1868, ISBN: 70b68fa3fcdad1b53ca617b367c486b6

London: Henry Coburn, 1842-1846. 7 volumes. First Edition. A copy with good provenance coming from the collection of Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th Baronet. The first diaries of a wom… Mehr…

London: Henry Coburn, 1842-1846. 7 volumes. First Edition. A copy with good provenance coming from the collection of Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th Baronet. The first diaries of a woman published in England. Illustrated with engraved frontispieces and folding facsimiles from manuscripts. Octavo (185 x 118 mm.), in a near contemporary binding for Willis and Sotheran of full sepia polished calf, the spines with raised bands gilt stopped, the compartments bordered on all sides with gilt fillet rules, two compartments with contrasting red-brown and dark-green lettering labels gilt, the covers with double gilt fillet rules surrounding an inner frame of stippled roll tooling in blind, endleaves and edges marbled. a very good set, the hinges and bindings all sound and strong, the text-blocks crisp and clean with light mellowing, some occasional spotting due to the paper stock, the spine panels with some light mellowing or evidence of age. SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF THIS VERY CELEBRATED WORK BY FRANCIS BURNEY. Frances Burney was a novelist, diarist and playwright. In all, she wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography and twenty-five volumes of journals and letters. She has gained critical respect in her own right, but she foreshadowed such novelists of manners with a satirical bent as Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray. She published her first novel, Evelina, anonymously in 1778. Burney feared that her father would find what she called her "scribblings". When she published Evelina anonymously, she only told her siblings and two trusted aunts. Her closest sister, Susanna, helped with the cover-up. Eventually her father read the novel and guessed that Burney was its author. News of her identity spread. The novel brought Burney almost immediate fame with its unique narrative and comic strengths. She followed it with Cecilia in 1782, Camilla in 1796 and The Wanderer in 1814. wiki 'The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, edited by her niece, Mrs. Barrett, were first published in these seven volumes, during the years 1842-1846. The work comprised but a portion of the diary and voluminous correspondence of its gifted writer, for the selection of which Madame D'Arblay, herself in part, and in part Mrs. Barrett, were responsible. Of the Diary itself it is hardly necessary here to say anything in praise. It has long been acknowledged a classic; it is indubitably the most entertaining, in some respects the most valuable, work of its kind in the English language, Regarded as a series of pictures of the society of the time, the Diary is unsurpassed for vivid colouring and truthful delineation. As such alone it would possess a strong claim upon our attention, but how largely is our interest increased, when we find that the figures which fill the most prominent positions in the foreground of these pictures, are those of the most noble, most gifted, and most distinguished persons of the day. Gutenberg Of the provenance, Sir Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th Baronet of Barton Hall, Suffolk, was an English naturalist and Fellow of the Royal Society. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was a Justice of the Peace and deputy lieutenant for Suffolk and in 1868 was appointed High Sheriff of Suffolk. Bunbury was a keen botanist and geologist with a particular interest in palaeobotany. He collected plant specimens on expeditions to South America in 1833 and South Africa in 1838. He also accompanied his great friend Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, on an expedition to Madeira. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1851., Henry Coburn, 1842-1846, 0<