Zeluco, First Edition (5 results)

1st edition. Provenance: Bookplate of Christopher Smith. Good copy only in the original half aniline calf over marbled boards. Spine lacking. Spine bands and panel edges rubbed and bumped as with age. Internally, bright and clean. Physical description; various paginations ; 21.5 cm. Subjects; Scottish fiction 18th century. 3 Kg.

1st edition. Provenance: Bookplate of Christopher Smith. Good copy only in the original half aniline calf over marbled boards. Spine lacking. Spine bands and panel edges rubbed and bumped as with age. Internally, bright and clean. Physical description; various paginations ; 21.5 cm. Subjects; Scottish fiction 18th century. 1 Kg.

First Irish Edition. Three Volumes (complete set). Small-Octavo (10.5 cm x 17 cm). II, 239, 276, 283 pages. Hardcover / Original 18th/19th-century leather with original spinelabels. All three Volumes in protective Mylar. The labels and spoine slightly damaged only. All Volumes firm and in overall very good condition. From the library of Richard Meade (Ballymartle), with his bookplate to the pastedown of Volume I. Bindings a little shaky but still intact; stronger rubbed with loss to labels. Bookplate / Exlibris of Richard Meade of Ballymartle attached to pastedown of Volume I. "Mordaunt. Character Sketches of Life, Characters, and Manners, in Various Countries; including the Memoirs of A French Lady of Quality" was a powerfully written anti-French Revolution novel in three volumes in the form of 34 character sketches of famous politicians, royalty, generals, the wealthy, and the celebrity of the day. It also offers detailed eyewitness accounts of John Moore's observations as he travelled throughout Europe in the last years of the 18th century. There are gripping accounts of the heroic feats of a dashing British Officer included, which were actually accounts of John Moore's son, General Moore". John Moore FRSE (1729 1802) was a Scottish physician and travel author. He also edited the works of Tobias Smollett.He was born on 10 October 1729 in Stirling, the son of Rev Charles Moore of Rowallan (d,1735) and his wife, Marion Anderson. The family moved to Glasgow in his youth and he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to Dr. John Gordon in Glasgow 1745 to 1747. After taking a medical degree at Glasgow, he served as a Surgeon's Mate with the army in Flanders during the Seven Years' War, then proceeded to London to continue his studies, and eventually to Paris, where became surgeon to the household of the British ambassador there. In 1751 he returned to Glasgow to rejoin Dr. John Gordon (also then practising with Dr. Thomas Hamilton). From 1769 to 1778 he accompanied the Duke of Hamilton (who was linked to Thomas) on a Grand Tour of Europe. On his return he took up residence in London. In 1792 he accompanied Lord Lauderdale to Paris, and witnessed some of the principal scenes of the Revolution. His Journal during a Residence in France (1793) is the careful record of an eye-witness, and is frequently referred to by Thomas Carlyle. In 1784 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Andrew Dalzell, James Gregory, and John Robison. He died in Richmond in Surrey (now part of London) on 21 February 1802. He is buried in Stirling. His novel Zeluco (1789), a close analysis of the motives of a selfish profligate, produced a great impression at the time, and indirectly, through the poetry of Byron, has left an abiding mark on literature. Byron said that he intended Childe Harold to be a poetical Zeluco, and the most striking features of the portrait were undoubtedly taken from that character. Moore's other works have a less marked individuality, but his sketches of society and manners in France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and England (A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany, London, W. Strahan & T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1779, 2 vol.; A View of Society and Manners in Italy, with anecdotes related to some eminent characters, London, W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1781, 2 vol.) were also very popular during his lifetime and furnish valuable materials for the social historian. "Mordaunt. Character Sketches of Life, Characters, and Manners, in Various Countries; including the Memoirs of A French Lady of Quality" was a powerfully written anti-French Revolution novel in three volumes in the form of 34 character sketches of famous politicians, royalty, generals, the wealthy, and the celebrity of the day. It also offers detailed eyewitness accounts of John Moore's observations as he travelled throughout Europe in the last years of the 18th century. There are gripping ac.

[2], ii, 403, [1]p; [2], ii, 408pp; [2], ii, 460pp. 8vo. Contemporary mottled calf, gilt spine bands, small gilt devices, red morocco labels; joints & corners rubbed, two green morocco vol. number labels missing but gilt number visible, scratch to upper board vol. III, some occasional marks but generally clean. Armorial bookplate hand-lettered Wodehouse, Kimberly, 1838. ESTC T57357. The first edition of Moore's final novel, published when he was seventy-one. 'The sub-title is 'Sketches of Life, Character and Manners in Various Countries', for Moore had travelled, and written earlier about France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Nearly all the first volume is indeed taken up with Mordaunt's letters from Switzerland (he is confined there by a sprained ankle) about life as he has seen it in various parts of Europe. His observations on German military discipline, the French Revolutionary leaders (Moore was in Paris in 1792), the sensationalism of German plays and ballads, and the sobriety of the Spanish court, are sometimes incisive, but the reader comes to regret Mordaunt's immobility. Still, on his recovery he rapidly rescues a distressed French lady and takes her to the safety of London, where she is befriended by Horatia Clifford (the heroine of the novel) and Lady Diana Franklin, a benevolent old maid slightly resembling Lady Russell in Persuasion. The Marquise tells her story, giving Moore's liberal critique of the French Revolution, with the destruction of the Gironde as the mark of the abandonment of constructive idealism.' ref: Peter Faulkner. A review of the Oxford English Novels edition, 1968.

FIRST EDITION, 2vol., pp.(4)519; (4)596 + errata & advertisement leaves; contemporary speckled calf, morocco labels; hinges cracked & some wear at extremities, but sound. The second novel of the successful surgeon who spent five years on the grand tour with the young Duke of Hamilton and established a literary reputation with his 'View of Society & Manners in France, Switzerland & Germany' of 1779. Manners Society Novel.