By the Author of "Bertram", &c,
Women: Or, Pour Et Contre By the Author of "Bertram", &c,
Constable & Co.; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1818.
First edition. 3 vols. 12mo. Contemporary half red morocco gilt over marbled boards. Half titles in vols I & II, wanting in vol III. Title page to vol. III supplied in facsimile. A near fine set in an excellent unrepaired contemporary binding with just a little fading to the spine. Internally fresh with only occasional light foxing.
First edition of this rare Gothic novel by the author of Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), the Irish Huguenot Charles Robert Maturin. It marked the author's first commercial success.
The novel describes the fraught relationship between an ardently romantic aristocrat, Charles de Courcy, and his young Methodist betrothed, Eva, whom he rescues from a kidnapping at the novel's beginning. Eva is so innocent that she has never heard of billiards, so De Courcy abandons her for an Italian actress. His ardour is revived, however, when he observes Eva's hysterical terror during a thunderstorm, after which she begins to haunt his dreams and waking hours as a ghostly figure in white. This novel is a savage critique of what Maturin perceives to be the sexual repression and hypocrisy at the heart of Methodism, but also contains a wealth of description of the author's contemporary Ireland and its picturesque landscapes.
PROVENANCE: Caroline Wyndham-Quin, Countess of Dunraven of Adare Manor, Limerick (contemporary ownership inscription to titles of first two vols). Housed in a quarter morocco fold over box.
Sadleir 1670; Summers, pp. 562-563.
Stock ID: 47001
