Hermsprong by Robert Bage: First Edition (13 results)

Turnstile Press first edition (per their publisher's statement upon copyright page). xiv, 248 pages. Hardcover: H 20.5cm x L 13.75cm. Lacks dust jacket. Red cloth soiled, staining along spine with slender swaths occurring at adjacent board edges, spine's gilt stamping dulled but legible. Staining at bottom margins of several initial and terminal leaves along with light to mild foxing; past owner's personal bookplate on front pastedown; strong toning to front and rear free endpapers; overwhelming majority of interior text pages remain clean. Binding is firm. A good copy. HERMSPRONG was British author Robert Bage's sixth and final novel and was first published in 1796 in London.…

Hardcover. Condition: Fair - Worn (browned). Dust Jacket Condition: Ripped. First Edition.

First Edition. Good copy. in quarter buckram cloth over paper boards with a gilt-blocked label to the spine. Pages tanned as with age. Remains particularly well-preserved overall. Physical Description: vii, 262 pages. 1 Kg.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. Publisher - Turnstile Press, London, 1951. 1st ed. Edited by Vaughan Wilkins. Good condition book, endpapers browned, areas of darkening to boards, solid binding, corners and spine tips crushed and fraying. Unclipped jacket with many chips and area of loss to spine, also areas of browning.…

First Edition. Bookplate on front free end-paper. Fine copy in the original gilt-blocked cloth-backed boards, in a slip-case. Slightest suggestion only of dust-dulling to the panel edges. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. Physical description: vii, 262 pages : illustrations ; 23cm. Subjects: Aristocracy (Social class) ; Fiction. 1 Kg.…

First Edition. Good copy. in quarter buckram cloth over paper boards with a gilt-blocked label to the spine. Pages tanned as with age. Remains particularly well-preserved overall. Physical Description: vii, 262 pages. 1 Kg.

Cloth. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. First Edition. Hardback. Foxing to end inside covers. Slight wear to D/J. Protective plastic covering around D/J. This sprightly, ironic and whimsical novel should appeal to every reader with a palate fro the dry wine of literature. The author eveolved his own formula for a palatable mixture of romance and satire and never allows himself or his hero to preach for too long. A sprightly and daring young person, Miss Fluart, one of the many engaging chanracters in the book, is usually at hand to punctuate this compacency and keep the atmosphere of the book light, attractive and gay. 248 pp. ( We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. etc.).…

First Edition. Bookplate on front free end-paper. Fine copy in the original gilt-blocked cloth-backed boards, in a slip-case. Slightest suggestion only of dust-dulling to the panel edges. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. Physical description: vii, 262 pages : illustrations ; 23cm. Subjects: Aristocracy (Social class) ; Fiction. 1 Kg.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. First Edition. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982. First edition. Tall 8vo. [viii],245pp. A facsimile of the 1796 first edition published by the Minerva Press reprinted with four sheets of the original per page, together with a 22 page introduction. Original pale brown cloth, gilt lettering. Small label of former (private) owner to front free endpaper. A very good, bright copy in a browned & edgeworn dustwrapper (latter in removable protective plastic sleeve).…

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. Hardback in good condition, red cloth, faded line across top of spine and faded patch on spine. Fair Dust Jacket with numerous nicks and tears around edges, piece missing in spine, which corresponds with the faded area on spine. First published 1796. This edition first published by Turnstile Press Ltd 1951. 262 pages. 13.7cm x 20.5cm x 1.9cm Weight: 300gms. Cover price: 10s 6d.Jacket design by Brian Robb. Introduction by: Vaughan Wilkins. This sprightly, ironic and whimsical novel should appeal to every reader with a palate for the dry wine of literature. Robert Bage, who has been called 'The English Voltaire', wrote this book soon after the War of Independence, and his American-born hero is the first in English fiction. Hermsprong was, he tells Caroline, the beautiful heroine, 'born a savage .' he 'could never learn to offer incense at the shrine of wealth and power . to surrender any opinion from complacence of from any principle of adulation . nor to suppress the sentiments of a free-born mind from any fear, religious or political.' He was, in fact, the author's Ideal Man. The villain, Lord Grondale, Caroline's father, is a pompous and tyrannical aristocrat. The plot, with its lively dialogue and character-drawing, serves as a platform for Bage's own unconventional opinions (he was broadminded in advance of his time in many respects). From it, he comments caustically on social inequalities and injustices and tilts at the pretensions of the privileged. Bage evolved his own formula for a palatable mixture of romance and satire and never allows himself or his hero to preach for too long. A sprightly and daring young person, Miss Fluart, one of the many engaging characters in the book, is usually at hand to punctuate this complacency and keep the atmosphere of the book light, attractive and gay. …

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: No dustwrapper, as issued. First edition thus. Three volumes. New York: Garland Publishing, 1979. [The Novel 1720-1805, A Garland Series]. A three volume facsimile of the 1796 first edition published by the Minerva Press. Original orange cloth, black lettering & decoration. A near fine set. (**PLEASE READ CAREFULLY** - Heavy/overweight item weighing 1.5 kg packed, therefore additional postage will be required for overseas orders. International customers, please ask for a prior shipping quote). …

Full Leather. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 8vo. 1796. 3 vols in 1.(1)244(4).(1)243(1). 2 blanks,(1)268). Wanting all half titles as usual, with 2 ll ads in vol 1, wanting 1 ad lf in vol 2. Cased in early straight grained red morocco. Rebacked to style. a.e.g.and gilt ruled borders. Images available on request.…

First Edition. in contemporary tree calf, flat spines ruled in gilt with red morocco labels lettered in gilt and oval red morocco labels numbered in gilt. Three volumes, 12mo (170 x 100 mm), pp. [ii], 244, 3, [1] advertisements; [ii], 242, [2] advertisements; [ii], 268, some creasing in gathering L of vol. III, with small marginal tear and small hole in L6, with loss of one letter, Bage, a paper manufacturer from the midlands, was a brilliant radical novelist, three of whose novels were printed at the Minerva Press (?undoubtedly the most distinguished novelist ever connected with the Minerva Press?, says Blakey). Influenced by the ideas of the French revolution, Bage?s novels are satirical and revolutionary in tone and are reminiscent of the writings of William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft. Of all his novels, Hermsprong owes most to the ideas of the French Revolution, in particular the writings of Rousseau, as it uses the figure of the ?noble savage? to reveal the corruption and cruelty of society. ?Some of the most ingenious arguments for the savage state appear in Robert Bage's novels?, writes Edna L. Steeves in her essay on the noble savage. ?In Hermsprong (1796) the eponymous hero is a 'natural' man, the son of German parents who come to the American West to engage in trade with the Indians. Raised with Indian children, Hermsprong is, as the subtitle of the novel points out, 'Man as he is not'. The implication is clear: here is man in his native goodness and innocence, happy in a life more archaic and uncomplicated than modern civilisation affords, man in short as he should be, uncontaminated by luxury and extravagance. To William Godwin, and to many likeminded men at the turn of the century, it was but a short step from the conception of the ideal of savage society to the ideal of absolute democracy and equalitarianism, the creed of the political radical? (Steeves, Edna L., The Journal of Modern African Studies, No. 1 March, 1973). Although three of Bage's earlier novels were included by Scott in Balantyne's Novelists' Library, he included neither Man as He Is nor Hermpsrong, objecting mainly to 'the mad philosophy'. Bage's political opinions were too extreme for Scott who objected to his tendency to locate virtue and generosity too exclusively in the lower classes. Bage also applied equal standards to men and women and his heroines enjoy a measure of sexual as well as intellectual freedom. All of which made the novels too subversive for Scott, whose censorial selection procedures may have done their bit to keep Bage out of the main-stream. Apart from his incisive satire of the social follies of the time, Bage must also be noted for the brilliant lightness of his perceptions of character, for 'that half-acid, half-tolerant revelation of the permanent foibles of human nature in which Bage anticipated Jane Austen' (Blakey p. 64). ?What Bage brought to the novel was a great increase of intellectual content. His active, liberal and independent mind had ranged through a variety of subjects, and his books are full of thought. Bage's tolerance, his readiness to live and let live, is marked in all his books. It is the necessary and far from exorbitant price paid by a man in order that he may enjoy to the full the company of his fellow-beings' (Tompkins, p. 203). 'In their keen perception of the absurdities of society, and their shrewd strokes of character, Bage's novels are far superior to the common run of Minerva publications. The whole tone of his work, also, is particularly refreshing after the inflated sentiment or perfervid horrors of young ladies and their 'first literary attempts', for Bage had a vigorous and original mind, packed only with first-hand knowledge of men and affairs. Yet it is not only by contrast that he holds a distinguished place. His sound judgement of character, and the pleasing irony of his style, give him at least a place in the company of Fielding, Austen and Thackeray' (Blakey, p. 65). Blakey p. 229 a.…