LUCY WELLERS: Histoire Traduite de l’Anglois. Tom Ier [-IIme].

Two volumes bound in one, 12mo, pp. [ii], viii, 243, [1] blank; [ii], 298; engraved title-pages to each volume, and occasional engraved head- and tailpieces and initials; occasional spotting, but largely clean and fresh; in contemporary sheep-backed boards; spine ruled in gilt with gilt lettering-piece; some wear and marking to spine and boards, upper joint cracked at foot; nonetheless an attractive copy.

First edition in French of Susan Smythies' second novel, The History of Lucy Wellers, which had first appeared in English in 1754.

Notable as the first novel to state on the title-page that it was 'Written by a Lady', Lucy Wellers tells the story of a girl, born to unknown parents, and her virtuous resistance to the advances of an unsuitable man, with the reward of a happy marriage to a well-off landowner. The translation is the work of Adrien-Nicolas Piédefer, marquis de La Salle, and is one of two to have appeared in the same year, with the other, by Eidous, being published in Lyon under the title Histoire de Lucy Wellers. The translator's introduction explains why he translated Smythies' book, and why we should not dismiss the work of the translator: 'The novel seemed interesting to me; that is why I have translated it. ... We think too little of translators, even when they make good translations. ... If France is proud of producing Montesquieu, Buffon, and Voltaire, England also glories in being the mother of Locke, Newton, and Pope. What wouldn't the English and French have lost had each, happy with their own share, neglected through stupid pride the lessons they could learn from the works of their neighbours?'.

Conlon 66: 1426; see Oxford History of the Novel in English, Vol 2, p. 37; outside Continental Europe, OCLC records copies at Princeton, UCLA, and Texas A&M.