Dramas Translations, and Occasional Poems. By Barbarina Lady Dacre. In Two Volumes.

London: John Murry Not Published [Printed by Thomas Davison] 1821. 2 volumes. 8vo, 210 x 130 mms., pp. [vii] viii - ix [x blank] [9] 10 - 249 [250 blank, 251 Errata slip, 252 printer's imprint]; [v] vi [9] 10 - 269 [270 blank, 271 Errata slip, 272 printer's imprint], including half-title in each volume. UNIFORMLY BOUND WITH: Translations from the Italian by Barbarina Lady Dacre], 8vo, [London, Charles Whittingham, 1836. 8vo, 210 x 130 mms., unpaginated [166, with errata slip and printer's imprint], 3 volumes, uniformly bound by Stephen Austin, Hertford, and printed on Japon paper, bound in full cream contemporary vellum, with gilt panels on each cover, spine gilt in compartments, red and black leather labels; slight occasional foxing and two leaves in volume 3 [Translations] slightly water-stained, a fine and attractive set, inscribed on the front free end-paper of volume 3, "To William Blake Esq/ from B. Dacre." The third volume was privately printed and limiited to 150 copies, of which this is no. 2. The poet and playwright Brand [née Ogle], Barbarina, Lady Dacre (1768–1854) was twice married: in 1789 she married Valentine Henry Wilmot (d. 1819) of Farnborough, Hampshire, an officer in the guards, with whom she had a daughter, Arabella (1796–1839). After his death, on 4 December 1819 she married Thomas Brand, twentieth Baron Dacre (1774–1851). The entry in the Oxford DNB records that, "Lady Dacre was one of the most accomplished women of her time, an excellent horsewoman, sculptor, and a French and an Italian scholar, as well as a writer of some note. In 1821 her poetical works were privately printed in two octavo volumes, under the title Dramas, Translations, and Occasional Poems. They include four dramas, the first of which, Gonzalvo of Cordova, was written in 1810 and was indebted to de Florian's Gonzalve de Cordone (1791). The next, Pedarias, a Tragic Drama, was written in 1811, its story being derived from Les Incas of Marmontel. Her third dramatic work was Ina, a tragedy in five acts, the plot of which was set in Saxon England. It was produced at Drury Lane on 22 April 1815, under the management of Sheridan, to whose second wife, the daughter of Dr Ogle, dean of Winchester, Lady Dacre was related. It was not sufficiently successful to induce its repetition. It was printed in 1815, as produced on the stage, but in Lady Dacre's collected works she restored 'the original catastrophe, and some other parts which had been cut out'. The fourth drama was entitled Xarifa. Lady Dacre's book also contains translations of several of the sonnets of Petrarch. Ugo Foscolo's Essays on Petrarch of 1823 are dedicated to Lady Dacre, and the last forty-five pages of the work are occupied by her translations from Petrarch. Her Translations from the Italian, principally from Petrarch, were privately printed at London in 1836. She also wrote several plays and comedies for amateur theatres which were successfully put on at Hatfield and The Hoo. Lady Dacre was a prolific letter-writer who shared a correspondence with other literary women such as Joanna Baillie, Mary Mitford, and Catherine Maria Fanshawe."