Author: SULLIVAN (Arabella Jane):
Title: Recollections of a Chaperon. Edited by Lady Dacre. New Edition.
Description: London: Richard Bentley..., 1833. 3 volumes. Large 12mo, 178 x 110 mms., pp. [ii], 302; [ii] [3] 4 - 332; [ii] [3] - 320, with the title-pages for volumes 1 and 2 transposed, contemporary half calf dark green calf, spine with raised bands and double maroon labels, lightly rubbed but a very good clean set. With the autograph "H Spottiswoode" on the top margin of the title-page. The Edinburgh Review noticed the work in the same year. After a few pages of recollections on the state and status of novels, the reviewer asserts, "We are therefore inclined to think that novels, descriptive of the manners of the day, if imbued with a sufficiency of talent to enable them to live, will be more acceptable to our successors than equally well-written novels of the historical class. We will now turn to one of the most pleasing specimens of the former of these classes, the 'Recollections of a Chaperon'; a collection of tales which rumour assigns to Mrs. Sullivan, the daughter of the accomplished editress, Lady Dacre." After several more pages of comment and endorsement, the reviewer concludes that the novellsas "are the productions of one who seems well-bred enough to have ventured to write naturally - to have eschewed the lispings and mincings of pseudo fashion - to have abstained from the intermixture of French in her dialogues, permitting even her duchessses to speak plain English - and to be content to have allowed her pretenions to a competent knowledge of London life to rest unsupported by any display of an intimate acquaintance with the tradesman's 'Directory.'" This "New Edition" was also published in 1833, and the misbinding of the title-pages of volumes 1 and 2 suggest that the sheets of that edition were used, perhaps to suggest that the first printing was such a success that a new edition was called for.

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