Tales of Fashionable Life by Miss [Maria] Edgeworth. London: Printed for J. Johnson by S. Hamilton between 1809 and 1812.
FIRST EDITION FIRST IMPRESSION of each of the six volumes of one of the most important works of one of the most successful & best selling female novelists of her time, on par with contemporaneous female authors such as Jane Austen, the Brontes, Mary Shelley, etc.
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Tales of Fashionable Life (1809 and 1812) is a 2-series collection of short stories which often focus on the life of a woman. The second series was particularly well received in England, making her the most commercially successful novelist of her age. After this, Edgeworth was regarded as the preeminent female writer in England alongside Jane Austen.
Maria Edgeworth (1768 – 1849) was a prolific Anglo-Irish novelist of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe. She held critical views on estate management, politics and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo. During the first decade of the 19th century she was one of the most widely read novelists in Britain and Ireland.
In 1802 the Edgeworths toured the English midlands. They then travelled to the continent, first to Brussels and then to Consulate France (during the Peace of Amiens, a brief lull in the Napoleonic Wars). They met all the notables, and Maria received a marriage proposal from a Swedish courtier, Count Edelcrantz. Her letter on the subject seems very cool, but her stepmother assures us in the Augustus Hare Life and Letters that Maria loved him very much and did not get over the affair quickly. They came home to Ireland in 1803 on the eve of the resumption of the wars and Maria returned to writing. Tales of Fashionable Life, The Absentee and Ormond are novels of Irish life. Edgeworth was an extremely popular author who was compared with her contemporary writers Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott. She initially earned more than them, and used her income to help her siblings.
On a visit to London in 1813, where she was received as a literary lion, Maria met Lord Byron (whom she disliked) and Humphry Davy. She entered into a long correspondence with the ultra-Tory Sir Walter Scott after the publication of Waverley in 1814, in which he gratefully acknowledged her influence, and they formed a lasting friendship.
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Size: 112 x 180 mm (approx., each)
Condition:
[vii, i, pp.1-400]; [(2), pp.1-338]; [(1), pp.1-369, i (advertisements)]; [iv, i-ii, (1), pp.1-460]; [ii, pp.1-392]; [i, pp.1-466]
Includes the novels: Ennui, Almeria, Madame de Fleury, The Dun, Manoeuvring, Vivian, Emile de Coulanges, and The Absentee.
Uniform half calf leather over marbled boards. Spines rubbed with sections of the backstrips reglued with some small parts lacking to the fourth volume (i.e. first volume of the second part). Shelf wear. All boards securely attached with joints a little rubbed, exposed to the front of the fourth volume but not split. No shelf lean. Boards with some very minor rubbing but generally remain very good. Bookplate of 'Weston Library' to front pastedown of each volume. Text blocks mildly toned but generally remain very good and internally smart. A couple of spots of foxing throughout mostly affecting the endpapers.
Overall an excellent set of this rare first edition, scarcely encountered in good condition, especially in near contemporary bindings as these.
