Author: [POTTS (Ethelinda Margaretta)]:
Title: Moonshine, Containing Sketches of England and Wales. The Second Edition.
Description: London: Printed by Davison, Simons and Co., 1832. 3volumes. Large 8vo, 225 x 130, pp. xv [xvi blank], 170; viii, 170 - 268, 1 - 136; ix [x blank], 369 [370 blank, 371 Errata, 327 blank], engraved frontispieces for each volume, uncut and mostly unopened, bound in later 19th century embossed cloth, morocco labels (chipped); slightly shaken in casing, slight wear to edges, but a good to very good set. Ethelinda Margaretta Potts formerly Thnorpe (1757-1836) published Moonshine (1814) anonymously, a mixture of light verse and gossip which enjoyed greater success in expanded editions (1832-1833). Ethelinda was born in 1757 the daughter of the famous Kent antiquary John Thorpe (1715-1792). She and her sister lived at Bexley in Kent until her marriage to Dr Cuthbert Potts of Pall Mall. However the marriage turned out badly as he produced a hand bill in 1796 exclaiming 'Fifty pounds reward! Whereas, Ethelinda Margaretta Potts, the wife of Cuthbert Potts, of Pall-Mall, … hath absented herself from her said husband, and cruelly abandoned her three infant children: … .' This spirited woman seems to have decided not to sink without trace but appears to have contested her case vigorously although she became estranged from her family and apparently an invalid for a while until the death of her estranged husband in 1825. Ethelinda appears to have been reunited with her family and grandchildren before her death at Chelsea in 1836. The Monthly Review was not impressed with the work but correctly conjectured that it 'appears to be the produce of a female hand; and, however little we may be suspected of the grace of politeness, we are always disposed to shew all possible courtesy and forbearance on such occasions.' However the reviewer was not impressed by the content and felt that the 'work seems to be the emptying of a Commonplace-Book, and we collect from the preface that its contents have principally been the result of hours of sickness: but that circumstance can form no just excuse for a publication, if bad. Parents are frequently observed to have a peculiar attachment to such of their children as are weakly, or imperfectly formed; and, perhaps, it it to the same inclination of the mind that we must attribute the fondness which authors commonly feel towards those productions, which have proceeded from their brain in the hours of its sickness or debility … We do not pretend to have perused the whole of these volumes; and if any man ever does, we shall ascribe to him the greatest degree of human patience and perseverance.' Ethelinda may of course have had two reasons for publishing her work, firstly to raise some money and secondly to contact her estranged family. In the introductory pages addressed 'To the Stranger' she may be alluding to her unfortunate situation when she mentions 'such enemies as may condescend to peruse these pages, will be sufficiently entertained by innumerable errors' and 'know that it was from the want of every other relief in a solitude of five years, during which, my pen was often employed on the. most unhappy business …' The preceding information comes from a Pickering ^ Chatto Bulletin 56, dated February 2018

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