MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SIMON LORD LOVAT 1797 LEATHER BOUND

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SIMON LORD LOVAT 1797 LEATHER BOUND

£250.00

Tax included.

[LOVAT, Simon Lord]. Memoirs of the Life of Simon Lord Lovat. Written by Himself, in the French Language; and now First Translated, from the Original Manuscript. Published by George Nicol, London, 1797.

First English edition. Two parts in one. Leather-bound. Hardcover. Octavo (210 x 130 x 45 mm). Pp. [6], 468. English text translated by William Godwin. Contemporary full calf, smooth spine with gilt bands. Initial and terminal blanks plus half-title present. Condition: GOOD. Collated complete. Binding secure with a crease along the spine. Lacking the spine title-plate. Interior lightly toned with some spots and thumb marks. A sound copy.

Notes: First edition of Godwin's translation of the memoirs of the notorious Jacobite conspirator and outlaw Lord Lovat (c. 1667-1747). Executed for high treason following the Jacobite rising of 1745, Lovat was the last person in Britain to be publicly beheaded. Godwin now admired as the founder of philosophical anarchism, the originator of the psychological novel, and a key figure in the British response to the French Revolution undertook this translation at a time of financial need, when, he wrote, 'for the most part I did not eat my dinner, without previously carrying my watch or my books to the pawnbroker's'. The novelistic quality of Lovat's memoirs would be useful in Godwin's later fictions, especially Cloudesley, set in 1743.