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Description: Signed. Association Copy, Charlotte Turner Smith, The Emigrants, William Hayley Autograph, Thomas Campbell Autograph, William Pitt the Younger Autograph. VG. 85pp, plus 3 pages of ads (most recent dated 1810). 'Kent' watermark on first blank, 'G&RT' on title page. (Contemporary?) three-quarter red leather and swirl-patterned boards and endpapers, spine with four gilt-ruled raised bands and five compartments, four compartments with gilt decoration and fifth with gilt lettering. Binding strong, with slight spine lean, small patches of black stain to covers and a tiny nick to the leather at the front spine fold. All gilt is at least VG, and quite attractive married to the red leather. As with many other copies of this title, there are numerous portrait plates interleaved (34), however, bound into this copy is the autograph of William Pitt the Younger, an autographed letter signed (ALS) from the poet, Thomas Campbell, expressing his regrets for not being able to attend a function, and most significantly, a 4-sided (2 leaves) ALS, dated Feb 17, 1793, from the writer and literary patron, William Hayley. The letter is to the publisher Thomas Cadell, Sr., and concerns itself with the promotion of Charlotte (Turner) Smith's poem, 'The Emigrants,' at the time in manuscript form. 'My Dear Sir, I have often regretted that a separation ever happend between you & a certain great authoress, whom I had once the pleasure of settling in your house. I will not attempt to rewrite you in prose-but I may perhaps bring you together again in verse to your mutual advantage & satisfaction. Our admirable friend, Mrs. C.S. (whose spirit & genius still triumph over calamities, that would utterly overwhelm inferior talents) has almost finished a poem, that has a chance, I think, of proving very popular. Should it prove so, after succeeding in quarto, it would make a pleasing second volume to her popular sonnets-This work is entitled 'The Emigrants' & describes with great tenderness their various sufferings, which the poetess has seen completely at Brighton, & which (to her horror) she has frequently relieved by all the aid, that humanity without opulence could bestow-The poem is somewhat in the manner of Cowper's Task-it will consist, however, but of two books, containing altogether about a thousand verses-Can you for this give the admirable & alas the too indigent poetess an hundred guineas, on receiving the work complete the beginning of April, with the following liberal condition, that if it proves as popular as her sanguine friends hope it may, you will, after reimbusrsing yourself, divide with her, in equal moneties, all future profit? I shall soon send her manuscript to my excellent friend, Cowper, that it may be revised by him, as he saw our Parisian sister here in the summer, & is most kindly anxious to render her every service in his power; as indeed every man of his talent & virtues must be-I write in extreme haste, but as a friendly wish of preserving a poetical union between you & my fair friend struck very forcibly on my mind & heart, I would not delay to consult your wishes on so interesting a subject-adieu. Ever Sincerely Yrs, W Haley. Feb 17, 1793'. According to Judith Phillips Stanton, in 'The Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith' (p. XVIII) William Hayley befriended Smith at the beginning of her career, and Smith 'depended on him to correct her work, to teach her the ways of the booksellers' world, and to introduce her to other writers. In fact, Hayley arranged for her to meet the like-minded William Cowper on their well-documented visit to Earlham in August, 1792. Cowper subsequently read Smith's blank verse poem The Emigrants (1794 [actually 1793?]), presumably with a critical eye, before its publication, and she dedicated it to him.' Based on this letter we can now perhaps more than 'presume' that Cowper had a hand in editing the manuscript. 'The Emigrants' deals with the plight of those fleeing the tumultuous rebellion in France, the suffering Smith was aware of first hand, and attested to by Hayley in this letter. Although considered a significant literary talent (Smith was given credit for reviving the sonnet, and her 'romantic' novels were quite popular), contemporary criticism of some of her writings was that she incorporated her personal grief and misery into her stories and poems, and in this case, 'herself, and not the French emigrants, fills the foreground; begins and ends the piece; and the pity we should naturally feel for those overwhelming and uncommon distresses she describes, is lessened by their being brought into parallel with the inconveniences of a narrow income or a protracted law-suit.' (Unattributed contemporary critique). Certainly, as literary criticism, this judgment is justified, but just how grievous Smith's 'inconvenient narrow income' and 'protracted lawsuit' were appears unsympathetically swept aside once one learns of the degree of her plight. Smith was given away to marriage before the age of 16, her husband was a drunkard who, thanks to the law of the land at the time, was able not only to spend most of the inheritance his father set aside for their kids, but even after they were separated, was able to come to her legally with demands for proceeds earned from her writings. She ended up raising their children alone, suffered greatly from rheumatism, fought for her rights with her publishers, at the same time suffered the indignity of begging them, and patrons, to help her through until the next month's rent was due, commiserated with those who likewise suffered, especially those persecuted and subsequently downtrodden due to political convictions, and finally, fighting legally a losing battle for almost her entire adult life, she did not receive the inheritance intended for her children until she was months from her death. 'Left to her own defenses in a world where women's rights were negligible, she had long since discovered that her insistent, complaining, abrasi
Seller: La Playa Books, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.