[CHILE] [ROMANCE] Boyd, Henry (-1832). The vale of Guasco, or, The maid with seven lovers

Boyd, Henry (-1832)

About this Item

[CHILE] [ROMANCE] Boyd, Henry (-1832). The vale of Guasco, or, The maid with seven lovers : a romance in verse : in seven cantos. Printed for J.J. Stockdale, 1813. 8vo., 21.5 cm.: 320, [2] p. Half-title and errata/publisher ad present. Contemporary calf and marbled boards, lightly worn and scuffed; internally, lightly foxed with heavier foxing to paste-downs and endpapers. Generally, very good. Extremely Rare in commerce and with relatively few institutional copies. The work is attributed to Henry Boyd (d. 1832)), the Irish cleric and translator of Dante, the authorship having been informally suggested (perhaps on stylistic grounds) in Medina s Diccionario de anónimos y seudónimos hispanomericanos." Nevertheless, perhaps Medina did not see the verso of the errata present in this copy which makes the attribution more secure with reference to a translation of the Araucana of Don Alonao de Ercilla by the same author. An interesting romance with Chilean connections. The Monthly Review of 1814 reviews the book in delightful fashion: " Though the present age be not so enlightened as some individuals are inclined to suppose, it has less taste for extravagant and improbable fictions than our forefathers manifested: so that romances, properly so called, are rather tolerated than relished. The nursery is not supplied with the trash which formerly found its way into it; and, when we arrive at manhood, we look for something better than fables which outrage common sense and could never have been realized in the history of man. When a tissue of impossibilities is formed into a narrative, the reader, however he may applaud the ingenuity of the poet, cannot be pleased with so gross an attempt to impose on his credulity, and replies in the language of Horace, Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi. With feelings of this kind, we worked our way through the Vale of Guasco, and experienced little pleasure in the beginning, the middle, or the end of our journey. We followed the hero Courtenay from the banks of the Medway to the provinces of Chili and Peru; we were long kept in suspence respecting the Maid with seven Lovers; and it was not till the sixth canto, (p. 223.) when Courtenay falls in love with Recloma, and thus makes her a maid with eight Lovers, that we understood to what circumstance this part of the title referred. . Like the poem intitled The Missionary, (see our Review for April last,) a considerable portion of this Romance is borrowed from the history which constituted the subject of Ercilla s Spanish poem, the Araucana, and related the defeat of the Spaniards by the Chilians: but it surpasses all belief that an English emigrant (Courtenay), after a series of very improbable adventures, should not only obtain a settlement and family-connections among the Chilians, but be their General, and lead them to take vengeance on the Spaniards for their bloody outrages". Seller Inventory # ABE-1470406545672

Bibliographic Details

Title: [CHILE] [ROMANCE] Boyd, Henry (-1832). The ...

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good