed Bibliography and not the preceding reports.
Sections A and B concern authorship, with the first of
these proposing changes to the attribution as given in
the printed Bibliography, and the second recording the
discovery of new information of interest that has nevertheless
not led presently to new attributions. Section C includes
three additional titles which match the criteria for inclusion
and should ideally have been incorporated in the printed
Bibliography, while Section E involves information such
as is usually found in the Notes field of entries,
and those owning copies of the printed Bibliography might
wish (as in the case of the earlier categories) to amend
entries accordingly. An element of colour coding has been
used to facilitate recognition of the nature of changes,
with red denoting revisions
and additions to existing entries in the Bibliography,
and the additional titles discovered being picked out
in blue. Reference numbers
(e.g. 1806: 12) are the same as those in the English
Novel, 1770-1829; when found as cross references these
refer back to the original Bibliography, unless accompanied
with 'above' or 'below', in which case a cross reference
within the present report is intended. Abbreviations match
those listed at the beginning volume 2 of the English
Novel, though in a few cases these are spelled out
more fully for the convenience of present readers.
This report
(and its addenda) were prepared by Peter Garside, with
significant inputs of information from Drs Jacqueline
Belanger and Sharon Ragaz, on this occasion especially
as a result of a survey of relevant entries in the Ledgers
of the Longman Archives, and work with the Oliver &
Boyd and Blackwood Papers in the National Library of Scotland.
Information was also generously communicated by a number
of individuals, including: Andrew Ashfield, Richard Beaton,
Emma Clery, Isobel Grundy, David Skilton, John Strachan,
and (once more) Professors Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber.
As before, the Cardiff team has benefited from its association
with Projekt Corvey at Paderborn University, most recently
through the joint preparation of a Bibliography of
Fiction, 1830-1836 (available now within Cardiff Corvey,
and abbreviated below as EN3). Thanks are also due to
Michael Bott, of Reading University Library, for help
received in locating materials in the Longman archives;
to Miss Virginia Murray for support and guidance with
the Murray archives; and to the trustees of the National
Library of Scotland [NLS] for permission to quote from
manuscripts in their care.
A: New and Changed Author
Attributions
1802: 3
[PHILIPPS, Janetta].
DELAVAL. A NOVEL. IN TWO VOLUMES.
London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for William Lane,
Leadenhall-Street, 1802.
I 266p, ill.; II 216p. 12mo. 8s boards (CR); 8s (ECB).
CR 2nd ser. 34: 476 (Apr 1802); WSW I: 32.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47405-1; ECB 158; xNSTC.
Notes.The authorship has
been discovered through the appearance of 'Stanzas Inserted
in the Novel of Delaval' in Janetta Philipps's privately
printed Poems (Oxford, 1811), pp. 31-2, these matching
the untitled 5-stanza poem interspersed in the novel above
at I, 116. Further comparison has
revealed that 5 other poetical pieces in the novel are
reprinted in Philipps's Poems, constituting nearly
a third of the items in that volume. Little else has been
found about Janetta Philipps, other than that Shelley
praised her poems and was active in collecting subscribers
for the 1811 volume (see Jackson, p. 256). Thanks are
due to Andrew Ashfield for drawing attention to 'Stanzas
Inserted in the Novel of Delaval'.
Further edn: Newbern, NC,
1804 (NUC).
1806: 6
[?HURRY, Margaret].
DONALD. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed by I. Gold,
Shoe-Lane, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row,
1806.
I 335p; II 324p; III 213p.
12mo. 13s 6d (ECB); 13s 6d boards (ER).
ER 9: 500 (Jan 1807); WSW I:
34.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47448-5;
ECB 168; NSTC D1544 (BI BL, C).
Notes.
Longman Divide Ledger (CD, p. 221) and Commission Ledger
(IC, p. 21) show that 6 copies were sent to Mrs Ives at
Yarmouth and that half profits were paid to a 'Mrs H.'.
'Mrs Ives Hurry' is given as the author on the title-page
of Artless Tales (1808: 59), also published by
Longmans. Mrs Hurry's maiden name was Margaret Mitchell.
The subscription list to Artless Tales includes
6 Yarmouth subscribers, including a Mr James Hurry (among
11 of that surname). The same list also includes a Mrs
T. Ives, who subscribes for 3 copies, as well as three
Miss Mitchells. The ledger nomination of Mrs H. apparently
as the author, similarity of publisher, and a coincidence
of names and East Anglian connections, point strongly
(though not decisively) towards authorship of the above
title by Margaret Hurry.
1808: 13
[?MERIVALE, John Herman].
THE RING AND THE WELL; OR,
THE GRECIAN PRINCESS. A ROMANCE. IN FOUR VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman,
Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, 1808.
I 271p; II 220p; III 249p;
IV 300p. 12mo. 18s (ECB, ER).
ER 12: 524 (July 1808), 13:
507 (Jan 1809); WSW I: 104.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48607-6;
ECB 494; NSTC G1895 (BI E).
Notes.
Longman Divide Ledger (ID, p. 88) shows a number of copies,
some in special bindings, being sent to 'Mr Merrivale'
(or 'Mr M'). This raises the possibility that the author
of this work was John Herman Merivale. Merivale's brother-in-law
was Henry Joseph Thomas Drury (1778-1841), and it is noticeable
that a copy of the novel was also sent to 'H. Drury Esq'.
Merivale was a classical scholar, whose works included
Collections from the Greek Anthology and from the
Pastoral, Elegiac, and Dramatic Poets of Greece (London,
1813). He was also a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine.
1809: 10
[?PORTER, Sir Robert
Ker].
TALES OF OTHER REALMS. COLLECTED
DURING A LATE TOUR THROUGH EUROPE. BY A TRAVELLER. IN
TWO VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row,
1809.
I viii, 199p; II 208p. 12mo. 8s (ECB, ER, QR).
ER 15: 242 (Oct 1809); QR 2: 466 (Nov 1809); WSW I: 118.
Corvey; CME 3-628-51155-0; ECB 575; NSTC T131 (BI O).
Notes. Preface dated London, May 1809. Longman
Divide Ledger (ID, p. 50) shows 6 copies in boards being
sent to 'Miss Porter'. This indicates a connection with
either Jane or Anna Maria Porter, and beyond that possible
authorship by a member of the Porter family. Sir Robert
Ker Porter (1772-1842), their elder brother, had travelled
extensively in Russia, Germany, Finland and Sweden, since
1804, and more recently had accompanied Sir John Moore
on his expedition to Spain. He was the acknowledged author
of Letters from Portugal and Spain, written during
the march of the British Troops under Sir John Moore
(1809), published by Longman & Co, for whom he also
wrote other travel books. In the Preface to the present
work, the author refers to his having added notes to 'the
Spanish story', but having desisted from doing the same
in the case of 'the Sicilian, Swiss, or Portuguese stories'
(vii-viii) Granting the present attribution to Sir Robert
Ker Porter, and the almost certain authorship of Sir
Edward Seaward's Narrative of His Shipwreck (EN3 1831:
57) by William Ogilvie Porter, this would place four of
the Porter siblings as writers of fiction.
1812: 23
[BENGER,
Elizabeth Ogilvy].
MARIAN, A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES.
Edinburgh: Printed for Manners and
Miller; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London,
1812.
I 288p; II 271p; III 250p.
12mo. 15s (ECB, ER, QR).
ER 19: 511 (Feb 1812); QR 7:
471 (June 1812).
Corvey; CME 3-628-48156-2;
ECB 368; NSTC M1135 (BI BL, E, O).
Notes: Benger is given
as the author in FC and NUC; Mme[?] Barbara Pile is listed
as the author by Bentley (p. 94) (also spelt Pilon-p.
72). The absence of any further
evidence about the otherwise unknown Pile, and an increasing
awareness of the provenance of this novel, both argue
strongly for attributing this novel to Benger alone. One
useful pointer is the recommendation of the work to its
Edinburgh publishers as 'the very best novel she had ever
read' by Elizabeth Hamilton, one of Benger's close friends:
see Lady Charlotte Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting,
ed. by A. F. Steuart, 2 vols. (London: Lane, 1908), II,
262.
Further edn: Philadelphia
1812 (NUC).
1815: 17
BUONAPARTE, Louis; K{ENDALL},
E{dward} A{ugustus} (trans.).
MARIA; OR, THE HOLLANDERS:
BY LOUIS BUONAPARTE. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed by J. Gillet,
Crown-Court, Fleet-Street, for H. Colburn, Conduit-Street;
and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row,
1815.
I xvi, 225p; II 189p; III 251p.
12mo. 16s 6d (ECB, ER); 16s (QR).
ER 25: 278 (June 1815); QR
13: 281 (Apr 1815); WSW I: 180.
BL N.1820; ECB 64; NSTC L2387
(BI C, Dt).
Notes: Trans. of Marie,
ou les Hollandoises (Paris, 1814), which is the 2nd
edn. of Marie, ou les peines de l'amour (Gratz,
1812). Preface to the Translation, signed E. A. K., 6
Feb 1815, reads: 'The first edition, under the title of
Marie, ou les peines de l'amour, was printed at
Gratz, in the year 1812. Of that edition, a reprint appeared
in Paris, but, from whatever cause, not before the beginning
of the year 1814. In the interim, the author had made
several alterations in his work, changing some of the
minor incidents of the story, and consequently suppressing
some of his pages, and adding others; and, in the month
of June, 1814, he conveyed, by a written paper, dated
at Lausanne, in Switzerland, and signed "L. de St. Leu,"
to a particular bookseller in Paris, authority to print,
from the original manuscript, with its alterations, a
second edition of his book, under the new title of Marie,
ou les Hollandoises. From this edition, the following
translation has been made' (pp. [v]-vi). OCLC
(Accession No. 5381478) identifies the translator as probably
Edward Augustus Kendall (1776?-1842). This identification
is substantiated by the Longman Divide Ledger entry (2D,
p. 76), where 'Mr Kendall' receives payment of £31. 10.
0. as the 'Translator'.
1819: 18
[?EDWARDS, Mr].
ROBIN HOOD; A TALE OF THE OLDEN TIME. IN TWO VOLUMES.
Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, High
Street; G. & W. B. Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane, London;
and W. Turnbull, Glasgow, 1819.
I 246p; II 221p. 12mo. 12s
(ER).
ER 32: 257 (July 1819).
Corvey; CME 3-628-48615-7;
NSTC 2H28683 (BI BL).
Notes: Oliver
& Boyd ledger entry itemizes £20 'Paid to Mr Edwards
for the copyright' (NLS, MS Accession 5000/1, Copyright
Ledger I, pp. 135-6). Normally in such cases in the Oliver
& Boyd records this refers to the author, though there
is still the possibility that an agent was involved in
this particular case. 8 pp. of separately paged
advs. at the end of vol. 2.
Further edn: 2nd edn. 1819
(NSTC).
1820: 10
[?DIBDIN, Thomas John].
TALES OF MY LANDLORD, NEW SERIES,
CONTAINING PONTEFRACT CASTLE. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed for William
Fearman, New Bond Street, 1820.
I xlvi, 226p; II 290p; III
319p. 12mo.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48870-2;
ECB 575; NSTC 2T1406 (BI BL, E; NA MH).
Notes: Vol. 1 includes
a long 'Publisher's Preface' containing details of a dispute
with John Ballantyne, Walter Scott's literary agent, concerning
the copyright of the Tales of My Landlord series.
See Update 3 under 1820: 10 for
Robert Cadell's report to his partner Constable that 'Thomas
Dibdin is the author'. Additional support for an attribution
to Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841) has since been found
in OCLC's attribution of the follow-up work in this spurious
'new series' to this Dibdin (see Notes to 1821: 17 below).
On the other hand, mention by the Publisher (in a notice
in the Morning Chronicle of 13 Nov 1819) of the
MS of the present work 'coming from a great distance'
would seem to militate against the London-centred Dibdin
being the origin.
Further edns: French
trans., 1821 [as Le Château de Pontefract (Pigoreau)];
German trans., 1824 [as Das Schloss von Pontefract
(RS)].
1820: 12
[SANSAY, Leonora].
ZELICA, THE CREOLE; A NOVEL, BY AN AMERICAN. IN
THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed for William Fearman,
Library, 170, New Bond Street, 1820.
I 243p; II 254p; III 309p.
12mo. 21s (ECB).
ER 35: 266 (Mar 1821); WSW
II: 41.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47473-6;
ECB 654; NSTC 2A10533 (BI BL).
Notes: ER gives 'Madame
de Sansée' as the author. This is
substantiated by the attribution of this title to Leonora
Sansay (b. 1781) by OCLC (Accession No. 22421579). Sansay
is also given in OCLC as the author of Secret History,
or the Horrors of St. Domingo (1808), and of Laura
(1809) 'by a lady of Philadelphia' (where that novel was
published). Both these latter works are mentioned in the
entry on Sansay in FC, though no mention is made there
of the above work and its companion The Scarlet Handkerchief
(see 1823: 12 below). Adv. opp. t.p. of vol. 1
for 'American Novels', announcing two titles 'In the Press,
by the same Author', viz. 'The Scarlet Handkerchief, 3
vols.', and 'The Stranger in Mexico, 3 vols.', which with
the present work 'form a Series of Novels that have been
transmitted to the Publisher from America'. For the first
of these titles, though from another publisher, see 1823:
12.
1820: 28(b)
GENLIS, [Stéphanie-Félicité,
Comtesse] de; [STRUTT, Elizabeth;
formerly BYRON (trans.)].
PETRARCH AND LAURA. BY MADAME
DE GENLIS. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
London: Printed for Henry Colburn
& Co. Public Library, Conduit Street, Hanover Square,
1820.
I xii, 195p; II 213p. 12mo.
10s 6d (ECB).
BL 837.b.27; ECB 225; NSTC
2B54567 (BI Dt, O).
Notes: Trans. of Pétrarque
et Laure (Paris, 1819). This
translation is given as Strutt's in an MS list of her
works found in the Oliver & Boyd Papers held in NLS
(Accession 5000/91).
ER 33: 518 (May 1820);
WSW I: 333.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47801-4;
ECB 168; NSTC 2H36417 (BI BL, C, O).
Notes: Distinct from
Domestic Scenes by Mrs Showes (see 1806: 61).
Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 174) has 'Mrs B' written
on upper right side of ledger entry, in a position where
authors are normally shown; it also records '1 copy bds
[sent to] Mrs Blair'. This is almost certainly Mrs Alexander
Blair, the widow of a ruined industrialist and speculator,
and very probably the same person who is described by
Maria Edgeworth in a letter of 4 Mar 1819 as writing 'novels
if not for bread for butter' (Letters from England,
1813-1844, ed. by Christina Colvin (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1971), p. 173). See also Update 1 (under 1813:
14) for a now disprovedsuggestion that a 'Miss Cox' might
lie behind the pseudonym 'Lady Humdrum'; and Update 3
for further commentary on the Blairs, and their daughter,
the novelist Mary Margaret Busk.
1820: 38
[BLAIR, Mrs Alexander].
DOMESTIC SCENES. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY LADY HUMDRUM,
AUTHOR OF MORE WORKS THAN BEAR HER NAME.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row, 1820.
I 368p; II 359p; III 386p. 12mo. 21s (ECB, ER).
ER 33: 518 (May 1820); WSW I: 333.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47801-4; ECB 168; NSTC 2H36417 (BI BL,
C, O).
Notes. Distinct from Domestic Scenes by Mrs Showes
(see 1806: 61). Longman Divide Ledger
(2D, p. 174) has 'Mrs B' written on upper right side
of ledger entry, in a position where authors are normally
shown; it also records '1 copy bds [sent to] Mrs Blair'.
This is almost certainly Mrs Alexander Blair, the widow
of a ruined industrialist and speculator, and very probably
the same person who is described by Maria Edgeworth in
a letter of 4 Mar 1819 as writing 'novels if not for bread
for butter' (Letters from England, 1813-1844,
ed. by Christina Colvin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971),
p. 173). See also Update 1 (under 1813: 14) for a
now disproved suggestion that a 'Miss Cox' might lie behind
the pseudonym 'Lady Humdrum'; and Update 3 for further
commentary on the Blairs, and their daughter, the novelist
Mary Margaret Busk.
1821: 17
[?DIBDIN, Thomas John].
TALES OF MY LANDLORD, NEW SERIES, CONTAINING THE
FAIR WITCH OF GLAS LLYN. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed for William Fearman,
New Bond-Street, 1821.
I xcvi, 256p; II 360p; III
368p. 12mo. 24s (ER, QR).
ER 35: 525 (July 1821); QR
24: 571 (Jan 1821).
Corvey; ECB 575; NSTC 2T1407
(BI BL, E).
Notes: OCLC
entry (Accession No. 13819230) ascribes to Thomas John
Dibdin (1771-1841), apparently on basis of anonymous MS
note on t.ps. of surviving copy attributing to Thomas
Dibdin of Sadler's Wells. For other evidence in support
of such an attribution, see Update 3 under 1820: 10 and
Notes to 1820: 10 above.
Further edns: French
trans., 1821 [as La Belle Sorcière de Glas-Llyn
(Pigoreau)]; German trans., 1822 [as Die Circe von
Glas-Llyn (RS)].
1821: 67
SOUZA[-BOTELHO], [Adélaide-Marie-Émilie
Filleul, Marquise de Flahaut]; [?RYLANCE,
Ralph (trans.)].
HELEN DE TOURNON: A NOVEL.
BY MADAME DE SOUZA. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. IN TWO
VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman,
Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1821.
I 269p; II 263p. 12mo. 10s
6d (ECB); 10s 6d boards (ER, QR).
ER 35: 266 (Mar 1821); QR 24:
571 (Jan 1821).
BL N.368; ECB 552; NSTC 2F7815
(BI C).
Notes: Trans. of Mademoiselle
de Tournon (vol. 6 of Oeuvres Complètes, Paris,
1821-2). Longman Impression Book
entry (No. 7, fol. 109v) lists 'Payments to Rylance [for]
translating'. This is likely to refer to Ralph Rylance,
the author of several books and pamphlets in this period,
including A Sketch of the Causes and Consequences of
the Late Emigration to the Brazils (1808) for Longman
& Co. Rylance also appears in the Longman ledgers
as a house reader for the firm. He is on record as receiving
payment, for example, for reading and/or correcting the
MSS of Jane West's The Loyalists (1812: 64), Alicia
de Lacy (1814: 60), and Ringrove (1827: 78),
as well as Agnes Anne Barber's Country Belles (1824:
16).
Further edn: Boston
1822 (NUC).
1823: 12
[SANSAY Leonora].
THE SCARLET HANDKERCHIEF. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES.
BY AN AMERICAN, AUTHOR OF ZELICA THE CREOLE, &C. &C.
London: Printed for A. K. Newman and
Co. Leadenhall-Street, 1823.
I 272p; II 264p; III 302p.
12mo. 18s (ECB).
Corvey; CME 3-628-48531-2;
ECB 516; NSTC 2A10524 (BI BL).
Notes: Attribution
to Sansay as a consequence of information relating to
Zelica, the Creole (see Notes to 1820: 12 above).
ECB dates Feb 1823
1823: 14
[BLAIR, Mrs Alexander].
SELF-DELUSION; OR, ADELAIDE D'HAUTEROCHE: A TALE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "DOMESTIC SCENES." IN TWO VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst,
Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1823.
I 365p; II 353p. 12mo. 14s
(ECB, QR); 14s boards (ER).
ER 39: 272 (Oct 1823); QR 29:
280 (Apr 1823); WSW II: 33.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48641-6;
ECB 526; NSTC 2S12804 (BI BL, C).
Notes: Domestic Scenes
was written under the pseudonym of Lady Humdrum (see 1820:
38). 'Mrs Blair' is written on top
right of entry for the present title in Longman Divide
Ledger (2D, p. 175). For the identification of Mrs Alexander
Blair as the author underlying the pseudonymous 'Lady
Humdrum', see extended Note to 1820: 38 above.
1824:
85
[?HOWARD, Francis].
TORRENWALD. A ROMANCE. IN FOUR VOLUMES. BY SCRIBLERUS
SECUNDUS, SOMETIME INSTRUCTOR OF YOUTH, VULGO GRINDER.
London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co. Leadenhall-Street,
1824.
I 315p; II 291p; III 304p; IV 317p. 12mo. 26s (ECB).
WSW II: 38.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48762-5;
ECB 594; NSTC 2S11201 (BI BL, C, O).
Notes: Francis
Howard apparently claims this novel in a letter of 20
Dec 1824 to Oliver & Boyd, while approaching the firm
over another novel of his: '[.] I never wrote a line till
early in June 1823 when literally for want of amusement
I began & wrote a Romance named Torrenwald' (NLS,
Accession 5000/191). Other correspondence in the Oliver
& Boyd papers indicates that he was also the author
of The Vacation, or Truth and Falsehood: A Tale for
Youth (1824). Apart from this, however, nothing has
been discovered about Howard, and his new novel appears
not to have been taken up by Oliver & Boyd.
ECB dates May 1824.
1825: 30
FOUQUÉ, [Friedrich Heinrich
Karl], Baron de la Motte; [GILLIES,
Robert Pierce (trans.)].
THE MAGIC RING; A ROMANCE,
FROM THE GERMAN OF FREDERICK, BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
Edinburgh: Published by Oliver
& Boyd, Tweeddale-Court; and Geo. B. Whittaker, London,
1825.
I xv, 319p; II 344p; III 332p.
12mo. 21s (ECB).
BL N.278; ECB 213; NSTC 2L2906
(BI C, Dt, E, O).
Notes: Trans. of Der
Zauberring (Nürnberg, 1813). Dedication 'to Conrad
Charles, Freyherr von Ämselnburg, in Berlin, translator
of "The Lady of the Lake", "The Bridal of Triermain" and
"The Antiquary" '. Correspondence
between Gillies and George Boyd in the Oliver & Boyd
Papers held in NLS (Accession 5000/191) makes it clear
that Gillies was the translator. ECB dates Nov
1825.
Further edn: another trans.
1846 (NSTC).
1826: 8
[?HALE, Sarah Josepha
Buell].
STRANGER OF THE VALLEY; OR, LOUISA AND ADELAIDE.
AN AMERICAN TALE. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY A LADY.
New-York: Printed for Collins and
Hannay. London: Reprinted for A. K. Newman and Co. Leadenhall-Street,
1826.
I 273p; II 271p; III 262p.
12mo. 16s 6d (ECB).
Corvey; CME 3-628-47472-8;
ECB 565; NSTC 2L1432 (BI BL, C).
Notes: OCLC
(Accession No. 27635457) attributes New York edn. unquestioningly
to Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788-1879). This work is
not listed as Hale's, however in Blanck. ECB dates
Aug 1825. Colophon in each vol. reads: 'J. Darling, Leadenhall-Street,
London'. Originally published New
York 1825 (OCLC).
1828: 9
[STRUTT, Elizabeth; formerly
BYRON].
MARY HARLAND; OR, THE JOURNEY
TO LONDON. A TALE OF HUMBLE LIFE.
Edinburgh: Published by Oliver
& Boyd, Tweeddale Court; and Geo. B. Whittaker, London,
1828.
320p. 18mo. 4s (ECB).
BL 1210.c.18(2); ECB 371; NSTC
2H8444.
Notes: Correspondence
of Elizabeth Strutt and others with George Boyd in the
Oliver & Boyd Papers held in NLS (Accession 5000/192-3)
makes it clear that Strutt was the author of this work.
ECB dates Mar 1828.
1828: 17
[BANIM, Michael].
THE CROPPY; A TALE OF 1798. BY THE AUTHORS OF "THE
O'HARA TALES," "THE NOWLANS," AND "THE BOYNE WATER." IN
THREE VOLUMES.
London: Henry Colburn, New Burlington
Street, 1828.
I 314p; II 299p; III 318p.
12mo. 31s 6d (ECB); 31s 6d boards (ER).
ER 47: 524 (May 1828).
Corvey; CME 3-628-47353-5;
ECB 145; NSTC 2B6685 (BI BL, C, Dt, E; NA MH).
Notes: Letters
from John to Michael Banim during the preparation of this
work indicate that it was authored by Michael alone, and
not as previously given by the brothers together (see
Patrick Joseph Murray, The Life of John Banim, the
Irish Novelist (London, 1857), pp. 180, 190-2).
Dedication 'to Sheffield Grace, Esq, F.S.A. &c.',
signed 'The O'Hara Family'.
Further edns: 1834 (NUC); Philadelphia
1839 (NUC); French trans., 1833.
Facs: IAN (1979).
1829: 6
[ALEXANDER, Gabriel].
MY GRANDFATHER’S FARM;
OR, PICTURES OF RURAL LIFE.
Edinburgh: Published by Oliver
& Boyd, Tweeddale-Court; and Geo. B. Whittaker, London,
1829.
335p. 12mo. 7s (ECB, QR).
QR 39: 525 (Apr 1829).
Corvey; CME 3-628-51100-3;
ECB 403; NSTC 2G17267 (BI BL, C, Dt, E).
Notes: A
letter of receipt in the Oliver & Boyd papers, 15
May 1828, shows Gabriel Alexander acknowledging payment
of £20 sterling for the copyright of this title (Letter
Book, Agreements, 1814-47; NLS, Accession 5000/140). In
the index to the same Letter Book, the author is listed
under 'Alexander, Gabriel, Advocate'. This is almost certainly
the same Alexander Gabriel who was admitted to the Faculty
of Advocates on 25 Jan 1817, and died in 1868. In a letter
of 11 Apr 1834 to the Royal Literary Fund, to whom an
appeal was made, Alexander describes his work as 'a seven
shilling volume which I had published by Oliver &
Boyd Edin. 1828' (RLF 25: 789, Item 1). James Rennie,
writing on his behalf on 20 April 1834, also states that
'The only volume he has had published is 'My Grandfather's
Farm' which I am told in P[aternoster] R[ow] sold very
well' (Item 2). The RLF records show that Alexander was
granted £20. ECB dates Nov 1828.
B: New Information Relating
to Authorship, but not Presently Leading to Further Attribution
Changes
1803: 38 KARAM[Z]IN, Ni[k]olai
[Mikhailovich]; ELRINGTON, John Battersby (trans.),
RUSSIAN TALES. Examination of the 1804 reissue, titled
Tales from the Russian of Nicolai Karamsin (BL
12590 f. 90), shows a completely different set of preliminaries,
which themselves strongly argue for the attribution of
the translation to Andreas Andersen Feldborg. These consist
of a dedication 'to Mr A de Gyldenpalm, His Danish Majesty's
Charge D'Affaires At the Court of Great Britain &c',
in which 'The Translator' speaks 'As a native of Denmark';
and also a 'Translator's Preface' in which the same translator
refers to having 'already the honour of introducing my
author to the British Public, by the translation of his
Travels'. This latter presumably relates to Karamzin's
Travels from Moscow, through Prussia, Germany, Switzerland,
France, and England (London: Printed for J. Badcock
by G. Sidney, 1803)-see OCLC Accession No. 9213044, which
states translated from the German, though no translator
is given. Translation of both works by the same Dane is
strongly implied in a letter of Isaac D'Israeli to John
Murray II, probably belonging to 1803, in the Murray Archives.
Here D'Israeli states: 'I heard last night that Karamsin's
Travels is a very indifferent book. This does not augur
well for Karamsin's Tales; the work in question of the
Dane's. I give you this information in time, that
you may not plunge headlong into any independent engagement
respecting the work. If he has printed 900, it is a good
many; parts of the work should not extend beyond the circle
of a Circulating Library.' It is worth noting that Sidney,
the printer of Karamzin's Travels, appears on the title-pages
of both the 1803 and 1804 Karamzin Tales: alone
in the first case (indicating a private publication),
and with 'J. Johnson, St Paul's Church-Yard' in the second
case. The main body of the work is both instances is made
up from the same sheets, suggesting possibly that Johnson
had bought up remaindered stock for the second issue.
(The 1804 reissue also lacks the two plates found in the
1803 issue, the second of which, facing p. 204, bears
the legend 'Published Novemr 5th 1803'.) If however Feldborg
is adjudged translator, this not only leaves the large
problem of the 1803 edition's title-page attribution of
the translation to John Battersby Elrington, but also
the questions posed by a different set of preliminaries
profiling Elrington as an entirely different kind of entity.
The address 'To My Friends' there in particular refers
to the translator as being 'a Gentleman in Prison, labouring
for Bread'. One potential solution is that Elrington is
a pseudonym of Feldborg's, though this seems a large conjectural
step to take. For further commentary on the larger issues
involved, see Addendum 1 to this Update concerning 'Charles
Sedley'.
1804: 71 WIELAND, C[hristoph]
M[artin]; ELRINGTON, John Battersby (trans.), CONFESSIONS
IN ELYSIUM, OR THE ADVENTURES OF A PLATONIC PHILOSOPHER.
The possibility that Elrington is a pseudonym, and/or
of an involvement by Andreas Anderson Feldborg as translator,
is opened up by the case of 1803: 38 above. The licentiousness
of much of the present text, at least in its translated
form, might seem to match the Elrington persona; translation
of an extensive text 'from the German' would seem to accord
more with Feldborg. One linking factor is the appearance
of G. Sidney as printer again on the titles. For further
commentary on the larger issues involved, see Addendum
1 to this Update concerning 'Charles Sedley'.
1805: 10 ANON, THE MYSTERIOUS
PROTECTOR: A NOVEL. DEDICATED TO LADY CRESPIGNY. The 1821
Catalogue for J. Brown's Circulating Library, Standishgate,
Wigan, attributes this novel to Mrs Crepigny, though most
probably as a result of the incorporation of Lady Crespigny
as the dedicatee within the main title. It is perhaps
worth noting, nevertheless, that the same Mary Champion
de Crespigny is the accepted author of The Pavilion.
A Novel (EN1 1796: 35).
1805: 15 [ANDERSON, Andreas],
*MENTAL RECREATIONS. FOUR DANISH AND GERMAN TALES. BY
THE AUTHOR OF TOUR IN ZEALAND. Attributed to Andreas Anderson,
following Andrew Block, though no actual copy has been
located. A Tour in Zealand, in the Year 1802 (London,
1805), as mentioned in the title above, however, is a
work by Andreas Andersen Feldborg. It is probably significant
too that the pseudonym of 'J. A. Anderson' was used for
Feldborg's later work, A Dane's Excursions in Britain
(1809), where again incidentally the titles refer to the
writer as 'Author of a Tour in Zealand'. In this light
it seems likely that: (a) the pseudonym Andreas Anderson
was actually used in the case of Mental Recreations;
and (b) the true author (or perhaps more accurately, translator)
of the same was Andreas Andersen Feldborg.
1807: 19 DIOGENES [pseud.], THE
ROYAL ECLIPSE; OR, DELICATE FACTS EXHIBITING THE SECRET
MEMOIRS OF SQUIRE GEORGE AND HIS WIFE. WITH NOTES. According
to the review of this work in The Satirist, or, Monthly
Meteor, 1 (1 Oct 1807), it was 'written by the SAME
AUTHOR' (p. 65) as The Infidel Mother (1807:
58), itself attributed on its title-page to (the almost
certainly pseudonymous) Charles Sedley. Another review
in the same issue of The Satirist of Sedley's The
Barouche Driver and His Wife (1807: 57) also furthers
the connection (p. 69), drawing in as well The Royal
Investigation; or, Authentic documents containing the
official acquittal of H.R.H the P-ss of W-s (1807),
'by a Serjeant at law'. The publisher of all four publications
mentioned here was J. F. Hughes. For further commentary
on the larger issues involved, see Addendum 1 to this
Update concerning 'Charles Sedley'.
1808: 9 ANON, MEMOIRS OF FEMALE
PHILOSOPHERS, IN TWO VOLUMES. BY A MODERN PHILOSOPHER
OF THE OTHER SEX. Advertised in The Morning Chronicle
of 19 and 25 Mar 1808 as translated from the German by
the Author of Caroline of Lichtfield and Christina [i.e.
Jeanne-Isabelle-Pauline Polier de Bottens, Baronne de
Montolieu]. Investigations are in process as to whether
this item represents a re-translation back, through the
French, of Charles Lloyd's Edmund Oliver (EN1 1798:
42), itself translated into German as Edmund Olliver,
Seitenstück zu Rousseaus Heloise (1799-1800).
1808: 91 RATCLIFFE, Eliza, THE
MYSTERIOUS BARON, OR THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST, A GOTHIC
STORY. For a possible interconnection with Mary Anne Radcliffe,
the named (but likewise possibly pseudonymous) author
of Manfroné; or, the One-Handed Monk (1809: 61),
see Addendum 2 to this Update.
1809: 51 MORRINGTON, J., *THE
COTTAGE OF MERLIN VALE. The 1814 Catalogue of Robert Kinnear's
Circulating Library in Edinburgh gives the author's name
as 'Isabella Morrington'; that of A. K. Newman's Minerva
Library, London, also 1814, offers the fuller title of
'Fashion's Fool, or the Cottage of Merlin Vale'. Still,
however, no actual copy has been located, to help reconcile
the differing secondary evidence.
1810: 24 [?BAYLEY, Catharine],
CALEDONIA; OR, THE STRANGER IN SCOTLAND: A NATIONAL TALE.
See 1812: 20, below.
1810: 25 [?BAYLEY, Catharine],
THE SPANISH LADY, AND THE NORMAN KNIGHT. A ROMANCE OF
THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. See 1812: 20, below.
1812: 10 ANON, MY OWN TIMES, A
NOVEL. The Longmans Commission Ledger entry for this title
(1C, p. 601) has 'Mr Cormack' at the top right corner
of the entry (where author names often appear), and also
registers payment to 'H Cormack' in the accounts. No likely
Cormack writing at this time, however, has been discovered;
and alternative possibilities are that this person was
the author's agent or a member of the book trade.
1812: 20 [?BAYLEY, Catharine],
A SET-DOWN AT COURT; INCLUDING A SERIES OF ANECDOTES IN
HIGH LIFE, AND THE HISTORY OF MONTHEMAR. A NOVEL, FOUNDED
ON FACT. The identification of 'Mrs Bayley' (given as
the author on the 1816 titles of vols. 2 and 3 of the
Bodleian copy used for this entry) as Catharine Bayley
does not gain further credence from the record of the
latter's appeals to the Royal Literary Fund. A letter
of 27 Aug 1814 to the Fund (RLF 9: 317, Item 1) acknowledges
only 'Vacation Evenings and the little Volume abbreviated
from the Zadig of Voltaire, entitled by her, Zadig and
Astarte, published by Longman & Co Paternoster Row
1809 1810' as individual publications. In the same letter,
Bayley describes herself as 'the Widow of the late Major
Henry Bayley of the Royal Marines', her lack of a widow's
pension (her husband having died nine years ago on half-pay),
and later refers to pieces published by her in periodicals,
'particularly the European Magazine'. No suggestion is
made however of the three chain titles published by 'Kate
Montalbion' and associable with Mrs Bayley (1810: 24,
25, and the above work). Another letter of appeal to the
Fund, dated 12 Nov 1816, again mentions only 'the Vacation
Evenings-now out of print-and my Zadig from Voltaire,
which is nearly so'. The same letter goes on to describe
how 'I have been ill many months, and am now so
reduced that every garment, every necessary even my Wedding
Ring are deposited for the present means of sustenance'
(RLF 9: 317, Item 16). Of course it is quite possible
that Bayley did not wish to acknowledge three novels published
by two far less salubrious publishers than Longmans, viz.
J. F. Hughes and Allen & Co. The apparent reissuing
of A Set-Down at Court in 1816 also tallies interestingly
with Catharine Bayleys's last desperate appeal to the
Fund in that year.
1812: 47 [?MAXWELL, Caroline],
MALCOLM DOUGLAS; OR, THE SIBYLLINE PROPHECY. A ROMANCE.
The question mark qualifying the attribution, hitherto
based on a title-page attribution, can now be removed
in the light of Caroline Maxwell's appeal to the Royal
Literary Fund. In a letter to the Fund dated 12 April
1815, 'Malcolm Douglas. In 3 Volumes. Printed for Hookhams
15 Old-Bond Street' is listed as one of seven published
works by her (RLF 9: 324, Item 1). The same letter, written
on Maxwell's behalf by another, and naming her at the
start as 'Mrs Maxwell of No 9 Margaret Street Cavendish
Square', describes her as a widow with five children (four
of them daughters), one of whom one is now an officer
in the Navy and another established as a governess. The
letter continues that the bankruptcy of both the person
who looked after her funds and of 'a person by whom she
was employed to compose & ornament books for children'
has left her in a state of debt. This letter is docketed
at its head '£10 given'. The presence of the above title
in this letter also further contradicts the Bodleian catalogue
dating of [1824?].
1813: 14 COXE, Eliza A., LIBERALITY
AND PREJUDICE, A TALE. An association of the present author
with the 'Miss Cox' written to by Longman & Co in
1821 as the author of several remainderable novels (see
Update 1 under this title) now looks considerably less
likely. Another contender, for example, could just as
well be Frances Clarinda Adeline Cox, the identified author
of The Camisard; or, The Protestants of Languedoc
(1825: 21), also published by Longmans. The identification
of Mrs Alexander Blair as the author of Domestic Scenes
(1820: 38; see entry under this title, above) also cancels
out any possibility of a connection with the pseudonymous
'Lady Humdrum'.
1814: 12 BATTERSBY, John. TELL-TALE
SOPHAS, AN ECLECTIC FABLE, IN THREE VOLUMES. FOUNDED ON
ANECDOTES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. The author name John
Battersby interestingly echoes that of John Battersby
Elrington (see items 1803: 38 and 1804: 71 above); while
the salacious nature of the contents is reminiscent of
the scandal novels supposedly by Charles Sedley. Characteristic
of this latter quality is the conversation involving two
fashionable ladies in the first item ('An Invisible Traveller,
or Peep into Bond-Street'): ' "Why-the BOOK!
Don't you know, that the P***** is the wickedest fellow
that ever breathed; and the dear charming P******* the
most virtuous and most injured creature in the whole world
[.]" ' (I, 11-12). The text also
makes use of the long ellipses, supposedly veiling unmentionable
matter, which are a familiar feature of the Sedley novels
and associated titles. For further commentary on the larger
issues involved, see Addendum 1 to this Update concerning
'Charles Sedley'.
1818: 50 [?PHILLIPS, John], LIONEL:
OR, THE LAST OF THE PEVENSEYS. A NOVEL. The question mark
qualifying the attribution, hitherto based on correspondence
in the Longman Letter Books, can now be removed in the
light of further evidence found in the entry for this
title in the Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 86), where
'John Phillips' is written in the margin after the detailing
of a payment to the author.
1819: 6 ANON, THE ENGLISHMAN IN
PARIS; A SATIRICAL NOVEL. WITH SKETCHES OF THE MOST REMARKABLE
CHARACTERS THAT HAVE RECENTLY VISITED THAT CELEBRATED
CAPITAL. Jarndyce CLIV, Item 265, lists as by 'Brown,
Thomas the Elder, pseud.?', evidently on the basis of
half-title adverts there for two other satirical novels
attributable to the pseudonymous Brown. In terms of contemporary
practice, the original publisher's apparent ploy to make
an association between the titles in our own view does
not constitute enough to make an attribution.
1819: 49 MOORE, Mrs Robert, EVELEEN
MOUNTJOY; OR, VIEWS OF LIFE. A NOVEL. OCLC (Accession
No. 47116197) gives author's name as Eleanor Moore, perhaps
mistakenly. The Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 153) has
'Mrs A. A. Moore, Fletching, near Uckfield, Sussex' written
at top right hand corner above entry for this title. Neither
naming seems strong enough to warrant replacing Mrs Robert
Moore as found on the title-page.
1820: 32 HEFFORD, John, CRESTYPHON,
A THEBAN TALE: AND THE VANDAL ROBBERY, A CATHARGINIAN
TALE. OCLC (Accession No. 13323716) attributes to both
John Hefford and Mrs A. Yossy. The possibility of an involvement
by Ann Yosy or Yossy also gains some support from a letter
(signed A Yosy) of 1833 to the Royal Literary Fund: 'I
have subjoined a list of the works which I have published
being besides the Switzerland 2 Classic Tales and a novel
in four Volumes entitled "Constance and Leopold" [.]'
(RLF 16: 534, Item 11). The last work mentioned must be
Constancy and Leopold (1818: 62), which in the
titles is given as by 'Madame Yossy, author of Switzerland'.
The 'Switzerland' thus mentioned is evidently Switzerland
[.] Interspersed with Historical Anecdotes (2 vols.,
1815), the poor returns for which is a subject of complaint
in an earlier letter of Yossy's to RLF headed 24 May 1825
(16: 534, Item 4). As argued in the relevant entries of
EN2, the confusion of Yossy's non-fictional Switzerland
with Tales from Switzerland (1822: 12) best explains
the almost certainly incorrect attribution of the latter
title and its successors to her authorship. Unfortunately
the list of titles mentioned in the letter of 1833 to
RLF has apparently not survived. The name of John Hefford
has not been found in association with any other title
of this period, nor has anything positive been discovered
about the 'Commercial College, Woodford' as given as his
domain in the extended title of the present work. One
wonders whether the '2 Classic Tales' claimed in 1833
represent this title, possibly written in association
with Yossy at an educational establishment. The address
given at the head of Yossy's letter of 24 May 1825, however,
is 14 Pultney Terrace, Pentonville.
1820: 40 [JONES, George], SUPREME
BON TON: AND BON TON BY PROFESSION. A NOVEL. George Jones
is identified as the author of the chain of novels associated
with the pseudonymous Leigh Cliffe (see also 1822: 49,
1823: 49, 1829: 49). This sequence of novels in nevertheless
claimed by Christian Frederick Wieles in approaches to
the Royal Literary Fund. The first letter of appeal, of
13 Nov 1821 and signed Christian F. Wieles, mentions his
having 'published several works exclusive of criticisms
and miscellaneous articles for the London Magazine',
and refers to his forwarding of what could be the present
work: 'I presume to send three volumes of a light work
which I have published with far more praise than profit'
(RLF 12: 444, Item 1). In another letter of 10 June 1823
Wieles specifically mentions the two subsequent 'Leigh
Cliffe' titles, both of which list Supreme Bon Ton
as a work by the same author on their title-pages: 'My
case is very hard, and I am placed in the most unpleasant
circumstances through the conduct of my Publisher, who,
for two works-"The Knights of Ritzburg" and "Temptation"
has only given me two small Bills of Five pounds each,
which have been months overdue and are not yet, even in
part, paid' (12: 444, Item 3). All four novels in the
chain are listed by title and date in a later appeal to
RLF in 1842 (12: 444, Item 14): the same application also
listing the poem Parga (1819). The London addresses
given at the head the letters of 1821 and 1823 are, respectively,
32 Frederic Place, Hampstead Road, and 9 Tonbridge Street,
Brunswick Square. The 1842 application involves a printed
form, on which the applicant describes himself as 'Christian
Frederic Wieles Leigh Cliffe', his address as 27 S[outh]
Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, and his age as 43. On
the surface of things this would seem to offer rock-hard
evidence for attribution to Wieles rather than Jones.
However caution is still needed, arguably, pending an
explanation for the name George Jones.
1821: 6 ANON, HAPPINESS; A TALE,
FOR THE GRAVE AND THE GAY. This title is advertised as
'by the author of No Fiction' [i.e. of 1819: 56,
by Andrew Reed] in The Edinburgh Evening Courant
on 1 Dec 1821 and 19 Jan 1822. This direct attribution
has not however been found in the London newspapers viewed,
though the two works are often compared or advertised
together there. The most likely explanation is that the
Edinburgh paper turned a general association into a more
direct connection. Examination of the two works themselves
has revealed no striking similarities, though both are
in a didactic moral register and have the publisher Francis
Westley on their imprints. Granted the success of No
Fiction (6 edns. by 1822), it would only be natural
for the publishers to try and connect this new work with
its popularity.
1822: 49 [JONES, George], THE
KNIGHTS OF RITZBERG. A ROMANCE. For evidence that the
true author is Christian Frederic Wieles, see 1820: 40
above.
1823: 49 [JONES, George], TEMPTATION.
A NOVEL. For evidence that the true author is Christian
Frederic Wieles, see 1820: 40 above.
1823: 56 LEWIS, Miss M. G., GWENLLEAN.
A TALE. The author's forenames can be expanded to Mary
Gogo, as used in this author's appeal to the Royal Literary
Fund (14: 507). The choice of the initials 'M. G.' for
this title was possibly motivated by a desire, originating
most likely from the publisher, to echo the familiar authorial
name of M. G. ['Monk'] Lewis.
1824: 56 [JONES, Hannah Maria],
THE GAMBLERS; OR, THE TREACHEROUS FRIEND: A MORAL TALE,
FOUNDED ON RECENT FACTS. A letter from Thomas Byerley
to the publisher George Boyd of 11 Aug 1824 contains the
following postscript, which raises some questions about
the attribution of the above to Hannah Maria Jones: 'Has
Robertson sent you Haynes novel of the Gambler. I read
one or two scenes which are admirable & his name stands
well in London' (NLS, MS Accession 5000/191). The two
authors called Haynes known to have written fiction at
this time are D. F. Haynes, Esq, author of Pierre and
Adeline (1814: 30), and Miss C. D. Haynes, author
of a number of novels from 1818 on. It is of course possible
that Byerley (editor of the Literary Chronicle
and assistant editor of the Star newspaper) mistakes
the authorship of the present novel. A play called The
Gamblers, by H. M. Milner, was also published in 1824.
1824: 68 MOORE, Hannah W., ELLEN
RAMSAY. The Longmans Divide Ledger entry (2D, p. 292)
for this title shows a number of special copies being
sent to 'Mr Lubé[?]. This might just possibly point to
a different authorship of the novel, which if it were
the case would mean that Hannah W. More is an eye-catching
pseudonym. A Dennis George Lubé was the author of An
Analysis of the Principles of Equity Pleading (1823),
which by itself does not point to novel writing. It is
also noteworthy that Longman & Co themselves were
later to complain in a letter to Mr [William?] East of
14 Dec 1827 about defacement of the title-page-presumably
of remaindered copies- to 'cause it to be supposed the
said work was written by Mrs Hannah More' (Letter Books,
Longman, I, 202, no. 67A).
1825: 53 [LEWIS, Miss M. G.],
Ambition. The author's forenames can be expanded to Mary
Gogo, as used in this author's appeal to the Royal Literary
Fund (14: 507). See also 1823: 56 above.
1826: 11 APPENZELLER, [Johann
Konrad], GERTRUDE DE WART; OR, FIDELITY UNTIL DEATH. The
entry for this title in the Longman Commission Ledger
(3C, p 143) has written in the top right corner: 'Revd.
W. H. Vivians, 2 Hans Place'. This might signify that
Vivians was the translator, and this work is listed under
his name in the Index to the Archives of the House
of Longman, compiled by Allison Ingram (Cambridge:
Chadwyck--Healey Ltd, 1981). John Henry Vivian
[sic] (1785-1855) was the author of Extracts
of Notes taken in the Course of a Tour [.] of Europe [.]
1814 and 1815, published by Longman & Co, 1822.
1827: 10 ANON, STORIES OF CHIVALRY
AND ROMANCE. Longman Commission Ledger entry for this
title (3C, p. 217) has 'Mr Davis, 7 Throgmorton St' written
at top right hand corner, perhaps providing a clue to
the authorship. No suitable 'Davis' writing at this period
has been discovered, however, and the name could feasibly
be that of a literary agent or banker.
1827: 51 [?MAGINN, William], THE
MILITARY SKETCH-BOOK. REMINISCENCES OF SEVENTEEN YEARS
IN THE SERVICE ABROAD AND AT HOME. BY AN OFFICER OF THE
LINE. Update 1 provides evidence of use of the pen name
'Officer of the Line' by a presumably Irish author other
than William Maginn (1793-1842). A more recent report
has suggested that the true author of Tales of Military
Life (1829: 58), the follow-up to this title, is Daniel
Wentworth Maginn, a military surgeon. Further investigations
are being made.
1828: 1 ANON, DE BEAUVOIR; OR,
SECOND LOVE. Update 3 has cited- a letter of George Croly's
identifying the author as a female acquaintance: 'A lady,
the widow of an officer, & friend of mine, has just
published a novel, De Beauvoir. Or Second Love
[.]' (to William Blackwood, 21 Jan 1828: NLS, MS 4021,
fol. 126). A possible identification of that lady/widow
can be now claimed on the basis of the entry for this
title in the Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 46), where
'Mrs Foote 45 Sloane St' is written at the top right corner.
This in turn might lead possibly to Maria Foote (1797?-1867),
the celebrated actress; though, if this is the case, Croly's
description of her as a widow was more decorous than accurate.
OCLC (Accession No. 47870384) interestingly describes
a pamphlet-sized Amatory Proceedings of a Well-known
Sporting Colonel with Miss Foote, and numerous ladies
of all descriptions (1830), possibly removed from
Amatory Biography, or Lives of the Seductive Characters
of both Sexes of the Present Day.
1828: 38 [?DEALE, . or ?LUTTRELL,
Henry], LIFE IN THE WEST; OR, THE CURTAIN DRAWN. A NOVEL.
The argument for Henry Luttrell's authorship, as found
in Wolff, stems from Craven Derby, or the Lordship
by Tenure (1832), which carries on its title-page
'by the author of Crockford's: or, Life in the West',
and is ascribed to Henry Luttrell (as an alternative to
'-- Deale') in H&L. It is worth considering, however,
whether the ascription of Craven Derby is itself
flawed, as a result of a confusion with Crockford-house;
a rhapsody in two cantos (1827), which is more positively
identifiable as by Henry Luttrell (1765?-1851). It may
also be worth noting that OCLC (Accession 20312659) attributes
Life in the West to 'Deale, Mr.'.
1828: 70 [?SCARGILL, William Pitt],
PENELOPE: OR, LOVE'S LABOUR LOST. A NOVEL. Updates 1 and
3 discuss this title within the context of the problematical
issue of Scargill's overall output. It is perhaps worth
noting in addition that Henry Crabb Robinson evidently
had no doubts about this particular title, as well as
an impeccable source in the author himself: 'Read today
the first volume of Scargill's Penelope-a dull
but clever novel. Scargill says it has been praised by
Lamb': Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their Writers,
ed. by Edith J. Morley (London: Dent, 1938), I,
358.
1829: 49 [JONES, George], MARGARET
CORYTON. For evidence that the true author is Christian
Frederic Wieles, see 1820: 40 above.
1829: 58 [?MAGINN, William], TALES
OF MILITARY LIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE MILITARY SKETCH
BOOK." See 1827: 51, above, for a new suggestion that
the true author of this work is actually Daniel Wentworth
Maginn, a military surgeon.
C: New Titles for Inclusion
1815
WOODHOUSE, Thomas Rhodes.
THE TWO BARONS; OR, ZINDORF
CASTLE, A BOHEMIAN ROMANCE.
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees,
Orme, and Brown, 1815.
3 vols. 12mo.
CtY In.W8585.815T [not seen];
xNSTC.
Notes.
An account, apparently for this title, is found in the
Longman Commission Ledger (2C, p. 291), positioned after
an account for Henrietta Rhodes' Rosalie; or, the Castle
of Montalabretti (1811: 68). The present title bears
a strong resemblance to Vileroy; or, the Horrors of
Zindorf Castle (1842), though this is normally attributed
to Elizabeth Caroline Grey.
1818
BOYD, Arabella.
THE FOUNDLING ORPHAN AND
HEIRESS: A NOVEL. IN TWO VOLUMES.
Belfast: Printed by F. D.
Finlay, 1818.
2 vols.
Linen Hall Library, Belfast
BPB1818.15 [not seen]; xNSTC.
Notes.
Might possibly be a juvenile work, though use of 'Novel'
in title and 2-vol. size point to adult fiction.
1823
ANON.
THE LEGEND OF MOILENA; OR, THE PRIEST OF ASHINROE.
London: Geo. Corvie & Co.; Dublin, John Cumming, 1823.
1 vol. 8vo.
[not seen] ; xNSTC.
Notes.
Information above courtesy of Rolf Loeber. Summers (p.
384) lists 'Legend of Moilera [sic], The. A Tale.
Minerva-Press, Newman. [1812]'; but this title is not
in Blakey.
Further edn: London,
A. K. Newman, 1828: this recently featured in Jarndyce
CLVI (Item 371). Jarndyce commentary
speculates whether National Library of Ireland's catalogue
description of a Newman '1823' edn. (Ir.82379.13) contains
a misprint for 1828.
D: Titles Previously not
Located for Which Holding Libraries
Have Subsequently Been Discovered
Nothing new to report for this section.
E: New Information Relating
to Existing Title Entries
1802: 8 ANON, *THE MYSTERIES OF
ABRUZZO, by the author of the child of doubt, &c.
Title as conjectured derives from Corvey 2nd edn. 1802.
Catalologue (1808) of Richards's Circulating Library nevertheless
lists 'Parental Turpitude, or the Mysteries of Abruzzo'.
This is matched by ECB 432, which has: 'Parental turpitude;
or the Mysteries of Abruzzo. 12mo, 3s, Treppas, Aug. 1801.'
This might then represent the 1st edn. and original title
of present work, though it is worth noting that the ECB
pricing points to a smaller production than 1802: 8.
1803: 11 ANON, NOTHING NEW, A
NOVEL; IN WHICH IS DRAWN CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES FROM
MODERN AND FASHIONABLE LIFE. OCLC (Accession No. 52903117)
describes the following: Nothing New! or, Louisa, the
Orphan of Lennox Abbey: a Novel (London, J. Barfield,
3 vols., 1803). It should be noted that 1803: 11, with
its different sub-title, bears the printer's mark of J.
Barfield. There is a strong likelihood that this and the
present title are variant issues of the same novel as
published in 1803. This in turn reinforces the view that
Louisa; or, the Orphan of Lenox Abbey (1807: 1)
is a reissue, in which case ideally it should not have
been given a separate entry.
1807: 1 ANON, *LOUISA; OR, THE
ORPHAN OF LENOX ABBEY. See 1803: 11 above for further
evidence that this represents a reissue.
1817: 3 ANON, HARDENBRASS AND
HAVERILL; OR, THE SECRET OF THE CASTLE, A NOVEL. The presence
of an entry for this title in the Longman Commission Ledger
(2C, p. 23), accounting for 500 copies, would seem to
point to at least a share by that firm in the publication.
All secondary sources seen, however, reinforce the Sherwood,
Neely, and Jones imprint described in the existing entry.
Appendix F: 4 DARLING, P[eter]
M[iddleton], PATERNAL LOVE; OR, THE REWARD OF FRIENDSHIP.
This title is listed in the Monthly Review, 76
(Jan 1815), p. 102. The format is given as 12mo (no pagination
given), and the price at 6s sewed, the imprint being Gale
& Co. 1814. The short notice reads: 'The heroine of
this tale is a young lady of Norway, attired in a gypsey
straw-bonnet, who refreshes herself after sultry days
by taking evening walks along "the winding shores of the
Atlantic ocean." No peculiarities of climate, language,
or manners, are regarded, and the most common rules of
grammar are repeatedly violated, in this defective performance.'
This new evidence strengthens the claim for this work
to be included in the main listings, though some uncertainty
about its length and whether or not a juvenile audience
is targeted remain.
F: Further Editions Previously
not Noted
Information secured after Update 3, chiefly
as a result of a full search through OCLC World-Cat, has
been incorporated in our online website British Fiction,
1800-1829: A Database of Production, Circulation &
Reception (forthcoming, October 2004).
Addendum
1: Charles Sedley
Jacqueline Belanger
and Peter Garside
'Charles Sedley [pseud.?]' is credited
with the authorship of six titles in volume 2 of the English
Novel, 1770-1829. Four of these bore the name of Charles
Sedley on the title-page: The Barouche Driver and his
Wife: A Tale for Haut Ton (1807: 57); The Infidel
Mother; or, Three Winters in London (1807: 58); The
Faro Table; or, the Gambling Mothers (1808: 97); and
A Winter in Dublin: A Descriptive Tale (1808: 98).
A fifth title (evidently the last in the series), Asmodeus;
or, the Devil in London (1808: 96), effectively identifies
Sedley through title-page attribution to 'the Author of
"The Faro Table," "A Winter in Dublin", &c. &c.
&c.'; while a sixth (and probably the first), The
Mask of Fashion; A Plain Tale (1807: 59), though sometimes
given to Thomas Skinner Surr, is mentioned as a work of
Sedley's on the titles of The Winter in Dublin
and The Infidel Mother.
All six
titles were published by James Fletcher Hughes, then tilting
his output away from lurid Lewisian Gothic 'horror' novels
towards a peculiarly acerbic kind of topical 'scandal'
fiction: see Peter Garside, 'J. F. Hughes and the Publication
of Popular Fiction, 1803-1810, The Library, 6th
ser. 9.3 (September 1987), 240-58. All six 'Sedley' titles
featured a dated preface or dedication, indicative of
a fashionably mobile person: The Mask of Fashion,
London, November 1806; The Infidel Mother, London,
March 1807; The Barouche Driver and His Wife, Brighton
Cliffs, 19 July 1807; A Winter in Dublin, Ramsgate,
17 October, 1807; Asmodeus, London, April 1808.
Two are dedicated to aristocratic figures: The Mask
of Fashion to the Duchess of St Albans; and The
Barouche Driver to the Earl and Countess of Jersey.
As a whole, a strong sense of a palpable originating author
is given in the preliminaries (the BL copy of the Barouche
Driver actually has an inscription 'From the Author'
on the half-title to vol. 1). When assailed on the score
of slander in A Winter in Dublin, J. F. Hughes
(according to a 'Postcript' [sic] by him in The
Faro Table) denied the existence of any real author
named Sedley: 'I informed him that Charles Sedley was
a fictitious person' (ii, 182). Hughes's own presence
tends to be increasingly invasive in the later titles.
Who then
might have been Sedley? Though the majority of modern
catalogues list it without indicating pseudonymity, the
name most probably derives from the Restoration rake,
Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701; and who, in OCLC, is listed
as author of these novels!). Sedley was also commonly
used as a name for licentitious characters in contemporary
fiction. For instance, Frances Burney's Sir Sedley Clarendel
in Camilla (1796), or Isaac D'Israeli's Sedley
in Vaurien (1797), whose 'life was a system of
refined Epicurism' (II, 58). Research
carried out in CEIR during the last three years, especially
by Jacqueline Belanger, has brought us tantalisingly close
to identifying a true author, though in the final count
the sheer complexities of the evidence discovered has
made it necessary to withdraw from positive identification.
The remainder of this report concentrates on three possible
contenders for the dubious credit of authorship.
i) John
Battersby Elrington
The name of John Battersby Elrington
features on the title-pages of two works of fiction in
the early 1800s, each time as translator. The first of
these is Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin's Russian Tales
(1803: 38), the second is Christoph Martin Wieland's Confessions
in Elysium (1804: 71). On the surface of things, these
two foreign works (both probably translated from German)
look unlikely sources. Rather surprisingly, however, each
contains prefatory material reminiscent in some respects
of the Sedley preliminaries. In Russian Tales an
unpaginated address 'To My Friends', signed 'J. B. E.
Borough Oct 10, 1803', figures the translator as 'but
a Gentleman in Prison, labouring for Bread. It is a trifle
[.] without merit; [.] a mere essay in Famine'. Another
such statement, 'To the World', also contains just a hint
(albeit metaphorically) of the voluptuary mode that was
to become one of Sedley's trademarks: 'I have attempted
to dress a Foreign Beauty in an English Costume; and,
while the simplicity of Nature, and the sensibilities
of the heart, are objects of admiration, I have every
thing to hope-nothing to apprehend.'
Confessions
in Elysium, for its part, includes a dedication 'to
His Royal Highness Prince William Frederick of Glocester
[sic]', signed 'I. B. Elrington, London, March
1st, 1804'. It also contains its own address 'To the World',
where again one senses an inclination towards voluptuary
language, as well as a penchant for extended ellipses,
suggestive of either breathless wonder and/or unmentionable
material; this last address is signed 'I. B. E., London,
March 1st 1804'. In this instance, such intimations are
fully realised, in a species of erotic description that
may or may not derive from Wieland: 'She [an "amorous
Priestess"] half reclined upon a sopha magnificently embroidered
[.] and richly spangled with pearls and variegated precious
stones . There was an easy negligence in her dress' (II,
155). It is also worth noting the similarity between Elrington's
full name and that of 'John Battersby', the named author
of Tell-Tale Sophas: an Eclectic Fable (1814: 12),
which is filled with similar descriptions along with the
more domestic scandal materials associated with Sedley.
Perhaps significantly the printer of Tell-Tale Sophas
is D. N. Shury, J. F. Hughes's most commonly used printer
(there is a possibility of a later issue of sheets which
had fallen victim of Hughes's collapse in 1809/10).
A series
of strong intimations that Elrington was the concealed
author of the 'Sedley' titles have been discovered in
The Satirist, or, Monthly Meteor, a periodical
(founded in 1807) deeply involved in the scandals surrounding
the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Duke of York,
c. 1807-9. In a series of review articles attacking
Sedley with all-out vigour, this magazine all but spelled
out what in completed form is surely meant to be Elrington.
For instance, in its review of The Infidel Mother:
'[.] the cloven foot of E--n stares the reader full in
the face throughout this Infidel Mother: which, to conclude,
is one of the most disgusting farragoes of absurdity ever
put together' (vol. 1, 1 November 1807, p. 185). Likewise,
aprops Asmodeus: 'When we contemplate the present
piteous condition of the wretched Charles Sedley, alias
E--n, we cannot repress that species of compassion which
a humane judge would feel at the sight of a criminal,
whom he had sentenced, expiring on the rack' (vol. 2,
1 June 1808, p. 438). In other articles, The Satirist
uncovered what it took to be the same authorship of two
works dealing more directly with the topical royal scandals
(see under 1807: 19 in Update 4 above). Lastly, in alluding
to a civil action for damages in which its publisher was
the defendant, The Satirist at the onset of a feature
titled 'The Satirist and Pickpockets' spelled out the
name in full: 'The SATIRIST having
excited the wrath of Messrs. Finnerty, Hague, Ellrington,
alias Charles Sedley, Esquire, Cobbett, and the whole
fraternity of pickpockets [.]' (vol. 4, 1 January 1809,
p. 1).
This might
all seem conclusive evidence, were it not for the fact
that it has not so far been possible to verify the existence
of a real John Battersby Elrington. Perhaps significant,
too, is The Satirist's apparent uncertainty at
one point as to whether Elrington is itself a pseudonym.
ii) Andreas Andersen
Feldborg (1782-1838)
This Danish writer would make the
most unlikely of candidates, were it not for a bibliographical
mystery surrounding the English translation of Karamzin's
Tales. As described in Update 4 (see under 1803:
38), the 1804 reissue of this work lacks any mention of
Elrington in the title or preliminaries, while the latter
strongly suggest the very different persona of a Danish
translator (while at the same time in procedure strangely
paralleling the Elrington preliminaries). This time the
dedication (dated 'London, 5th Nov. 1803' and signed 'The
Translator') is to the Danish Ambassador. The 'Translator's
Preface' then alludes to previous work on Karamzin's Travels
(1803), for the accomplishment of which he expresses gratitude
to 'her royal Highness the Duchess of York' (p. v). Correspondence
in the Murray archives (see Update 4) also points to the
translation of both Karamzin's Tales and Travels
by the same Dane, who, even without this kind of support,
seems a more likely translator of foreign literature than
Elrington. One noticeable typographical feature of the
main sheets, which are identical in both issues, is the
use of a succession of a dots, in the form of extended
ellipses, to indicate pauses etc.
According
the Dansk Biografisk Lexicon (Copenhagen, 1887-1905),
Feldborg (who is described as a 'literary vagabond') came
to England in 1802, wrote on the English naval victory
over the Danes, translated materials, and returned to
Denmark in 1810. There is also evidence that he dabbled
at least once more in fiction. For evidence indicating
that Mental Recreations. Four Danish and German Tales,
apparently written as by 'Andreas Anderson', was his work,
see Update 4, under 1805: 15. Feldborg's departure from
Britain near the end of the decade also matches
with evidence within another of his productions, A
Dane's Excursions in Britain (1809), written under
the half-pseudonym of J. A. Andersen. In this the publisher
explains the abrupt ending as follows, in an end statement
dated 25 August 1809: 'Here end the "Excursions" of the
Dane.-Mr. Andersen, the Author of a Tour in Zealand, the
Translator of the Great and Good Danes, Norwegians, and
Holsteinians, and the writer of the present volumes, has
suspended his task, and made, as the Publisher must think,
an excursion from Britain!' (II,
121) Though the samplings are small, one cannot help noticing
an air of amazement in statements concerning Feldborg,
as if a kind of rather outrageous person was involved.
One possibility
from the above is that Elrington (and so Sedley) was yet
another pseudonym of Feldborg's, though, if so, it hard
to believe that a foreign incomer could have such a grasp
of domestic scandal. Another is that Feldborg and Elrington
were involved in some kind of strange collaboration, momentarily
visible through the two issues of Karamzin's Tales.
It would be useful to compare the hand written inscriptions
that are to be found in the British Library copies of
the 1803-issued Karamzin Tales (BL 12591.h.21)
and The Barouche Driver (BL 12613.g.14), to see
if there is any similarity in hand. (The inscription in
the 1803 Tales reads: 'To Doctor William Tenant,
This little volume, is, most respectfully, presented by
the translator'.)
iii)
Davenport Sedley
The activities of such an actual person,
indexed there as 'blackmailer and extortionist', are described
in Iain McCalman's Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries
and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840 (Cambridge,
1988; Oxford: Clarendon Press edn., 1993). By McCalman's
account: 'Sedley had a vulture's instinct for corruption,
and the Regent's vendetta against Princess Caroline, as
well as the Duke of York's indiscretions with Mary Anne
Clarke, provided him with especially rich pickings. His
technique was to furnish victims with a title page and
extracts from a projected book containing what he typically
described as "extreamly unpleasant matter". He would then
offer to have the embarrassing material suppressed or
expurgated for a price' (pp. 35-6). According to McCalman,
there is evidence that Sedley had United Irish affiliations,
and that 'he had been sent in May 1799 from Dublin gaol
to England on a warrant for swindling and embezzlement'
(p. 36). (It is worth noting here that the name Elrington
itself has strong Irish connotations-there was, for example,
an Irish Bishop Elrington, Provost of Trinity College,
Dublin-and the surname might just possibly have been adopted
by Davenport Sedley as a nom de guerre). Considering
the gravitational pull of the main Sedley scandal novels,
it is also interesting find that Davenport Sedley appears
to have gained access to 'The Book', concerning the 'Delicate
Investigation' of Princess Caroline, no doubt making hay
from this out of the establishment's desire for its suppression
(see p. 42). It is just feasible, then, that the Sedley
part of Charles Sedley was a true name, and that J. F.
Hughes's output was more fully involved in extortion than
has been realised. If so, Hughes was clearly telling at
least a half-lie when claiming Sedley was a fictitious
person. Granted the large body of scandal included, furthermore,
it would also seem that any attempts to gain payment for
suppression of materials were by no means always successful!
Conclusion
The six Sedley novels reflect so much the surreptitious
world of scandal-mongering at this period as well as the
underhand activities of a still largely unregularised
book trade that it is highly possible the mystery of Sedley's
true identity will never be solved. Other possibilities
exist as well as the options listed above. One is that,
in spite of the projection of such a distinct author identity,
these texts were put together from a variety of sources,
representing in some respects a kind of pastiche. It has
been discovered, for example, that a whole sequence in
The Faro Table (see 3rd edn., I,
105-10), feeds on an account supposedly given by a 'Femme
de Chambre' in an early issue of The Pic Nic
(vol. 1, no. 6, Saturday, 12 February, 1803, pp. 203-8),
a periodical run by a number of individuals active on
the less respectable margins of London theatre life and
published by J. F. Hughes. In the light of his increasing
invasiveness in the later Sedley titles, it is also tempting
to think that Hughes himself had a hand in creating and/or
assembling materials. Certainly his own disappearance
as a publisher, probably from inescapable bankruptcy,
presently offers as good a reason as any for the disappearance
of 'Charles Sedley'.
Addendum
2: Mary Anne Radcliffe / Louisa Bellenden Ker
Peter Garside,
with Sharon Ragaz, Jacqueline Belanger, and Anthony
Mandal
Two items in the second volume of The
English Novel, 1770-1829 are attributed in the author-line
to either ?Radcliffe, Mary Anne or ?KER, Louisa Theresa
Bellenden. These are: Manfroné; or, the One-Handed
Monk (1809: 61) and Ida of Austria; or the Knights
of the Holy Cross (1812: 53). The attribution of
Manfroné to Radcliffe stems directly from its
title-page, which states 'by Mary Anne Radcliffe', and
in the main is followed in modern catalogues and critical
studies, this work still being well known, buoyed up
by a combination of its arresting title and the continuing
academic appetite for the Gothic. By comparison hardly
anything is known about Ida of Austria, and
it is not unlikely that the Corvey copy which provides
the EN2 entry is unique. The connection with Radcliffe
in this case comes indirectly as a result of the title-page,
which states 'by the author of "Manfrone" '. The name
of Louisa Bellenden Ker, in turn, comes into play only
as a result of the record of her appeals to the Royal
Literary Fund. Three appeals from Ker there (RLF, 11:
400, Items 6, 10, 11), written between 1822 and 1824,
list 'Manfroné or the One handed Monk' as one of several
works by the applicant, this particular title coming
first in the list on each occasion. No mention is made
of Ida of Austria there, however, so the association
of Ker with this second novel is arrived at through
the most tenuous of links.
As reported
in Update 1, the issue is further complicated by the
title-page attribution of the 1819 second edition of
Manfroné, as reprinted by A. K. Newman, to 'Mary
Anne Radcliffe, Author of The Mysterious Baron, &c.
&c.' In actuality, The Mysterious Baron, or the
Castle in the Forest, a Gothic Story (1808: 91),
which was published by C. Chapple, is attributed on
its own title-page to 'Eliza Ratcliffe', the dedication
of this work ('to Miss Mary Ann Davies, of Fleet-Street')
introducing it as 'the first essay of a female pen'.
One possibility is that Newman later confused the two
similar sounding names. Certainly on reading the texts
there appears to be little similarity between the rather
naïve-seeming Walpolian romance style of The Mysterious
Baron and the more fraught high Gothic manner of
Manfroné. Behind this, of course, lies the similarity
of both names to Ann Radcliffe, the high priestess of
Gothic romance, and the possibility that either or both
were fabrications based on a desire to cash in on the
latter's fame.
Despite
a number of forays into the issue of attribution, it
has not been possible to offer any fresh positive suggestions,
and if anything the claims of both Mary Anne Radcliffe
and Louisa Bellenden Ker have diminished, for reasons
outlined below.
i)
Mary Anne Radcliffe
There can hardly be any doubt as
to the existence of a real-life Mary Anne Radcliffe
writing at this time, nor that she is the author (as
given on both titles-pages) of The Female Advocate;
or An Attempt to Recover the Rights of Woman from Male
Usurpation (London: Vernor and Hood, 1799) and of
The Memoirs of Mrs Mary Ann Radcliffe; in Familiar
Letters to a Female Friend (Edinburgh: Printed for
the Author, and sold by Manners & Miller [etc.],
1810). According to the address 'To the Reader' in The
Female Advocate, this Wollstonecraftian study was
written seven years, prior to publication, but delayed
through 'timidity' and 'other hinderances'. The later
Memoirs also states that the original intention
was to publish the Female Advocate anonymously:
'But the publisher (who at that time took a share in
it) [.] strongly recommended giving my name to it. Whether,
with a view to extend the sale, from the same name at
that period standing high amongst the novel readers-or
from whatever other motive, is best known to himself'
(p. 387). As this last comment indicates, there is a
clear interconnection between these two non-fictional
works, the second of which offers an account ('after
a life of more than three-score years') of an insecure
Scottish upbringing, complicated religious loyalties,
early marriage to an older and unreliable husband, struggles
to survive independently with her children in London
during the 1790s, and a return to live in Edinbugh c.
1807, where charitable assistance was sought (part of
the process involving the present work, which lists
99 'Subscribers Names', a number from the higher echelons
of Scottish society).
The spectre
of uncertainty, however, enters into the equation with
the fictional works that have been ascribed (or are
ascribable) to Mary Anne Radcliffe, which can be seen
as forming three distinct phases. Foremost here are
two 1790 novels published by William Lane at the Minerva
Press, both of which are given under her name in the
second volume of The English Novel, 1770-1829,
though neither supplies an author on the title-page:
The Fate of Velina de Guidova (EN1 1790: 62)
and Radzivil. A Romance (1790: 63). Granted that
the memoirist Mary Anne Radcliffe [henceforth MAR] was
in London at this time, struggling to survive independently,
it is not implausible that she should undertake work
for Minerva as a means of supplementing income. It should
be added though that neither work gives a strong sense
of an underlying author identity; and Radzivil
in particular, ostensibly (at least) 'from the Russ[ian]
of the Celebrated M. Wocklow', has several marks of
being a fairly routine translation possibly from the
French. The second phase of writing associated with
MAR, Radcliffe's New Novelist's Pocket Magazine
(a compilation of chapbook stories) has not been seen,
but is described by Donald K. Adams as bearing the legend
'The whole written, adjusted and compiled solely for
this Work, By Mrs. Mary Anne Radclife, of Wimbledon
in Surrey': 'The Second Mrs. Radcliffe', The Mystery
and Detection Annual (1972), pp. 48-64 (p. 53).
By Adams's account also, the first number was published
in Edinburgh by Thomas Brown (though printed in London),
both surviving issues are dated 1802, and amongst Gothic
materials can be found in the second issue 'Monkish
Mysteries; or, The Miraculous Escape'. The last 'phase'
of involvement is then found with the eye-catching Manfroné;
or, the One-Handed Monk, whose contents might seem
to match the out-and-out Lewisian Gothic implied by
the title 'Monkish Mysteries'. This last 'phase' is
now extendable to Ida of Austria, though this
historical romance set in the time of the Crusades has
little of the Gothic in it, and in fact shows internal
signs of possibly being a translation from a root German
title.
The large
resulting question as to whether it is possible to combine
the MAR of the two non-fictional works with the fiction
writer of all or some of phases 1-3 has never met with
a fully positive answer. Even Donald K. Adams, who makes
the fullest case for combination, qualifies his argument
with hedging phrases at key points. Janet Todd's A
Dictionary of British and American Women Writers, 1660-1800
(1984) , noticeably provides two entries, one
for the 'polemical writer and autobiographer' (1745?-1810?),
the other for the 'novelist' (fl. 1790?-1809).
Joanne Shattock in her The Oxford Guide to British
Women Writers (1993) and The Feminist Companion
to Literature in English (1990), ed. by Blain, Grundy,
and Clements, both supply single entries, though with
inbuilt qualifications regarding the novels involved.
Isobel Grundy, author of the Feminist Companion
entry (which also raises the possibility of Ker), has
subsequently expressed the opinion to the present writer
that any real connection of the novels with the memoirist
is unlikely, and that the probable cause is a publishers'
scam.
With
this in view, it is worth reviewing the history of the
attribution of the 'phase one' novels, especially as
found in contemporary circulating library catalogues.
In Part Two [1798] of A Catalogue of the Minerva
General Library, held in the Bodleian Library (Don.e.218),
'Velina de Guidova (the Fate of)' is listed as 'by Mrs.
Radcliffe', in a way exactly comparable to 'Sicilian
Romance, a Tale' on the preceding page. 'Radzivil, a
Romance', however, is merely stated as being 'from the
Russian of Mr. Wocklow'. In the 1814 Catalogue
(Don.e.217) of the same library under A. K. Newman,
on the other hand, we find 'Radzivil, a Romance, from
the Russian of Wocklow, by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe', and
'Velina de Guidova, a Novel, by the Author of the Romance
of the Forest'. In other words, Radzivil between
1798 and 1814 has been attributed to Ann Radcliffe,
whereas Velina de Guidova has remained consistently
as by her, though the means of signifying this has changed.
Reinforcing the joint attribution is the appearance
of both titles again in the 1814 Catalogue under the
prefix 'Radcliffe's (Mrs.)', though it is also interesting
to see placed there as well (along with the main Ann
Radcliffe titles) both 'Manfrone, or the One-handed
Monk' and 'Mysterious Baron, or the Castle in the Forest'.
Manfroné also has its own separate entry there
as 'Manfrone or the One-handed Monk, by Mrs. Radcliffe'.
The now extremely rare Ida of Austria is likewise
listed individually, but without any author being nominated.
All in all no reference is made in either of these catalogues
to Mary Anne Radcliffe as such. The assumption that
Radzivil and Velina de Guidova are 'probably
by Mrs. Mary Ann Radcliffe', made by Dorothy Blakey
under the entries for those titles in her The Minerva
Press 1790-1820 (1939), pp. 150-1, and which evidently
informed later attributions of these works to that author,
appears to be based primarily on her own conjecture.
In some fifty circulating library catalogues surveyed,
no instance of an attribution to Mary Anne Radcliffe
as such has been discovered in relation to this phase.
There
are also strong circumstantial reasons rejecting the
idea that the memoirist MAR had any connection Manfroné
(1809), the most obvious explanation for the appearance
of her name in the titles of that novel being that it
is a pseudonym. Whereas (as already suggested) it would
not be implausible for MAR when in London to earn money
writing for Minerva, by 1809 she was quite obviously
domiciled in Edinburgh, and the placing of this work
with J. F. Hughes in London would have been hard to
accomplish from such a base. Nor would one expect an
author seeking social acceptance, and employing the
eminently respectable Manners and Miller for her Memoirs,
to have had dealings with a publisher operating at the
lower end of the fiction market. Conversely, there are
number of reasons why Hughes should have enticed or
bullied one of his stable of authors into featuring
as Mary Anne Radcliffe. It was Hughes who in the same
imprint year brought out Seraphina; or A Winter in
Town (1809: 14), 'by Caroline Burney', evidently
hoping to cash in on the genuine trademark names of
Frances Burney and her half-sister Sarah Harriet Burney
(Hughes's lists for 1809-10 also contained titles by
'Mrs Edgeworth'). In the 'Advertisement' to Sarah Harriet
Burney's Traits of Nature (1812: 24), Henry Colburn
implicitly dissociated himself from Hughes's malpractice:
'The publisher of this Work thinks it proper to state
that Miss Burney is not the Author of a Novel
called "Seraphina," published in the year 1809, under
the assumed name of Caroline Burney.'
The stamp
of J. F. Hughes is also to be traced in titles as well
as author names. According to the testimony of its author,
T. J. Horsley Curties, it was probably Hughes who fabricated
the actual title of The Monk of Udolpho (1807:
16), which managed to combine two of the most talismanic
word in the Gothic canon. Whereas Hughes's main stock
in trade had hitherto been in Monk-like Lewisian Gothic,
in 1809, as Rictor Norton has reminded us, Ann Radcliffe's
name was very much in the public eye, owing to reports
of her madness and/or death: see Mistress of Udolpho:
The Life of Ann Radcliffe (London and New York:
Leicester University Press, 1999), pp. 212-18. Approached
from the vantage point of Hughes's production of popular
fiction, both the arresting title and association-filled
author name of Manfroné have an air of predictability
about them.
One useful
pointer to how contemporary witnesses, and more particularly
rival authors, might have felt has been found in A
Winter in Edinburgh (1810: 74), published by J.
Dick, and attributed on its title-page to Honoria Scott
(which may or may not be a pseudonym for Susan Fraser).
Matching a real-life incident in which Hughes had attempted
to introduce a 'spoiler' Winter at Bath on the
market (see notes to 1807: 7), one of the characters
proposes bringing out a novel entitled 'A Winter in
Wales', only to find the same title to be advertised
by:
Mr. Wigless [the sobriquet
is based on Wigmore Steet, Hughes's address], a bookseller,
certainly of celebrity; for, under his guidance, the
literary bantlings of the Miss Muffins were ushered
into the world as follows;
'The
Horrors of the Church-Yard; by Mrs Radcliff.'
'Euphrosyne
in Frocks, by Miss Burney.' (III,
196-7)
If indeed
(as seems likely) the author name in Manfroné
is an invention aimed at producing an association with
Ann Radcliffe, then records of circulating library catalogues
point to the overall success of the ploy, no less than
five out of eleven catalogues recently surveyed attributing
the work to 'Mrs. Radcliffe' rather than the specific
name actually given. In fact, the pull of Ann Radcliffe's
fame seems to represent the one single element unifying
the three 'phases' outlined above. However, it is perhaps
not inconceivable that the compiler of Radcliffe's
New Novelist's Pocket Magazine and whoever wrote
Manfroné are one and the same person. As for
'Eliza Ratcliffe' of The Mysterious Baron,
on internal evidence she would appear more likely
to have had a hand in Ida of Austria rather than
Manfroné, though the reality might be that there
is no true linkage between any of these three titles.
ii) Louisa Bellenden
Ker
Normally in a case such as that
of Manfroné, a claim of authorship in an appeal
to the Royal Literary Fund would provide a welcome solution,
with the prospect of further fresh attributions following
in suit. In the case of Ker (whose earlier letters to
the Fund are signed variously Louisa Bellenden Ker,
Louisa Theresa Ker, and Louisa Ker) the end result is
more obfuscation rather than clarification. In all Ker
made eleven applications for assistance from 1819 to
1836, sending lists of her publications on at least
three separate occasions.
In the
first of these applications, dated 26 October 1819 (RLF
11: 400, Item 1), it is noticeable that Ker makes no
mention of Manfroné, in spite of its having been
first published in 1809 and reprinted by Newman in 1819.
Instead she refers only to 'a small volume of Tales
from the French of Bernadin St Pierre', for which a
publisher could not be found, and translations of two
French plays, 'Bermicide or the Fatal Offspring' and
'the Brazen Bust', for which, though performed at Drury
Lane and Covent Garden theatres respectively, she had
not received due credit. The bulk of this letter is
taken up in outlining her personal credentials, as 'the
only surviving daughter of the late Dr Lewis Ker of
the College of Physicians', dashed expectations of becoming
'the heiress of the noble family whose name I bear',
and parlous situation after the death of her mother.
The names of 'Mr Chapple, Circulating Library, Pall
Mall' and 'Mr Woodfall, Printer to the College, Dean's
Yard, Westminster' are given as suitable additional
referees, and Ker's address in this letter is given
as 3 Britannia- Street, Westminster Road, Lambeth. In
1822 she made her second application, this time adding
a list, having been informed that the first donation
had been approved on the merits of her father. This
list (Item 6) gives the following 'published novels
and dramas':
Manfroné or the One handed
Monk
Aurora of the Mysterious
Beauty
Koningsmark a tale
Herman and Rosa small pamphlet
Abdallah & Zaida melo
drama from the French, from which the piece Bermicide
performed successfully at Drury Lane Theatre was taken
Brazen Bust performed at
Covent Garden
Lewis & Antoinette a
local piece performed in Bath & Dublin
The Swiss Emigrants a tale
and several [other] dramatick
pieces [.]
This
application is supported by P. Boulanger, who affirms
his knowledge of 'the Brazen Bust and several other
applauded dramatick pieces', but mentions nothing else.
Further listings are supplied in relation to applications
in April and November 1824. The first (Item 10) brings
into play 'Dangerous Connections translation 3 vol.'
and 'Indian Cottage d[itt]o from St Pierre', as well
as three extra plays performed 'at Covent Garden and
the Cobourg Theatres' (one of which is 'Ruins of Babylon').
The second (Item 11), a cut-down version, still features
'Manfroné', while adding 'Theodore or the Child of the
Forest Romance in four volumes'. This last list is introduced
by the qualification that 'most [.] are now out of print,
and others have never been published'. No mention is
made at any point of The Mysterious Baron.
On the
surface of things, it is quite feasible that Ker delayed
claiming novels (with their less salubrious reputation)
until forced to by the Committee's regulations. A major
problem nevertheless exists with the titles eventually
supplied, not least since several are attributable to
other writers. Aurora, or the Mysterious Beauty
(1803: 29), for instance, based on the Aurora, ou
l'amant mystérieuse (1802) of J.-J.-M. Duperche,
is described on its title-page as 'Taken from the French.
By Camilla Dufour'. Dufour herself was a popular singer
at Drury Lane, and married to J. H. Sarratt, who himself
is the acknowledged translator of a chapbook version
of Koenigsmark, from the German of Raspe, another
title listed by Ker. The Swiss Emigrants: A Tale
(1804: 52) was almost certainly by the Scottish author
Hugh Murray: in fact, the Longman Divide Ledger entry
for this title (CD, p. 178) itemises payment of £10
to 'Mr Murray'. Perhaps significantly, too, P. Boulanger
when called into service again in 1826 could only vouch
for 'the Brazen Bust, Ruins of Babylon and several other
dramatick pieces' (Item 14). One also wonders why Ker
never used her own name in any of the above claimed
novels, especially in view of her sympathy-inducing
situation and alleged aristocratic connections (a valuable
point of comparison is provided by her namesake Anne
Ker: see especially John Steele's 'Anne and John Ker:
New Soundings', Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic
Text 12 (Summer 2004). Online: Internet: <http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/corvey/articles/cc12_n03.html>).
A further
insight has been gained through the discovery by Sharon
Ragaz of two reports evidently concerning Ker in The
Morning Chronicle. The first, in the issue for 17
October 1823, concerns a trial for petty theft, the
accused being Louisa Bellenden Kerr [sic] and
another woman. Kerr or Ker described herself as distantly
related to the Duke of Roxburgh (whose family name was
Ker) and allied to other important figures. Her father
she identified as a friend of Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
and she made other claims about his status, saying he
was librarian to the Royal College of Physicians. The
court seemed to think there was enough evidence (or
lack thereof) to consider these things unlikely and
that she was a professional criminal. Although Kerr
said that she had turned to other means of obtaining
a livelihood because all attempts to support herself
by honest means had failed, she appears to have made
no mention to the court of being a dramatist or novelist;
neither did she claim to have published any works. Kerr
was remanded into custody pending a further court appearance
and an investigation of her circumstances by the Mendicity
Society.
The Morning
Chronicle of 22 October 1823 carries a further notice
on Kerr's second court appearance, at which an official
from the Mendicity Society was in evidence. The official
had viewed Kerr's apparently squalid place of abode,
where a number of letters were found. It was determined
that Kerr carried on an expert trade in writing 'begging
letters', a trade at which her mother was said to be
even more expert. By claiming relationship to various
people, she had received payments of small sums (£5
or so) from them. The newspaper notes that her case
excited considerable interest because of her supposed
aristocratic connections; however, the court determined
that these had no basis in reality. Her claims about
her father's profession are also stated to have been
investigated and found to be untrue. She is described
as a 'swindler'. Nevertheless, the grim circumstances
of her living conditions were taken into account, and
while the other woman was dismissed without further
charge, Kerr was sent home to her parish (not identified)
and urged to abandon the life she had adopted.
Of course,
there remains the possibility that Ker was being unfairly
maligned: one of the RLF letters of 1824 (Item 10) refers
to her as being 'the victim of unjust and malicious
accusations'. Moreover, even if direct authorship is
highly unlikely, a valuable insight into the general
atmosphere that helped create Manfroné might
still be found in the theatrical world conveyed by these
appeals, a world from which J. F. Hughes drew a number
of his authors. On the fuller front, however, the case
of Louisa Bellenden Ker probably takes us no further
in identifying an actual novel-writing 'Mary Anne Radcliffe'.


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