Mandeville. A tale of the seventeenth century in England

Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co. and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Ornme, and Brown, London, 1817. First edition, 3 volumes, 12mo, pp. xii, 306; [4], 316; [4], 367, [1]; original blue paper-covered boards, brown paper shelfback, printed paper labels on spines; a very good set. Ownership signature in volumes II and III of E. Hornby. Blue cloth slipcase with red morocco label lettered in gilt. "Mandeville was an unexpected novel, coming from the philosopher who laid such stress on the role of reason. Written at the period when his stepdaughter, Fanny, hanged herself, and his daughter, Mary, and Shelley were married at St. Mildred's in Broad Street [27 December 1816], Godwin's novel was set in the civil war, with a poor plot but vivid characterisation turning on the unreasoning hatred of the sour and puritanical Mandeville for the pleasure-loving, charismatic and noble-blooded Clifford. 'Even more than in Caleb Williams, Godwin wields his metaphysical dissecting knife to lay bare the deepest involutions of motive and personality, taking us within his character to feel what he feels and hate what he hates. For all its faults, its verbosity and tedium, it is the relentless expression of this one dominating state of mind ... that makes Mandeville one of Godwin's most extraordinary works' (Locke, A Fantasy of Reason, 1980, pp. 277-78). A fourth volume, entitled Mandeville: the Last Words of a Maniac, was completed by another writer called Arnold and issued by a different publisher" (Christies). Wolff 2588.