Louder Than Words

tips, front inner hinge cracked but firm, trivial chip and short closed tear to front free endpaper. A very good copy. ¶ Henry Wheatley, The Dedication of Books to Patron and Friend , 1887. £6,000 [150841] 95 LENNOX, Charlotte. Shakespear Illustrated: or the Novels and Histories, on which the Plays of Shakespear are Founded, Collected and Translated from the Original Authors . . . By the author of the Female Quixote. London: A. Millar, 1753–54 a landmark of female shakespearean criticism, from the library of england’s first female book collector First edition of Lennox’s pioneering treatise on Shakespeare, offering for the first time in English criticism a systematic summary, translation, and commentary of the playwright’s major sources. This copy has an appealing provenance, from the library of the first major female book collector, Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785–1861), with her bookplate to the front pastedowns.

94 LEE, Vernon. Belcaro. London: W. Satchell, 1881

Shakespear Illustrated was Lennox’s first work of literary criticism, considered a “milestone in the historical interpretation of vernacular literature” ( ODNB ). Lennox was able to analyse in detail the influence of Italian, French, Latin, Danish, and English authors on Shakespeare’s plays, and was the first to note Shakespeare’s debts to the continental novella, arguing that characters’ motivations were much clearer in the originals than in the plays. Because of her provoking attacks on Shakespeare’s originality, several contemporaries found her criticisms of Shakespeare intolerable. The playwright David Garrick remarked: “In the Whole, I imagin’d that you had betray’d a greater desire of Exposing his Errors than of illustrating his Beauties” (ibid.). A great admirer of Lennox’s work was Samuel Johnson, who playfully suggested that she “try her hand at Milton ‘when Shakespeare is demolish’d’” (ibid.). Johnson placed her on equal footing with Frances Burney, Elizabeth Carter, and Hannah More in his pantheon of woman writers, and contributed the ten page dedication of the present work. Three volumes, duodecimo (172 × 101 mm). Contemporary speckled calf, spines with raised bands, gilt decoration in compartments, later red and green morocco labels, board edges tooled in gilt, edges sprinkled blue. Woodcut ornament to title pages, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. Vol. II bound without publisher’s advertisements. Extremities rubbed, joints cracked but firm, a little loss of leather at spine ends of vols. I and III, occasional marginal offsetting and light foxing to contents, otherwise crisp and clean. A very good copy. ¶ ESTC T138281 & T139076; Rothschild 1321. £2,500 [158070] 96 LENORMAND, Marie Anne Adelaide. Les Souvenirs prophétiques d’une sibylle. Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1814 the notorious prophetess of the french revolution

First edition of Lenormand’s first book, signed by her as authentication on the imprint page. This work, which details her arrest in 1809 as well as providing numerous notes on divination, ancient magic, and the handling of grimoires, launched Lenormand’s literary career, extending her renown as a celebrity fortune-teller. Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand (1772–1843) used cartomancy to provide advice to the great and good of Paris, as well as those visiting the city, her clients including Alexander I of Russia, Louis XVIII, and the Empress Josephine. Lenormand, who used the Etteilla deck for her tarot readings alongside techniques such as palmistry, was involved in many controversies over her 40-year career. As a result of these c auses célèbres she was arrested multiple times; one such arrest is illustrated in the frontispiece of this work. Napoleon allegedly referenced her when asked in exile his opinion on religion, “Man has need of something wonderful. It is better for him to seek it in religion than in Mlle le Normand” (O’Meara, p. 444). After her death, publishers of tarot decks were keen to benefit from her fame and used her name for their cards. The first such deck, published by Grimaud in 1845, “Le Grand Jeu de Mlle. Lenormand” was in fact created by a Madame Breteau, who claimed to be a student of Lenormand. While their relation to Lenormand’s own work is obscure (her deck was inherited by her nephew, who burned it as part of her occult collection), Lenormand decks are still one of the most widely used. Octavo (195 × 124 mm). Contemporary pale quarter calf, titles, elaborate tooling, and initials of Gustaf Troll-Bonde in gilt to spine, marbled sides, plain endpapers, green marbled edges, multicoloured silk bookmarker loosely inserted. Engraved frontispiece. Clipped auction cataloguing and bookplate of arts patron Gustaf Troll-Bonde (1773–1855) of Sävstaholm Castle, Sweden, bookplate of fellow Swede Arnold Hjorth (1894–1981). A little rubbed, touch of wear to corners, offsetting to front free endpaper, rear free endpaper lacking. A very good copy indeed. ¶ Caillet II–6517. Barry E. O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or, a Voice from St. Helena , 1822. £3,000 [151292]

“i have been haunted by the remembrance of that winter afternoon, when last we were together, on the battlements of belcaro” First edition, the dedication copy, inscribed by the author to her lover, the poet Mary Robinson, on the dedication page: “A recollection of the afternoon at Belcaro Dec. 15. 80 with the love & respect of her Vernon. Dec. 16 81”. It is inscribed a year and a day after their visit to the Castello do Belcaro, Siena, the trip on which their burgeoning love affair developed. In Wheatley’s history of book dedication, he notes that Belcaro is “worthy of especial notice, in that the whole book is practically dedication” (Wheatley, p. 224). The collection of essays emerged out of private conversations between Lee and Robinson. Lee recalls in the introductory chapter how “a little while ago I told you that I wished this collection of studies to be more especially yours . . . I wish I could give you what I have written in the same complete way that a painter would give you one of his sketches; that a singer, singing to you alone, might give you his voice and his art; for a dedication is but a drop of ink on a large white sheet, and conveys but a sorry notion of property. Now, this book is intended to be really yours; yours in the sense that, were it impossible for more than one copy of it to exist, that one copy I should certainly give to you”. “The complete association of the book with the person to whom it is dedicated is maintained in the sentences with which the author concludes . . . . ‘I will confess to you that more nearly appealing to me, dearer also, than antique bas-relief or song of Mozart, has been the vague remembrance, evoked by trivial word or sight, of that early winter afternoon on the ilex girded battlements of Belcaro” (ibid., p. 225). Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, brown coated endpapers. Housed in a dark green quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Spine ends a little frayed, touch of wear to

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LOUDER THAN WORDS

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