A Residence in France, during the Years 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1795; Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: With General and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners. Prepared for the Press by John Gifford, Esq
by [BIGGS, RACHEL CHARLOTTE]
- Used
- Condition
- Some minor dust-soiling and spots in the text; edges rubbed; very good copy.
- Seller
-
San Francisco, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Printed by J. Plymsell; for T. N. Longman, 1797, 1797. First edition. ESTC N12984. Some minor dust-soiling and spots in the text; edges rubbed; very good copy.. 2 vols, 8vo, contemporary quarter tree-calf, marbled paper boards, red morocco spine labels, gilt rules and lettering. Without the half-titles. Rachel Charlotte Biggs was acquainted with France when she traveled by herself there in 1792 to aid an aristocratic lady friend, during which time she witnessed the Revolution during its grim climax. Out of concern for their safety, Biggs and her companion moved from Paris north to Amiens and other nearby towns. At one point Biggs was under arrest on suspicion of being a spy. Her impressive memoir of this experience, in letters to her brother, is distinctly loyalist and dedicated with "extreme diffidence" to Edmund Burke. Biggs reports sympathetically on the effects of the Revolution on the lives of shopkeepers, clergy, women in convents, aristocrats (with whom she travels), farmers, et al.; she scolds the English partisans of the Revolution - the "literary banditti" and "Robespierrians" - as being naive. She writes about the trials of Charlotte Corday, the Rolands, and others, and she evaluates the predicament of Thomas Paine, whom she thought, despite his faults, was not of cruel or unmerciful nature. Biggs published her Residence in France anonymously, and it was not correctly attributed to her until fairly recently. For many years the authorship was attributed to Helen Maria Williams, but anyone who made that attribution had not read any part of Biggs' work. Later Biggs was instrumental in promoting the Royal Jubilee of 1809; she also continued to travel, and it has been suspected that during the Napoleonic years she was a spy in Europe for English interests, as perhaps she was during the Revolution, as well. See Stuart Semmel, "Radicals, Loyalists, and the Royal Jubilee of 1809," Journal of British Studies (2007).
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Details
- Bookseller
- The Brick Row Book Shop (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 28318
- Title
- A Residence in France, during the Years 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1795; Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: With General and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners. Prepared for the Press by John Gifford, Esq
- Author
- [BIGGS, RACHEL CHARLOTTE]
- Format/Binding
- ESTC N12984
- Book Condition
- Used - Some minor dust-soiling and spots in the text; edges rubbed; very good copy.
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First edition
- Publisher
- London: Printed by J. Plymsell; for T. N. Longman, 1797
- Date Published
- 1797
- Weight
- 0.00 lbs
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The Brick Row Book Shop
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About the Seller
The Brick Row Book Shop
Biblio member since 2006
San Francisco, California
About The Brick Row Book Shop
The Brick Row Book Shop, founded in 1915, is one of the oldest antiquarian book firms in the United States. We're located a block from Union Square in downtown San Francisco, and are open by appointment Monday-Friday. The engraving by T. Diedricksen is of the Shop as it was shortly after its founding in New Haven, Connecticut.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Marbled Paper
- Decorative colored paper that imitates marble with a veined, mottled, or swirling pattern. Commonly used as the end papers or...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Morocco
- Morocco is a style of leather book binding that is usually made with goatskin, as it is durable and easy to dye. (see also...