Letters on the French Revolution, written in France, in the summer of 1790, to a friend in England; containing, various anecdotes relative to that interesting event, and memoirs of Mons. and Madame du F-. The first American edition.

WILLIAMS, Helen Maria.

Published by Boston: J. Belknap and A. Young [vol. II: Thomas and Andrews, David West, and E. Larkin], 1791-92

First US edition of the author's first and most cited work on the French Revolution, first published in London the previous year, both volumes together in a contemporary American sheep binding, with the bookplate to front pastedown of Chester Atwater (born Connecticut 1774, died New York 1802), and his note he bought the book in New York, June 1794. An engaging travel narrative which begins at a Mass at Notre Dame on the eve of the Fête de la Fédération and recounts visits to the ruins of the Bastille, the National Assembly, and the Palace of Versailles, Letters on the French Revolution clearly and sympathetically endorses the politics of the Revolution Society with which Williams (1761-1827) was associated as the protegé of Andrew Kippis. It was the first of eight volumes on the topic by Williams which collectively became known as the Letters Written in France (1790-6), considered "an importance source of information for the British reading public" and praised as a "unique and valuable work whose epistolary style and appeal to pathos set it apart - in a positive sense - from standard history" (Kennedy, pp. 317-8). Williams was both much admired and much maligned by her contemporaries: her works were favoured by Wordsworth and her literary salon in Paris was attended by the likes of Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Francisco de Miranda, yet she was branded by Edmund Burke, alongside Wollstonecraft, as one of the "clan of desperate, wicked, and mischievously ingenious women" (ibid., p. 326) who were publishing radicalising, pro-revolutionary works at the turn of the century. ESTC W20679; Evans 24003 & 25039. Deborah Kennedy, "Benevolent Historian: Helen Maria Williams and Her British Readers", in Rebellious Hearts: British Women Writers and the French Revolution, State University of New York Press, 2001. 2 vols bound in 1, duodecimo (160 x 97 mm). Complete with terminal blanks. Contemporary American sheep, rebacked in calf with red morocco label. Light wear at head of spine and tips, slight stripping to boards, some browning and foxing, offsetting from turn-ins, a few peripheral short closed tears, loss affecting a few letters to vol. I pp. 133/4. A very good copy. Seller Inventory # 154493

Bibliographic Details

Title: Letters on the French Revolution, written in...
Publisher: Boston: J. Belknap and A. Young [vol. II: Thomas and Andrews, David West, and E. Larkin], 1791-92
Edition: 1st Edition