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officer and rakehell Sir Banastre Tarleton, and contemporaries sug- gested that Tarleton and Robinson’s affair had ended because of Banastre’s “designs” on her daughter Maria. The Wild Wreath , likely published by Maria Elizabeth as a memo- rial to her mother, contains four contributions by “Susan”. One of these, entitled “To a False Friend”, appears in exactly the same form in the present manuscript; another, published anonymously, is “To a Friend, with some Painted Flowers”, and is the same piece which in the present manuscript is addressed to Banastre Tarleton; it also includes a finely-worked title page vignette and four other roundels, all signed “Mrs. B. Tarleton”, and of a piece, thematically and stylis- tically, with the work in the present manuscript. Though the British Romanticism academic Jackie Labbe casts doubt on these attribu- tions to Susan Tarleton, noting incredulously that “we are asked to believe that ‘Mrs B. Tarleton’ supplied the drawings for a memorial collection of poems by her husband’s cast-off mistress, edited by that mistress’s daughter”. However, it is indubitably clear from this man- uscript that Susan contributed her artistic and literary work to Maria Elizabeth’s publication. The former mistress’s daughter and the lov- ing wife were clearly friends, and part of a short-lived salon of sorts gathered in memory of the deceased Mary Robinson. One of Maria Elizabeth’s pieces in the anthology, “Impromptu”, is addressed to “Dear Susan” whose “happy state/By virtue shames the guilty great”; praises her spurning of “Folly’s tinsel show”; and concludes that al- though “deck’d in all the pride of worth” she is possessed of “two wonders”: “Thou art unfashionably chaste,/and art a faithful friend”. This remarkable poetry manuscript situates Susan both within and outside the social conventions of her day. The writing of verse, fine penmanship, and drawing were common among upper-class young women of the time, but her pursuit of these into middle age and the level of her accomplishment certainly bordered on what would have been considered eccentric by her contemporaries. Labbe, Jackie, “The Romance of Motherhood: Generation and the Literary Text”, Romanticism on the Net , no. 26, May 2002. £6,500 [94720]
sensuality” (Donald Watt). This is the only such collection of Tice’s original sketches traced. Sawelson-Gorse, Naomi, Women in Dada: Essays on Sex, Gender and Identity , Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology, 1998. £2,750 [131585] 152 TARLETON, Priscilla Susan Bertie. Manuscript volume of poetry with numerous pen, ink, and pencil vignettes. London: 1796–1821 Quarto (195 × 154 mm). Contemporary diced russia, skilfully rebacked to style, the spine gilt in compartments with lyre and olive branch tools, wide Greek key panel to the boards, single gilt fillet edge-roll, all edges gilt, helical twist roll to the turn-ins, marbled endpapers. Owner/author’s inscription to the third leaf, “London June the 11th, 1804. Pris : Susan : Tarleton”, and her initials as “P. S. T.” verso of the first leaf. 56 pages of pen and pencil manuscript in a 112 page notebook of good quality vélin watermarked “A. Stace 1801”, 24 leaves entirely blank; written in a consistently elegant, flowing, and clearly legible hand throughout, and decorated with 16 pen, pencil and ink wash illustrative roundels, vignettes, and head- and tailpieces, the text indexed at the rear. Ju- diciously restored at the corners and board edges, even pale toning and occa- sional light spotting, but overall in an excellent state of preservation. a superbly presented, deeply personal manuscript vol- ume of largely unpublished poetry and drawings by Pris- cilla Susan Bertie Tarleton (1778–1864), produced over the course of 25 years. It contains 30 original poems and 16 delicate pencil and ink illustrations. Although the work was probably produced for presentation or circulation among a close circle, parts of it were published in compelling circumstances in the 1804 poetry anthol- ogy, The Wild Wreath, a copy of which accompanies the manuscript. The anthology was compiled from the work of some of the progen- itors of Romanticism (including the first appearance of Coleridge’s “The Mad Monk”) by Maria Elizabeth Robinson, the daughter of Mary Robinson (1757?–1800), “the English Sappho” of her lifetime. Mary was a former mistress of Susan’s husband, the notorious army
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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