A "Delightful Burlesque" Gothic Triple-Decker
The Heroine, or Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader.
London: Printed for Henry Colburn, Public Library, Conduit-Street, Hanover-Square; and sold by George Goldie, Edinburgh, and John, 1813.
Price: $3,000.00
About the item
First edition. xx, 224; [2], 239; [2], 302, [2, ads] pp. 3 vols. 8vo. A "Delightful Burlesque" Gothic Triple-Decker. Early 19th-century half dark-green morocco and cloth, gilt spines, marbled edges and endpapers; joints and extremities slightly rubbed, upper joints tender; vol. III rebacked. Bookplate of Archibald Bolling Shepperson in each volume. Wolff 316; Summers, Gothic Bibliography, p. 354; Loeber B93.
Item #233628
A Gothic parody much appreciated by the author of NORTHANGER ABBEY (1818), who wrote in a letter of March 2, 1814: "I finished The Heroine last night and was very much amused by it ... It diverted me exceedingly ... I have torn through the third volume ... I do not think it falls off. It is a delightful burlesque..." Reprinted numerous times and continually rediscovered with delight by successive generations of readers, it is "a justly famous and very important book. It takes a good hard poke at virtually all previous novelists ... Scott read and enjoyed THE HEROINE. Jane Austen loved it, and Poe reviewed it, saying that its wit and humor were 'racy, dashing, and palpable.'" - Wolff.
Very scarce on the market.
