This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In particular it offers fresh commentary on the entries in the second volume [EN2], which was co-edited by Peter Garside and Rainer Schöwerling, with the assistance of Christopher Skelton-Foord and Karin Wünsche. The present report is the fourth (and last) Update in a series of annual Reports, each featuring information that has come to light in the preceding year as a result of activities in CEIR and through contributions sent by interested individuals outside Cardiff.

The entries below are organised in a way that matches the order of material in the English Novel, 1770-1829. While it makes reference to any relevant changes that may have occurred in Updates 1-3, the ‘base’ it normally refers to is the printed Bibliography and not the preceding reports. Sections A and B concern authorship, with the first of these proposing changes to the attribution as given in the printed Bibliography, and the second recording the discovery of new information of interest that has nevertheless not led presently to new attributions. Section C includes three additional titles which match the criteria for inclusion and should ideally have been incorporated in the printed Bibliography, while Section E involves information such as is usually found in the Notes field of entries, and those owning copies of the printed Bibliography might wish (as in the case of the earlier categories) to amend entries accordingly. An element of colour coding has been used to facilitate recognition of the nature of changes, with red denoting revisions and additions to existing entries in the Bibliography, and the additional titles discovered being picked out in blue. Reference numbers (e.g. 1806: 12) are the same as those in the English Novel, 1770-1829; when found as cross references these refer back to the original Bibliography, unless accompanied with ‘above’ or ‘below’, in which case a cross reference within the present report is intended. Abbreviations match those listed at the beginning volume 2 of the English Novel, though in a few cases these are spelled out more fully for the convenience of present readers.

This report (and its addenda) were prepared by Peter Garside, with significant inputs of information from Drs Jacqueline Belanger and Sharon Ragaz, on this occasion especially as a result of a survey of relevant entries in the Ledgers of the Longman Archives, and work with the Oliver & Boyd and Blackwood Papers in the National Library of Scotland. Information was also generously communicated by a number of individuals, including: Andrew Ashfield, Richard Beaton, Emma Clery, Isobel Grundy, David Skilton, John Strachan, and (once more) Professors Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber. As before, the Cardiff team has benefited from its association with Projekt Corvey at Paderborn University, most recently through the joint preparation of a Bibliography of Fiction, 1830-1836 (available now within Cardiff Corvey, and abbreviated below as EN3). Thanks are also due to Michael Bott, of Reading University Library, for help received in locating materials in the Longman archives; to Miss Virginia Murray for support and guidance with the Murray archives; and to the trustees of the National Library of Scotland [NLS] for permission to quote from manuscripts in their care.

A: New and Changed Author Attributions

1802: 3
[PHILIPPS, Janetta].
DELAVAL. A NOVEL. IN TWO VOLUMES.
London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for William Lane, Leadenhall-Street, 1802.
I 266p, ill.; II 216p. 12mo. 8s boards (CR); 8s (ECB).
CR 2nd ser. 34: 476 (Apr 1802); WSW I: 32.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47405-1; ECB 158; xNSTC.
Notes.The authorship has been discovered through the appearance of ‘Stanzas Inserted in the Novel of Delaval’ in Janetta Philipps’s privately printed Poems (Oxford, 1811), pp. 31-2, these matching the untitled 5-stanza poem interspersed in the novel above at I, 116. Further comparison has revealed that 5 other poetical pieces in the novel are reprinted in Philipps’s Poems, constituting nearly a third of the items in that volume. Little else has been found about Janetta Philipps, other than that Shelley praised her poems and was active in collecting subscribers for the 1811 volume (see Jackson, p. 256). Thanks are due to Andrew Ashfield for drawing attention to ‘Stanzas Inserted in the Novel of Delaval’.
Further edn: Newbern, NC, 1804 (NUC).

1806: 6
[?HURRY, Margaret].
DONALD. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed by I. Gold, Shoe-Lane, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, 1806.
I 335p; II 324p; III 213p. 12mo. 13s 6d (ECB); 13s 6d boards (ER).
ER 9: 500 (Jan 1807); WSW I: 34.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47448-5; ECB 168; NSTC D1544 (BI BL, C).
Notes. Longman Divide Ledger (CD, p. 221) and Commission Ledger (IC, p. 21) show that 6 copies were sent to Mrs Ives at Yarmouth and that half profits were paid to a ‘Mrs H.’. ‘Mrs Ives Hurry’ is given as the author on the title-page of Artless Tales (1808: 59), also published by Longmans. Mrs Hurry’s maiden name was Margaret Mitchell. The subscription list to Artless Tales includes 6 Yarmouth subscribers, including a Mr James Hurry (among 11 of that surname). The same list also includes a Mrs T. Ives, who subscribes for 3 copies, as well as three Miss Mitchells. The ledger nomination of Mrs H. apparently as the author, similarity of publisher, and a coincidence of names and East Anglian connections, point strongly (though not decisively) towards authorship of the above title by Margaret Hurry.

1808: 13
[?MERIVALE, John Herman].
THE RING AND THE WELL; OR, THE GRECIAN PRINCESS. A ROMANCE. IN FOUR VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, 1808.
I 271p; II 220p; III 249p; IV 300p. 12mo. 18s (ECB, ER).
ER 12: 524 (July 1808), 13: 507 (Jan 1809); WSW I: 104.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48607-6; ECB 494; NSTC G1895 (BI E).
Notes. Longman Divide Ledger (ID, p. 88) shows a number of copies, some in special bindings, being sent to ‘Mr Merrivale’ (or ‘Mr M’). This raises the possibility that the author of this work was John Herman Merivale. Merivale’s brother-in-law was Henry Joseph Thomas Drury (1778-1841), and it is noticeable that a copy of the novel was also sent to ‘H. Drury Esq’. Merivale was a classical scholar, whose works included Collections from the Greek Anthology and from the Pastoral, Elegiac, and Dramatic Poets of Greece (London, 1813). He was also a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine.

1809: 10
[?PORTER, Sir Robert Ker].
TALES OF OTHER REALMS. COLLECTED DURING A LATE TOUR THROUGH EUROPE. BY A TRAVELLER. IN TWO VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, 1809.
I viii, 199p; II 208p. 12mo. 8s (ECB, ER, QR).
ER 15: 242 (Oct 1809); QR 2: 466 (Nov 1809); WSW I: 118.
Corvey; CME 3-628-51155-0; ECB 575; NSTC T131 (BI O).
Notes. Preface dated London, May 1809. Longman Divide Ledger (ID, p. 50) shows 6 copies in boards being sent to ‘Miss Porter’. This indicates a connection with either Jane or Anna Maria Porter, and beyond that possible authorship by a member of the Porter family. Sir Robert Ker Porter (1772-1842), their elder brother, had travelled extensively in Russia, Germany, Finland and Sweden, since 1804, and more recently had accompanied Sir John Moore on his expedition to Spain. He was the acknowledged author of Letters from Portugal and Spain, written during the march of the British Troops under Sir John Moore (1809), published by Longman & Co, for whom he also wrote other travel books. In the Preface to the present work, the author refers to his having added notes to ‘the Spanish story’, but having desisted from doing the same in the case of ‘the Sicilian, Swiss, or Portuguese stories’ (vii-viii) Granting the present attribution to Sir Robert Ker Porter, and the almost certain authorship of Sir Edward Seaward’s Narrative of His Shipwreck (EN3 1831: 57) by William Ogilvie Porter, this would place four of the Porter siblings as writers of fiction.

1812: 23
[BENGER, Elizabeth Ogilvy].
MARIAN, A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES.
Edinburgh: Printed for Manners and Miller; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London, 1812.
I 288p; II 271p; III 250p. 12mo. 15s (ECB, ER, QR).
ER 19: 511 (Feb 1812); QR 7: 471 (June 1812).
Corvey; CME 3-628-48156-2; ECB 368; NSTC M1135 (BI BL, E, O).
Notes: Benger is given as the author in FC and NUC; Mme[?] Barbara Pile is listed as the author by Bentley (p. 94) (also spelt Pilon-p. 72). The absence of any further evidence about the otherwise unknown Pile, and an increasing awareness of the provenance of this novel, both argue strongly for attributing this novel to Benger alone. One useful pointer is the recommendation of the work to its Edinburgh publishers as ‘the very best novel she had ever read’ by Elizabeth Hamilton, one of Benger’s close friends: see Lady Charlotte Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, ed. by A. F. Steuart, 2 vols. (London: Lane, 1908), II, 262.
Further edn: Philadelphia 1812 (NUC).

1815: 17
BUONAPARTE, Louis; K{ENDALL}, E{dward} A{ugustus} (trans.).
MARIA; OR, THE HOLLANDERS: BY LOUIS BUONAPARTE. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed by J. Gillet, Crown-Court, Fleet-Street, for H. Colburn, Conduit-Street; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1815.
I xvi, 225p; II 189p; III 251p. 12mo. 16s 6d (ECB, ER); 16s (QR).
ER 25: 278 (June 1815); QR 13: 281 (Apr 1815); WSW I: 180.
BL N.1820; ECB 64; NSTC L2387 (BI C, Dt).
Notes: Trans. of Marie, ou les Hollandoises (Paris, 1814), which is the 2nd edn. of Marie, ou les peines de l’amour (Gratz, 1812). Preface to the Translation, signed E. A. K., 6 Feb 1815, reads: ‘The first edition, under the title of Marie, ou les peines de l’amour, was printed at Gratz, in the year 1812. Of that edition, a reprint appeared in Paris, but, from whatever cause, not before the beginning of the year 1814. In the interim, the author had made several alterations in his work, changing some of the minor incidents of the story, and consequently suppressing some of his pages, and adding others; and, in the month of June, 1814, he conveyed, by a written paper, dated at Lausanne, in Switzerland, and signed “L. de St. Leu,” to a particular bookseller in Paris, authority to print, from the original manuscript, with its alterations, a second edition of his book, under the new title of Marie, ou les Hollandoises. From this edition, the following translation has been made’ (pp. [v]-vi). OCLC (Accession No. 5381478) identifies the translator as probably Edward Augustus Kendall (1776?-1842). This identification is substantiated by the Longman Divide Ledger entry (2D, p. 76), where ‘Mr Kendall’ receives payment of £31. 10. 0. as the ‘Translator’.

1819: 18
[?EDWARDS, Mr].
ROBIN HOOD; A TALE OF THE OLDEN TIME. IN TWO VOLUMES.
Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, High Street; G. & W. B. Whittaker, Ave-Maria-Lane, London; and W. Turnbull, Glasgow, 1819.
I 246p; II 221p. 12mo. 12s (ER).
ER 32: 257 (July 1819).
Corvey; CME 3-628-48615-7; NSTC 2H28683 (BI BL).
Notes: Oliver & Boyd ledger entry itemizes £20 ‘Paid to Mr Edwards for the copyright’ (NLS, MS Accession 5000/1, Copyright Ledger I, pp. 135-6). Normally in such cases in the Oliver & Boyd records this refers to the author, though there is still the possibility that an agent was involved in this particular case. 8 pp. of separately paged advs. at the end of vol. 2.
Further edn: 2nd edn. 1819 (NSTC).

1820: 10
[?DIBDIN, Thomas John].
TALES OF MY LANDLORD, NEW SERIES, CONTAINING PONTEFRACT CASTLE. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed for William Fearman, New Bond Street, 1820.
I xlvi, 226p; II 290p; III 319p. 12mo.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48870-2; ECB 575; NSTC 2T1406 (BI BL, E; NA MH).
Notes: Vol. 1 includes a long ‘Publisher’s Preface’ containing details of a dispute with John Ballantyne, Walter Scott’s literary agent, concerning the copyright of the Tales of My Landlord series. See Update 3 under 1820: 10 for Robert Cadell’s report to his partner Constable that ‘Thomas Dibdin is the author’. Additional support for an attribution to Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841) has since been found in OCLC’s attribution of the follow-up work in this spurious ‘new series’ to this Dibdin (see Notes to 1821: 17 below). On the other hand, mention by the Publisher (in a notice in the Morning Chronicle of 13 Nov 1819) of the MS of the present work ‘coming from a great distance’ would seem to militate against the London-centred Dibdin being the origin.
Further edns: French trans., 1821 [as Le Château de Pontefract (Pigoreau)]; German trans., 1824 [as Das Schloss von Pontefract (RS)].

1820: 12
[SANSAY, Leonora].
ZELICA, THE CREOLE; A NOVEL, BY AN AMERICAN. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed for William Fearman, Library, 170, New Bond Street, 1820.
I 243p; II 254p; III 309p. 12mo. 21s (ECB).
ER 35: 266 (Mar 1821); WSW II: 41.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47473-6; ECB 654; NSTC 2A10533 (BI BL).
Notes: ER gives ‘Madame de Sansée’ as the author. This is substantiated by the attribution of this title to Leonora Sansay (b. 1781) by OCLC (Accession No. 22421579). Sansay is also given in OCLC as the author of Secret History, or the Horrors of St. Domingo (1808), and of Laura (1809) ‘by a lady of Philadelphia’ (where that novel was published). Both these latter works are mentioned in the entry on Sansay in FC, though no mention is made there of the above work and its companion The Scarlet Handkerchief (see 1823: 12 below). Adv. opp. t.p. of vol. 1 for ‘American Novels’, announcing two titles ‘In the Press, by the same Author’, viz. ‘The Scarlet Handkerchief, 3 vols.’, and ‘The Stranger in Mexico, 3 vols.’, which with the present work ‘form a Series of Novels that have been transmitted to the Publisher from America’. For the first of these titles, though from another publisher, see 1823: 12.

1820: 28(b)
GENLIS, [Stéphanie-Félicité, Comtesse] de; [STRUTT, Elizabeth; formerly BYRON (trans.)].
PETRARCH AND LAURA. BY MADAME DE GENLIS. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
London: Printed for Henry Colburn & Co. Public Library, Conduit Street, Hanover Square, 1820.
I xii, 195p; II 213p. 12mo. 10s 6d (ECB).
BL 837.b.27; ECB 225; NSTC 2B54567 (BI Dt, O).
Notes: Trans. of Pétrarque et Laure (Paris, 1819). This translation is given as Strutt’s in an MS list of her works found in the Oliver & Boyd Papers held in NLS (Accession 5000/91).
ER 33: 518 (May 1820); WSW I: 333.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47801-4; ECB 168; NSTC 2H36417 (BI BL, C, O).
Notes: Distinct from Domestic Scenes by Mrs Showes (see 1806: 61). Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 174) has ‘Mrs B’ written on upper right side of ledger entry, in a position where authors are normally shown; it also records ‘1 copy bds [sent to] Mrs Blair’. This is almost certainly Mrs Alexander Blair, the widow of a ruined industrialist and speculator, and very probably the same person who is described by Maria Edgeworth in a letter of 4 Mar 1819 as writing ‘novels if not for bread for butter’ (Letters from England, 1813-1844, ed. by Christina Colvin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 173). See also Update 1 (under 1813: 14) for a now disprovedsuggestion that a ‘Miss Cox’ might lie behind the pseudonym ‘Lady Humdrum’; and Update 3 for further commentary on the Blairs, and their daughter, the novelist Mary Margaret Busk.

1820: 38
[BLAIR, Mrs Alexander].
DOMESTIC SCENES. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY LADY HUMDRUM, AUTHOR OF MORE WORKS THAN BEAR HER NAME.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1820.
I 368p; II 359p; III 386p. 12mo. 21s (ECB, ER).
ER 33: 518 (May 1820); WSW I: 333.
Corvey; CME 3-628-47801-4; ECB 168; NSTC 2H36417 (BI BL, C, O).
Notes. Distinct from Domestic Scenes by Mrs Showes (see 1806: 61). Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 174) has ‘Mrs B’ written on upper right side of ledger entry, in a position where authors are normally shown; it also records ‘1 copy bds [sent to] Mrs Blair’. This is almost certainly Mrs Alexander Blair, the widow of a ruined industrialist and speculator, and very probably the same person who is described by Maria Edgeworth in a letter of 4 Mar 1819 as writing ‘novels if not for bread for butter’ (Letters from England, 1813-1844, ed. by Christina Colvin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 173). See also Update 1 (under 1813: 14) for a now disproved suggestion that a ‘Miss Cox’ might lie behind the pseudonym ‘Lady Humdrum’; and Update 3 for further commentary on the Blairs, and their daughter, the novelist Mary Margaret Busk.

1821: 17
[?DIBDIN, Thomas John].
TALES OF MY LANDLORD, NEW SERIES, CONTAINING THE FAIR WITCH OF GLAS LLYN. IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Printed for William Fearman, New Bond-Street, 1821.
I xcvi, 256p; II 360p; III 368p. 12mo. 24s (ER, QR).
ER 35: 525 (July 1821); QR 24: 571 (Jan 1821).
Corvey; ECB 575; NSTC 2T1407 (BI BL, E).
Notes: OCLC entry (Accession No. 13819230) ascribes to Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841), apparently on basis of anonymous MS note on t.ps. of surviving copy attributing to Thomas Dibdin of Sadler’s Wells. For other evidence in support of such an attribution, see Update 3 under 1820: 10 and Notes to 1820: 10 above.
Further edns: French trans., 1821 [as La Belle Sorcière de Glas-Llyn (Pigoreau)]; German trans., 1822 [as Die Circe von Glas-Llyn (RS)].

1821: 67
SOUZA[-BOTELHO], [Adélaide-Marie-Émilie Filleul, Marquise de Flahaut]; [?RYLANCE, Ralph (trans.)].
HELEN DE TOURNON: A NOVEL. BY MADAME DE SOUZA. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. IN TWO VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1821.
I 269p; II 263p. 12mo. 10s 6d (ECB); 10s 6d boards (ER, QR).
ER 35: 266 (Mar 1821); QR 24: 571 (Jan 1821).
BL N.368; ECB 552; NSTC 2F7815 (BI C).
Notes: Trans. of Mademoiselle de Tournon (vol. 6 of Oeuvres Complètes, Paris, 1821-2). Longman Impression Book entry (No. 7, fol. 109v) lists ‘Payments to Rylance [for] translating’. This is likely to refer to Ralph Rylance, the author of several books and pamphlets in this period, including A Sketch of the Causes and Consequences of the Late Emigration to the Brazils (1808) for Longman & Co. Rylance also appears in the Longman ledgers as a house reader for the firm. He is on record as receiving payment, for example, for reading and/or correcting the MSS of Jane West’s The Loyalists (1812: 64), Alicia de Lacy (1814: 60), and Ringrove (1827: 78), as well as Agnes Anne Barber’s Country Belles (1824: 16).
Further edn: Boston 1822 (NUC).

1823: 12
[SANSAY Leonora].
THE SCARLET HANDKERCHIEF. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY AN AMERICAN, AUTHOR OF ZELICA THE CREOLE, &C. &C.
London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co. Leadenhall-Street, 1823.
I 272p; II 264p; III 302p. 12mo. 18s (ECB).
Corvey; CME 3-628-48531-2; ECB 516; NSTC 2A10524 (BI BL).
Notes: Attribution to Sansay as a consequence of information relating to Zelica, the Creole (see Notes to 1820: 12 above). ECB dates Feb 1823

1823: 14
[BLAIR, Mrs Alexander].
SELF-DELUSION; OR, ADELAIDE D’HAUTEROCHE: A TALE. BY THE AUTHOR OF “DOMESTIC SCENES.” IN TWO VOLUMES.
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1823.
I 365p; II 353p. 12mo. 14s (ECB, QR); 14s boards (ER).
ER 39: 272 (Oct 1823); QR 29: 280 (Apr 1823); WSW II: 33.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48641-6; ECB 526; NSTC 2S12804 (BI BL, C).
Notes: Domestic Scenes was written under the pseudonym of Lady Humdrum (see 1820: 38). ‘Mrs Blair’ is written on top right of entry for the present title in Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 175). For the identification of Mrs Alexander Blair as the author underlying the pseudonymous ‘Lady Humdrum’, see extended Note to 1820: 38 above.

1824: 85
[?HOWARD, Francis].
TORRENWALD. A ROMANCE. IN FOUR VOLUMES. BY SCRIBLERUS SECUNDUS, SOMETIME INSTRUCTOR OF YOUTH, VULGO GRINDER. London: Printed for A. K. Newman and Co. Leadenhall-Street, 1824.
I 315p; II 291p; III 304p; IV 317p. 12mo. 26s (ECB).
WSW II: 38.
Corvey; CME 3-628-48762-5; ECB 594; NSTC 2S11201 (BI BL, C, O).
Notes: Francis Howard apparently claims this novel in a letter of 20 Dec 1824 to Oliver & Boyd, while approaching the firm over another novel of his: ‘[.] I never wrote a line till early in June 1823 when literally for want of amusement I began & wrote a Romance named Torrenwald’ (NLS, Accession 5000/191). Other correspondence in the Oliver & Boyd papers indicates that he was also the author of The Vacation, or Truth and Falsehood: A Tale for Youth (1824). Apart from this, however, nothing has been discovered about Howard, and his new novel appears not to have been taken up by Oliver & Boyd. ECB dates May 1824.

1825: 30
FOUQUÉ, [Friedrich Heinrich Karl], Baron de la Motte; [GILLIES, Robert Pierce (trans.)].
THE MAGIC RING; A ROMANCE, FROM THE GERMAN OF FREDERICK, BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ. IN THREE VOLUMES.
Edinburgh: Published by Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale-Court; and Geo. B. Whittaker, London, 1825.
I xv, 319p; II 344p; III 332p. 12mo. 21s (ECB).
BL N.278; ECB 213; NSTC 2L2906 (BI C, Dt, E, O).
Notes: Trans. of Der Zauberring (Nürnberg, 1813). Dedication ‘to Conrad Charles, Freyherr von Ämselnburg, in Berlin, translator of “The Lady of the Lake”, “The Bridal of Triermain” and “The Antiquary” ‘. Correspondence between Gillies and George Boyd in the Oliver & Boyd Papers held in NLS (Accession 5000/191) makes it clear that Gillies was the translator. ECB dates Nov 1825.
Further edn: another trans. 1846 (NSTC).

1826: 8
[?HALE, Sarah Josepha Buell].
STRANGER OF THE VALLEY; OR, LOUISA AND ADELAIDE. AN AMERICAN TALE. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY A LADY.
New-York: Printed for Collins and Hannay. London: Reprinted for A. K. Newman and Co. Leadenhall-Street, 1826.
I 273p; II 271p; III 262p. 12mo. 16s 6d (ECB).
Corvey; CME 3-628-47472-8; ECB 565; NSTC 2L1432 (BI BL, C).
Notes: OCLC (Accession No. 27635457) attributes New York edn. unquestioningly to Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788-1879). This work is not listed as Hale’s, however in Blanck. ECB dates Aug 1825. Colophon in each vol. reads: ‘J. Darling, Leadenhall-Street, London’. Originally published New York 1825 (OCLC).

1828: 9
[STRUTT, Elizabeth; formerly BYRON].
MARY HARLAND; OR, THE JOURNEY TO LONDON. A TALE OF HUMBLE LIFE.
Edinburgh: Published by Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale Court; and Geo. B. Whittaker, London, 1828.
320p. 18mo. 4s (ECB).
BL 1210.c.18(2); ECB 371; NSTC 2H8444.
Notes: Correspondence of Elizabeth Strutt and others with George Boyd in the Oliver & Boyd Papers held in NLS (Accession 5000/192-3) makes it clear that Strutt was the author of this work. ECB dates Mar 1828.

1828: 17
[BANIM, Michael].
THE CROPPY; A TALE OF 1798. BY THE AUTHORS OF “THE O’HARA TALES,” “THE NOWLANS,” AND “THE BOYNE WATER.” IN THREE VOLUMES.
London: Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, 1828.
I 314p; II 299p; III 318p. 12mo. 31s 6d (ECB); 31s 6d boards (ER).
ER 47: 524 (May 1828).
Corvey; CME 3-628-47353-5; ECB 145; NSTC 2B6685 (BI BL, C, Dt, E; NA MH).
Notes: Letters from John to Michael Banim during the preparation of this work indicate that it was authored by Michael alone, and not as previously given by the brothers together (see Patrick Joseph Murray, The Life of John Banim, the Irish Novelist (London, 1857), pp. 180, 190-2). Dedication ‘to Sheffield Grace, Esq, F.S.A. &c.’, signed ‘The O’Hara Family’.
Further edns: 1834 (NUC); Philadelphia 1839 (NUC); French trans., 1833.
Facs: IAN (1979).

1829: 6
[ALEXANDER, Gabriel].
MY GRANDFATHER’S FARM; OR, PICTURES OF RURAL LIFE.
Edinburgh: Published by Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale-Court; and Geo. B. Whittaker, London, 1829.
335p. 12mo. 7s (ECB, QR).
QR 39: 525 (Apr 1829).
Corvey; CME 3-628-51100-3; ECB 403; NSTC 2G17267 (BI BL, C, Dt, E).
Notes: A letter of receipt in the Oliver & Boyd papers, 15 May 1828, shows Gabriel Alexander acknowledging payment of £20 sterling for the copyright of this title (Letter Book, Agreements, 1814-47; NLS, Accession 5000/140). In the index to the same Letter Book, the author is listed under ‘Alexander, Gabriel, Advocate’. This is almost certainly the same Alexander Gabriel who was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates on 25 Jan 1817, and died in 1868. In a letter of 11 Apr 1834 to the Royal Literary Fund, to whom an appeal was made, Alexander describes his work as ‘a seven shilling volume which I had published by Oliver & Boyd Edin. 1828’ (RLF 25: 789, Item 1). James Rennie, writing on his behalf on 20 April 1834, also states that ‘The only volume he has had published is ‘My Grandfather’s Farm’ which I am told in P[aternoster] R[ow] sold very well’ (Item 2). The RLF records show that Alexander was granted £20. ECB dates Nov 1828.

B: New Information Relating to Authorship, but not Presently Leading to Further Attribution Changes

1803: 38 KARAM[Z]IN, Ni[k]olai [Mikhailovich]; ELRINGTON, John Battersby (trans.), RUSSIAN TALES. Examination of the 1804 reissue, titled Tales from the Russian of Nicolai Karamsin (BL 12590 f. 90), shows a completely different set of preliminaries, which themselves strongly argue for the attribution of the translation to Andreas Andersen Feldborg. These consist of a dedication ‘to Mr A de Gyldenpalm, His Danish Majesty’s Charge D’Affaires At the Court of Great Britain &c’, in which ‘The Translator’ speaks ‘As a native of Denmark’; and also a ‘Translator’s Preface’ in which the same translator refers to having ‘already the honour of introducing my author to the British Public, by the translation of his Travels’. This latter presumably relates to Karamzin’s Travels from Moscow, through Prussia, Germany, Switzerland, France, and England (London: Printed for J. Badcock by G. Sidney, 1803)-see OCLC Accession No. 9213044, which states translated from the German, though no translator is given. Translation of both works by the same Dane is strongly implied in a letter of Isaac D’Israeli to John Murray II, probably belonging to 1803, in the Murray Archives. Here D’Israeli states: ‘I heard last night that Karamsin’s Travels is a very indifferent book. This does not augur well for Karamsin’s Tales; the work in question of the Dane’s. I give you this information in time, that you may not plunge headlong into any independent engagement respecting the work. If he has printed 900, it is a good many; parts of the work should not extend beyond the circle of a Circulating Library.’ It is worth noting that Sidney, the printer of Karamzin’s Travels, appears on the title-pages of both the 1803 and 1804 Karamzin Tales: alone in the first case (indicating a private publication), and with ‘J. Johnson, St Paul’s Church-Yard’ in the second case. The main body of the work is both instances is made up from the same sheets, suggesting possibly that Johnson had bought up remaindered stock for the second issue. (The 1804 reissue also lacks the two plates found in the 1803 issue, the second of which, facing p. 204, bears the legend ‘Published Novemr 5th 1803’.) If however Feldborg is adjudged translator, this not only leaves the large problem of the 1803 edition’s title-page attribution of the translation to John Battersby Elrington, but also the questions posed by a different set of preliminaries profiling Elrington as an entirely different kind of entity. The address ‘To My Friends’ there in particular refers to the translator as being ‘a Gentleman in Prison, labouring for Bread’. One potential solution is that Elrington is a pseudonym of Feldborg’s, though this seems a large conjectural step to take. For further commentary on the larger issues involved, see Addendum 1 to this Update concerning ‘Charles Sedley’.

1804: 71 WIELAND, C[hristoph] M[artin]; ELRINGTON, John Battersby (trans.), CONFESSIONS IN ELYSIUM, OR THE ADVENTURES OF A PLATONIC PHILOSOPHER. The possibility that Elrington is a pseudonym, and/or of an involvement by Andreas Anderson Feldborg as translator, is opened up by the case of 1803: 38 above. The licentiousness of much of the present text, at least in its translated form, might seem to match the Elrington persona; translation of an extensive text ‘from the German’ would seem to accord more with Feldborg. One linking factor is the appearance of G. Sidney as printer again on the titles. For further commentary on the larger issues involved, see Addendum 1 to this Update concerning ‘Charles Sedley’.

1805: 10 ANON, THE MYSTERIOUS PROTECTOR: A NOVEL. DEDICATED TO LADY CRESPIGNY. The 1821 Catalogue for J. Brown’s Circulating Library, Standishgate, Wigan, attributes this novel to Mrs Crepigny, though most probably as a result of the incorporation of Lady Crespigny as the dedicatee within the main title. It is perhaps worth noting, nevertheless, that the same Mary Champion de Crespigny is the accepted author of The Pavilion. A Novel (EN1 1796: 35).

1805: 15 [ANDERSON, Andreas], *MENTAL RECREATIONS. FOUR DANISH AND GERMAN TALES. BY THE AUTHOR OF TOUR IN ZEALAND. Attributed to Andreas Anderson, following Andrew Block, though no actual copy has been located. A Tour in Zealand, in the Year 1802 (London, 1805), as mentioned in the title above, however, is a work by Andreas Andersen Feldborg. It is probably significant too that the pseudonym of ‘J. A. Anderson’ was used for Feldborg’s later work, A Dane’s Excursions in Britain (1809), where again incidentally the titles refer to the writer as ‘Author of a Tour in Zealand’. In this light it seems likely that: (a) the pseudonym Andreas Anderson was actually used in the case of Mental Recreations; and (b) the true author (or perhaps more accurately, translator) of the same was Andreas Andersen Feldborg.

1807: 19 DIOGENES [pseud.], THE ROYAL ECLIPSE; OR, DELICATE FACTS EXHIBITING THE SECRET MEMOIRS OF SQUIRE GEORGE AND HIS WIFE. WITH NOTES. According to the review of this work in The Satirist, or, Monthly Meteor, 1 (1 Oct 1807), it was ‘written by the SAME AUTHOR‘ (p. 65) as The Infidel Mother (1807: 58), itself attributed on its title-page to (the almost certainly pseudonymous) Charles Sedley. Another review in the same issue of The Satirist of Sedley’s The Barouche Driver and His Wife (1807: 57) also furthers the connection (p. 69), drawing in as well The Royal Investigation; or, Authentic documents containing the official acquittal of H.R.H the P-ss of W-s (1807), ‘by a Serjeant at law’. The publisher of all four publications mentioned here was J. F. Hughes. For further commentary on the larger issues involved, see Addendum 1 to this Update concerning ‘Charles Sedley’.

1808: 9 ANON, MEMOIRS OF FEMALE PHILOSOPHERS, IN TWO VOLUMES. BY A MODERN PHILOSOPHER OF THE OTHER SEX. Advertised in The Morning Chronicle of 19 and 25 Mar 1808 as translated from the German by the Author of Caroline of Lichtfield and Christina [i.e. Jeanne-Isabelle-Pauline Polier de Bottens, Baronne de Montolieu]. Investigations are in process as to whether this item represents a re-translation back, through the French, of Charles Lloyd’s Edmund Oliver (EN1 1798: 42), itself translated into German as Edmund Olliver, Seitenstück zu Rousseaus Heloise (1799-1800).

1808: 91 RATCLIFFE, Eliza, THE MYSTERIOUS BARON, OR THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST, A GOTHIC STORY. For a possible interconnection with Mary Anne Radcliffe, the named (but likewise possibly pseudonymous) author of Manfroné; or, the One-Handed Monk (1809: 61), see Addendum 2 to this Update.

1809: 51 MORRINGTON, J., *THE COTTAGE OF MERLIN VALE. The 1814 Catalogue of Robert Kinnear’s Circulating Library in Edinburgh gives the author’s name as ‘Isabella Morrington’; that of A. K. Newman’s Minerva Library, London, also 1814, offers the fuller title of ‘Fashion’s Fool, or the Cottage of Merlin Vale’. Still, however, no actual copy has been located, to help reconcile the differing secondary evidence.

1810: 24 [?BAYLEY, Catharine], CALEDONIA; OR, THE STRANGER IN SCOTLAND: A NATIONAL TALE. See 1812: 20, below.

1810: 25 [?BAYLEY, Catharine], THE SPANISH LADY, AND THE NORMAN KNIGHT. A ROMANCE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. See 1812: 20, below.

1812: 10 ANON, MY OWN TIMES, A NOVEL. The Longmans Commission Ledger entry for this title (1C, p. 601) has ‘Mr Cormack’ at the top right corner of the entry (where author names often appear), and also registers payment to ‘H Cormack’ in the accounts. No likely Cormack writing at this time, however, has been discovered; and alternative possibilities are that this person was the author’s agent or a member of the book trade.

1812: 20 [?BAYLEY, Catharine], A SET-DOWN AT COURT; INCLUDING A SERIES OF ANECDOTES IN HIGH LIFE, AND THE HISTORY OF MONTHEMAR. A NOVEL, FOUNDED ON FACT. The identification of ‘Mrs Bayley’ (given as the author on the 1816 titles of vols. 2 and 3 of the Bodleian copy used for this entry) as Catharine Bayley does not gain further credence from the record of the latter’s appeals to the Royal Literary Fund. A letter of 27 Aug 1814 to the Fund (RLF 9: 317, Item 1) acknowledges only ‘Vacation Evenings and the little Volume abbreviated from the Zadig of Voltaire, entitled by her, Zadig and Astarte, published by Longman & Co Paternoster Row 1809 1810’ as individual publications. In the same letter, Bayley describes herself as ‘the Widow of the late Major Henry Bayley of the Royal Marines’, her lack of a widow’s pension (her husband having died nine years ago on half-pay), and later refers to pieces published by her in periodicals, ‘particularly the European Magazine’. No suggestion is made however of the three chain titles published by ‘Kate Montalbion’ and associable with Mrs Bayley (1810: 24, 25, and the above work). Another letter of appeal to the Fund, dated 12 Nov 1816, again mentions only ‘the Vacation Evenings-now out of print-and my Zadig from Voltaire, which is nearly so’. The same letter goes on to describe how ‘I have been ill many months, and am now so reduced that every garment, every necessary even my Wedding Ring are deposited for the present means of sustenance’ (RLF 9: 317, Item 16). Of course it is quite possible that Bayley did not wish to acknowledge three novels published by two far less salubrious publishers than Longmans, viz. J. F. Hughes and Allen & Co. The apparent reissuing of A Set-Down at Court in 1816 also tallies interestingly with Catharine Bayleys’s last desperate appeal to the Fund in that year.

1812: 47 [?MAXWELL, Caroline], MALCOLM DOUGLAS; OR, THE SIBYLLINE PROPHECY. A ROMANCE. The question mark qualifying the attribution, hitherto based on a title-page attribution, can now be removed in the light of Caroline Maxwell’s appeal to the Royal Literary Fund. In a letter to the Fund dated 12 April 1815, ‘Malcolm Douglas. In 3 Volumes. Printed for Hookhams 15 Old-Bond Street’ is listed as one of seven published works by her (RLF 9: 324, Item 1). The same letter, written on Maxwell’s behalf by another, and naming her at the start as ‘Mrs Maxwell of No 9 Margaret Street Cavendish Square’, describes her as a widow with five children (four of them daughters), one of whom one is now an officer in the Navy and another established as a governess. The letter continues that the bankruptcy of both the person who looked after her funds and of ‘a person by whom she was employed to compose & ornament books for children’ has left her in a state of debt. This letter is docketed at its head ‘£10 given’. The presence of the above title in this letter also further contradicts the Bodleian catalogue dating of [1824?].

1813: 14 COXE, Eliza A., LIBERALITY AND PREJUDICE, A TALE. An association of the present author with the ‘Miss Cox’ written to by Longman & Co in 1821 as the author of several remainderable novels (see Update 1 under this title) now looks considerably less likely. Another contender, for example, could just as well be Frances Clarinda Adeline Cox, the identified author of The Camisard; or, The Protestants of Languedoc (1825: 21), also published by Longmans. The identification of Mrs Alexander Blair as the author of Domestic Scenes (1820: 38; see entry under this title, above) also cancels out any possibility of a connection with the pseudonymous ‘Lady Humdrum’.

1814: 12 BATTERSBY, John. TELL-TALE SOPHAS, AN ECLECTIC FABLE, IN THREE VOLUMES. FOUNDED ON ANECDOTES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. The author name John Battersby interestingly echoes that of John Battersby Elrington (see items 1803: 38 and 1804: 71 above); while the salacious nature of the contents is reminiscent of the scandal novels supposedly by Charles Sedley. Characteristic of this latter quality is the conversation involving two fashionable ladies in the first item (‘An Invisible Traveller, or Peep into Bond-Street’): ‘ “Why-the BOOK! Don’t you know, that the P***** is the wickedest fellow that ever breathed; and the dear charming P******* the most virtuous and most injured creature in the whole world [.]” ‘ (I, 11-12). The text also makes use of the long ellipses, supposedly veiling unmentionable matter, which are a familiar feature of the Sedley novels and associated titles. For further commentary on the larger issues involved, see Addendum 1 to this Update concerning ‘Charles Sedley’.

1818: 50 [?PHILLIPS, John], LIONEL: OR, THE LAST OF THE PEVENSEYS. A NOVEL. The question mark qualifying the attribution, hitherto based on correspondence in the Longman Letter Books, can now be removed in the light of further evidence found in the entry for this title in the Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 86), where ‘John Phillips’ is written in the margin after the detailing of a payment to the author.

1819: 6 ANON, THE ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS; A SATIRICAL NOVEL. WITH SKETCHES OF THE MOST REMARKABLE CHARACTERS THAT HAVE RECENTLY VISITED THAT CELEBRATED CAPITAL. Jarndyce CLIV, Item 265, lists as by ‘Brown, Thomas the Elder, pseud.?’, evidently on the basis of half-title adverts there for two other satirical novels attributable to the pseudonymous Brown. In terms of contemporary practice, the original publisher’s apparent ploy to make an association between the titles in our own view does not constitute enough to make an attribution.

1819: 49 MOORE, Mrs Robert, EVELEEN MOUNTJOY; OR, VIEWS OF LIFE. A NOVEL. OCLC (Accession No. 47116197) gives author’s name as Eleanor Moore, perhaps mistakenly. The Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 153) has ‘Mrs A. A. Moore, Fletching, near Uckfield, Sussex’ written at top right hand corner above entry for this title. Neither naming seems strong enough to warrant replacing Mrs Robert Moore as found on the title-page.

1820: 32 HEFFORD, John, CRESTYPHON, A THEBAN TALE: AND THE VANDAL ROBBERY, A CATHARGINIAN TALE. OCLC (Accession No. 13323716) attributes to both John Hefford and Mrs A. Yossy. The possibility of an involvement by Ann Yosy or Yossy also gains some support from a letter (signed A Yosy) of 1833 to the Royal Literary Fund: ‘I have subjoined a list of the works which I have published being besides the Switzerland 2 Classic Tales and a novel in four Volumes entitled “Constance and Leopold” [.]’ (RLF 16: 534, Item 11). The last work mentioned must be Constancy and Leopold (1818: 62), which in the titles is given as by ‘Madame Yossy, author of Switzerland’. The ‘Switzerland’ thus mentioned is evidently Switzerland [.] Interspersed with Historical Anecdotes (2 vols., 1815), the poor returns for which is a subject of complaint in an earlier letter of Yossy’s to RLF headed 24 May 1825 (16: 534, Item 4). As argued in the relevant entries of EN2, the confusion of Yossy’s non-fictional Switzerland with Tales from Switzerland (1822: 12) best explains the almost certainly incorrect attribution of the latter title and its successors to her authorship. Unfortunately the list of titles mentioned in the letter of 1833 to RLF has apparently not survived. The name of John Hefford has not been found in association with any other title of this period, nor has anything positive been discovered about the ‘Commercial College, Woodford’ as given as his domain in the extended title of the present work. One wonders whether the ‘2 Classic Tales’ claimed in 1833 represent this title, possibly written in association with Yossy at an educational establishment. The address given at the head of Yossy’s letter of 24 May 1825, however, is 14 Pultney Terrace, Pentonville.

1820: 40 [JONES, George], SUPREME BON TON: AND BON TON BY PROFESSION. A NOVEL. George Jones is identified as the author of the chain of novels associated with the pseudonymous Leigh Cliffe (see also 1822: 49, 1823: 49, 1829: 49). This sequence of novels in nevertheless claimed by Christian Frederick Wieles in approaches to the Royal Literary Fund. The first letter of appeal, of 13 Nov 1821 and signed Christian F. Wieles, mentions his having ‘published several works exclusive of criticisms and miscellaneous articles for the London Magazine‘, and refers to his forwarding of what could be the present work: ‘I presume to send three volumes of a light work which I have published with far more praise than profit’ (RLF 12: 444, Item 1). In another letter of 10 June 1823 Wieles specifically mentions the two subsequent ‘Leigh Cliffe’ titles, both of which list Supreme Bon Ton as a work by the same author on their title-pages: ‘My case is very hard, and I am placed in the most unpleasant circumstances through the conduct of my Publisher, who, for two works-“The Knights of Ritzburg” and “Temptation” has only given me two small Bills of Five pounds each, which have been months overdue and are not yet, even in part, paid’ (12: 444, Item 3). All four novels in the chain are listed by title and date in a later appeal to RLF in 1842 (12: 444, Item 14): the same application also listing the poem Parga (1819). The London addresses given at the head the letters of 1821 and 1823 are, respectively, 32 Frederic Place, Hampstead Road, and 9 Tonbridge Street, Brunswick Square. The 1842 application involves a printed form, on which the applicant describes himself as ‘Christian Frederic Wieles Leigh Cliffe’, his address as 27 S[outh] Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, and his age as 43. On the surface of things this would seem to offer rock-hard evidence for attribution to Wieles rather than Jones. However caution is still needed, arguably, pending an explanation for the name George Jones.

1821: 6 ANON, HAPPINESS; A TALE, FOR THE GRAVE AND THE GAY. This title is advertised as ‘by the author of No Fiction‘ [i.e. of 1819: 56, by Andrew Reed] in The Edinburgh Evening Courant on 1 Dec 1821 and 19 Jan 1822. This direct attribution has not however been found in the London newspapers viewed, though the two works are often compared or advertised together there. The most likely explanation is that the Edinburgh paper turned a general association into a more direct connection. Examination of the two works themselves has revealed no striking similarities, though both are in a didactic moral register and have the publisher Francis Westley on their imprints. Granted the success of No Fiction (6 edns. by 1822), it would only be natural for the publishers to try and connect this new work with its popularity.

1822: 49 [JONES, George], THE KNIGHTS OF RITZBERG. A ROMANCE. For evidence that the true author is Christian Frederic Wieles, see 1820: 40 above.

1823: 49 [JONES, George], TEMPTATION. A NOVEL. For evidence that the true author is Christian Frederic Wieles, see 1820: 40 above.

1823: 56 LEWIS, Miss M. G., GWENLLEAN. A TALE. The author’s forenames can be expanded to Mary Gogo, as used in this author’s appeal to the Royal Literary Fund (14: 507). The choice of the initials ‘M. G.’ for this title was possibly motivated by a desire, originating most likely from the publisher, to echo the familiar authorial name of M. G. [‘Monk’] Lewis.

1824: 56 [JONES, Hannah Maria], THE GAMBLERS; OR, THE TREACHEROUS FRIEND: A MORAL TALE, FOUNDED ON RECENT FACTS. A letter from Thomas Byerley to the publisher George Boyd of 11 Aug 1824 contains the following postscript, which raises some questions about the attribution of the above to Hannah Maria Jones: ‘Has Robertson sent you Haynes novel of the Gambler. I read one or two scenes which are admirable & his name stands well in London’ (NLS, MS Accession 5000/191). The two authors called Haynes known to have written fiction at this time are D. F. Haynes, Esq, author of Pierre and Adeline (1814: 30), and Miss C. D. Haynes, author of a number of novels from 1818 on. It is of course possible that Byerley (editor of the Literary Chronicle and assistant editor of the Star newspaper) mistakes the authorship of the present novel. A play called The Gamblers, by H. M. Milner, was also published in 1824.

1824: 68 MOORE, Hannah W., ELLEN RAMSAY. The Longmans Divide Ledger entry (2D, p. 292) for this title shows a number of special copies being sent to ‘Mr Lubé[?]. This might just possibly point to a different authorship of the novel, which if it were the case would mean that Hannah W. More is an eye-catching pseudonym. A Dennis George Lubé was the author of An Analysis of the Principles of Equity Pleading (1823), which by itself does not point to novel writing. It is also noteworthy that Longman & Co themselves were later to complain in a letter to Mr [William?] East of 14 Dec 1827 about defacement of the title-page-presumably of remaindered copies- to ’cause it to be supposed the said work was written by Mrs Hannah More’ (Letter Books, Longman, I, 202, no. 67A).

1825: 53 [LEWIS, Miss M. G.], Ambition. The author’s forenames can be expanded to Mary Gogo, as used in this author’s appeal to the Royal Literary Fund (14: 507). See also 1823: 56 above.

1826: 11 APPENZELLER, [Johann Konrad], GERTRUDE DE WART; OR, FIDELITY UNTIL DEATH. The entry for this title in the Longman Commission Ledger (3C, p 143) has written in the top right corner: ‘Revd. W. H. Vivians, 2 Hans Place’. This might signify that Vivians was the translator, and this work is listed under his name in the Index to the Archives of the House of Longman, compiled by Allison Ingram (Cambridge: Chadwyck—Healey Ltd, 1981). John Henry Vivian [sic] (1785-1855) was the author of Extracts of Notes taken in the Course of a Tour [.] of Europe [.] 1814 and 1815, published by Longman & Co, 1822.

1827: 10 ANON, STORIES OF CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE. Longman Commission Ledger entry for this title (3C, p. 217) has ‘Mr Davis, 7 Throgmorton St’ written at top right hand corner, perhaps providing a clue to the authorship. No suitable ‘Davis’ writing at this period has been discovered, however, and the name could feasibly be that of a literary agent or banker.

1827: 51 [?MAGINN, William], THE MILITARY SKETCH-BOOK. REMINISCENCES OF SEVENTEEN YEARS IN THE SERVICE ABROAD AND AT HOME. BY AN OFFICER OF THE LINE. Update 1 provides evidence of use of the pen name ‘Officer of the Line’ by a presumably Irish author other than William Maginn (1793-1842). A more recent report has suggested that the true author of Tales of Military Life (1829: 58), the follow-up to this title, is Daniel Wentworth Maginn, a military surgeon. Further investigations are being made.

1828: 1 ANON, DE BEAUVOIR; OR, SECOND LOVE. Update 3 has cited- a letter of George Croly’s identifying the author as a female acquaintance: ‘A lady, the widow of an officer, & friend of mine, has just published a novel, De Beauvoir. Or Second Love [.]’ (to William Blackwood, 21 Jan 1828: NLS, MS 4021, fol. 126). A possible identification of that lady/widow can be now claimed on the basis of the entry for this title in the Longman Divide Ledger (2D, p. 46), where ‘Mrs Foote 45 Sloane St’ is written at the top right corner. This in turn might lead possibly to Maria Foote (1797?-1867), the celebrated actress; though, if this is the case, Croly’s description of her as a widow was more decorous than accurate. OCLC (Accession No. 47870384) interestingly describes a pamphlet-sized Amatory Proceedings of a Well-known Sporting Colonel with Miss Foote, and numerous ladies of all descriptions (1830), possibly removed from Amatory Biography, or Lives of the Seductive Characters of both Sexes of the Present Day.

1828: 38 [?DEALE, . or ?LUTTRELL, Henry], LIFE IN THE WEST; OR, THE CURTAIN DRAWN. A NOVEL. The argument for Henry Luttrell’s authorship, as found in Wolff, stems from Craven Derby, or the Lordship by Tenure (1832), which carries on its title-page ‘by the author of Crockford’s: or, Life in the West’, and is ascribed to Henry Luttrell (as an alternative to ‘– Deale’) in H&L. It is worth considering, however, whether the ascription of Craven Derby is itself flawed, as a result of a confusion with Crockford-house; a rhapsody in two cantos (1827), which is more positively identifiable as by Henry Luttrell (1765?-1851). It may also be worth noting that OCLC (Accession 20312659) attributes Life in the West to ‘Deale, Mr.’.

1828: 70 [?SCARGILL, William Pitt], PENELOPE: OR, LOVE’S LABOUR LOST. A NOVEL. Updates 1 and 3 discuss this title within the context of the problematical issue of Scargill’s overall output. It is perhaps worth noting in addition that Henry Crabb Robinson evidently had no doubts about this particular title, as well as an impeccable source in the author himself: ‘Read today the first volume of Scargill’s Penelope-a dull but clever novel. Scargill says it has been praised by Lamb’: Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their Writers, ed. by Edith J. Morley (London: Dent, 1938), I, 358.

1829: 49 [JONES, George], MARGARET CORYTON. For evidence that the true author is Christian Frederic Wieles, see 1820: 40 above.

1829: 58 [?MAGINN, William], TALES OF MILITARY LIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE MILITARY SKETCH BOOK.” See 1827: 51, above, for a new suggestion that the true author of this work is actually Daniel Wentworth Maginn, a military surgeon.

C: New Titles for Inclusion

1815
WOODHOUSE, Thomas Rhodes.
THE TWO BARONS; OR, ZINDORF CASTLE, A BOHEMIAN ROMANCE.
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1815.
3 vols. 12mo.
CtY In.W8585.815T [not seen]; xNSTC.
Notes. An account, apparently for this title, is found in the Longman Commission Ledger (2C, p. 291), positioned after an account for Henrietta Rhodes’ Rosalie; or, the Castle of Montalabretti (1811: 68). The present title bears a strong resemblance to Vileroy; or, the Horrors of Zindorf Castle (1842), though this is normally attributed to Elizabeth Caroline Grey.

1818
BOYD, Arabella.
THE FOUNDLING ORPHAN AND HEIRESS: A NOVEL. IN TWO VOLUMES.
Belfast: Printed by F. D. Finlay, 1818.
2 vols.
Linen Hall Library, Belfast BPB1818.15 [not seen]; xNSTC.
Notes. Might possibly be a juvenile work, though use of ‘Novel’ in title and 2-vol. size point to adult fiction.

1823
ANON.
THE LEGEND OF MOILENA; OR, THE PRIEST OF ASHINROE.
London: Geo. Corvie & Co.; Dublin, John Cumming, 1823.
1 vol. 8vo.
[not seen] ; xNSTC.
Notes. Information above courtesy of Rolf Loeber. Summers (p. 384) lists ‘Legend of Moilera [sic], The. A Tale. Minerva-Press, Newman. [1812]’; but this title is not in Blakey.
Further edn: London, A. K. Newman, 1828: this recently featured in Jarndyce CLVI (Item 371). Jarndyce commentary speculates whether National Library of Ireland’s catalogue description of a Newman ‘1823’ edn. (Ir.82379.13) contains a misprint for 1828.

D: Titles Previously not Located for Which Holding Libraries
Have Subsequently Been Discovered

Nothing new to report for this section.

E: New Information Relating to Existing Title Entries

1802: 8 ANON, *THE MYSTERIES OF ABRUZZO, by the author of the child of doubt, &c. Title as conjectured derives from Corvey 2nd edn. 1802. Catalologue (1808) of Richards’s Circulating Library nevertheless lists ‘Parental Turpitude, or the Mysteries of Abruzzo’. This is matched by ECB 432, which has: ‘Parental turpitude; or the Mysteries of Abruzzo. 12mo, 3s, Treppas, Aug. 1801.’ This might then represent the 1st edn. and original title of present work, though it is worth noting that the ECB pricing points to a smaller production than 1802: 8.

1803: 11 ANON, NOTHING NEW, A NOVEL; IN WHICH IS DRAWN CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES FROM MODERN AND FASHIONABLE LIFE. OCLC (Accession No. 52903117) describes the following: Nothing New! or, Louisa, the Orphan of Lennox Abbey: a Novel (London, J. Barfield, 3 vols., 1803). It should be noted that 1803: 11, with its different sub-title, bears the printer’s mark of J. Barfield. There is a strong likelihood that this and the present title are variant issues of the same novel as published in 1803. This in turn reinforces the view that Louisa; or, the Orphan of Lenox Abbey (1807: 1) is a reissue, in which case ideally it should not have been given a separate entry.

1807: 1 ANON, *LOUISA; OR, THE ORPHAN OF LENOX ABBEY. See 1803: 11 above for further evidence that this represents a reissue.

1817: 3 ANON, HARDENBRASS AND HAVERILL; OR, THE SECRET OF THE CASTLE, A NOVEL. The presence of an entry for this title in the Longman Commission Ledger (2C, p. 23), accounting for 500 copies, would seem to point to at least a share by that firm in the publication. All secondary sources seen, however, reinforce the Sherwood, Neely, and Jones imprint described in the existing entry.

Appendix F: 4 DARLING, P[eter] M[iddleton], PATERNAL LOVE; OR, THE REWARD OF FRIENDSHIP. This title is listed in the Monthly Review, 76 (Jan 1815), p. 102. The format is given as 12mo (no pagination given), and the price at 6s sewed, the imprint being Gale & Co. 1814. The short notice reads: ‘The heroine of this tale is a young lady of Norway, attired in a gypsey straw-bonnet, who refreshes herself after sultry days by taking evening walks along “the winding shores of the Atlantic ocean.” No peculiarities of climate, language, or manners, are regarded, and the most common rules of grammar are repeatedly violated, in this defective performance.’ This new evidence strengthens the claim for this work to be included in the main listings, though some uncertainty about its length and whether or not a juvenile audience is targeted remain.

F: Further Editions Previously not Noted

Information secured after Update 3, chiefly as a result of a full search through OCLC World-Cat, has been incorporated in our online website British Fiction, 1800-1829: A Database of Production, Circulation & Reception (forthcoming, October 2004).

Addendum 1: Charles Sedley

Jacqueline Belanger and Peter Garside

‘Charles Sedley [pseud.?]’ is credited with the authorship of six titles in volume 2 of the English Novel, 1770-1829. Four of these bore the name of Charles Sedley on the title-page: The Barouche Driver and his Wife: A Tale for Haut Ton (1807: 57); The Infidel Mother; or, Three Winters in London (1807: 58); The Faro Table; or, the Gambling Mothers (1808: 97); and A Winter in Dublin: A Descriptive Tale (1808: 98). A fifth title (evidently the last in the series), Asmodeus; or, the Devil in London (1808: 96), effectively identifies Sedley through title-page attribution to ‘the Author of “The Faro Table,” “A Winter in Dublin”, &c. &c. &c.’; while a sixth (and probably the first), The Mask of Fashion; A Plain Tale (1807: 59), though sometimes given to Thomas Skinner Surr, is mentioned as a work of Sedley’s on the titles of The Winter in Dublin and The Infidel Mother.

All six titles were published by James Fletcher Hughes, then tilting his output away from lurid Lewisian Gothic ‘horror’ novels towards a peculiarly acerbic kind of topical ‘scandal’ fiction: see Peter Garside, ‘J. F. Hughes and the Publication of Popular Fiction, 1803-1810, The Library, 6th ser. 9.3 (September 1987), 240-58. All six ‘Sedley’ titles featured a dated preface or dedication, indicative of a fashionably mobile person: The Mask of Fashion, London, November 1806; The Infidel Mother, London, March 1807; The Barouche Driver and His Wife, Brighton Cliffs, 19 July 1807; A Winter in Dublin, Ramsgate, 17 October, 1807; Asmodeus, London, April 1808. Two are dedicated to aristocratic figures: The Mask of Fashion to the Duchess of St Albans; and The Barouche Driver to the Earl and Countess of Jersey. As a whole, a strong sense of a palpable originating author is given in the preliminaries (the BL copy of the Barouche Driver actually has an inscription ‘From the Author’ on the half-title to vol. 1). When assailed on the score of slander in A Winter in Dublin, J. F. Hughes (according to a ‘Postcript’ [sic] by him in The Faro Table) denied the existence of any real author named Sedley: ‘I informed him that Charles Sedley was a fictitious person’ (ii, 182). Hughes’s own presence tends to be increasingly invasive in the later titles.

Who then might have been Sedley? Though the majority of modern catalogues list it without indicating pseudonymity, the name most probably derives from the Restoration rake, Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701; and who, in OCLC, is listed as author of these novels!). Sedley was also commonly used as a name for licentitious characters in contemporary fiction. For instance, Frances Burney’s Sir Sedley Clarendel in Camilla (1796), or Isaac D’Israeli’s Sedley in Vaurien (1797), whose ‘life was a system of refined Epicurism’ (II, 58). Research carried out in CEIR during the last three years, especially by Jacqueline Belanger, has brought us tantalisingly close to identifying a true author, though in the final count the sheer complexities of the evidence discovered has made it necessary to withdraw from positive identification. The remainder of this report concentrates on three possible contenders for the dubious credit of authorship.

i) John Battersby Elrington
The name of John Battersby Elrington features on the title-pages of two works of fiction in the early 1800s, each time as translator. The first of these is Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin’s Russian Tales (1803: 38), the second is Christoph Martin Wieland’s Confessions in Elysium (1804: 71). On the surface of things, these two foreign works (both probably translated from German) look unlikely sources. Rather surprisingly, however, each contains prefatory material reminiscent in some respects of the Sedley preliminaries. In Russian Tales an unpaginated address ‘To My Friends’, signed ‘J. B. E. Borough Oct 10, 1803’, figures the translator as ‘but a Gentleman in Prison, labouring for Bread. It is a trifle [.] without merit; [.] a mere essay in Famine’. Another such statement, ‘To the World’, also contains just a hint (albeit metaphorically) of the voluptuary mode that was to become one of Sedley’s trademarks: ‘I have attempted to dress a Foreign Beauty in an English Costume; and, while the simplicity of Nature, and the sensibilities of the heart, are objects of admiration, I have every thing to hope-nothing to apprehend.’

Confessions in Elysium, for its part, includes a dedication ‘to His Royal Highness Prince William Frederick of Glocester [sic]’, signed ‘I. B. Elrington, London, March 1st, 1804’. It also contains its own address ‘To the World’, where again one senses an inclination towards voluptuary language, as well as a penchant for extended ellipses, suggestive of either breathless wonder and/or unmentionable material; this last address is signed ‘I. B. E., London, March 1st 1804’. In this instance, such intimations are fully realised, in a species of erotic description that may or may not derive from Wieland: ‘She [an “amorous Priestess”] half reclined upon a sopha magnificently embroidered [.] and richly spangled with pearls and variegated precious stones . There was an easy negligence in her dress’ (II, 155). It is also worth noting the similarity between Elrington’s full name and that of ‘John Battersby’, the named author of Tell-Tale Sophas: an Eclectic Fable (1814: 12), which is filled with similar descriptions along with the more domestic scandal materials associated with Sedley. Perhaps significantly the printer of Tell-Tale Sophas is D. N. Shury, J. F. Hughes’s most commonly used printer (there is a possibility of a later issue of sheets which had fallen victim of Hughes’s collapse in 1809/10).

A series of strong intimations that Elrington was the concealed author of the ‘Sedley’ titles have been discovered in The Satirist, or, Monthly Meteor, a periodical (founded in 1807) deeply involved in the scandals surrounding the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Duke of York, c. 1807-9. In a series of review articles attacking Sedley with all-out vigour, this magazine all but spelled out what in completed form is surely meant to be Elrington. For instance, in its review of The Infidel Mother: ‘[.] the cloven foot of E–n stares the reader full in the face throughout this Infidel Mother: which, to conclude, is one of the most disgusting farragoes of absurdity ever put together’ (vol. 1, 1 November 1807, p. 185). Likewise, aprops Asmodeus: ‘When we contemplate the present piteous condition of the wretched Charles Sedley, alias E–n, we cannot repress that species of compassion which a humane judge would feel at the sight of a criminal, whom he had sentenced, expiring on the rack’ (vol. 2, 1 June 1808, p. 438). In other articles, The Satirist uncovered what it took to be the same authorship of two works dealing more directly with the topical royal scandals (see under 1807: 19 in Update 4 above). Lastly, in alluding to a civil action for damages in which its publisher was the defendant, The Satirist at the onset of a feature titled ‘The Satirist and Pickpockets’ spelled out the name in full: ‘The SATIRIST having excited the wrath of Messrs. Finnerty, Hague, Ellrington, alias Charles Sedley, Esquire, Cobbett, and the whole fraternity of pickpockets [.]’ (vol. 4, 1 January 1809, p. 1).

This might all seem conclusive evidence, were it not for the fact that it has not so far been possible to verify the existence of a real John Battersby Elrington. Perhaps significant, too, is The Satirist‘s apparent uncertainty at one point as to whether Elrington is itself a pseudonym.

ii) Andreas Andersen Feldborg (1782-1838)
This Danish writer would make the most unlikely of candidates, were it not for a bibliographical mystery surrounding the English translation of Karamzin’s Tales. As described in Update 4 (see under 1803: 38), the 1804 reissue of this work lacks any mention of Elrington in the title or preliminaries, while the latter strongly suggest the very different persona of a Danish translator (while at the same time in procedure strangely paralleling the Elrington preliminaries). This time the dedication (dated ‘London, 5th Nov. 1803’ and signed ‘The Translator’) is to the Danish Ambassador. The ‘Translator’s Preface’ then alludes to previous work on Karamzin’s Travels (1803), for the accomplishment of which he expresses gratitude to ‘her royal Highness the Duchess of York’ (p. v). Correspondence in the Murray archives (see Update 4) also points to the translation of both Karamzin’s Tales and Travels by the same Dane, who, even without this kind of support, seems a more likely translator of foreign literature than Elrington. One noticeable typographical feature of the main sheets, which are identical in both issues, is the use of a succession of a dots, in the form of extended ellipses, to indicate pauses etc.

According the Dansk Biografisk Lexicon (Copenhagen, 1887-1905), Feldborg (who is described as a ‘literary vagabond’) came to England in 1802, wrote on the English naval victory over the Danes, translated materials, and returned to Denmark in 1810. There is also evidence that he dabbled at least once more in fiction. For evidence indicating that Mental Recreations. Four Danish and German Tales, apparently written as by ‘Andreas Anderson’, was his work, see Update 4, under 1805: 15. Feldborg’s departure from Britain near the end of the decade also matches with evidence within another of his productions, A Dane’s Excursions in Britain (1809), written under the half-pseudonym of J. A. Andersen. In this the publisher explains the abrupt ending as follows, in an end statement dated 25 August 1809: ‘Here end the “Excursions” of the Dane.-Mr. Andersen, the Author of a Tour in Zealand, the Translator of the Great and Good Danes, Norwegians, and Holsteinians, and the writer of the present volumes, has suspended his task, and made, as the Publisher must think, an excursion from Britain!’ (II, 121) Though the samplings are small, one cannot help noticing an air of amazement in statements concerning Feldborg, as if a kind of rather outrageous person was involved.

One possibility from the above is that Elrington (and so Sedley) was yet another pseudonym of Feldborg’s, though, if so, it hard to believe that a foreign incomer could have such a grasp of domestic scandal. Another is that Feldborg and Elrington were involved in some kind of strange collaboration, momentarily visible through the two issues of Karamzin’s Tales. It would be useful to compare the hand written inscriptions that are to be found in the British Library copies of the 1803-issued Karamzin Tales (BL 12591.h.21) and The Barouche Driver (BL 12613.g.14), to see if there is any similarity in hand. (The inscription in the 1803 Tales reads: ‘To Doctor William Tenant, This little volume, is, most respectfully, presented by the translator’.)

iii) Davenport Sedley
The activities of such an actual person, indexed there as ‘blackmailer and extortionist’, are described in Iain McCalman’s Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840 (Cambridge, 1988; Oxford: Clarendon Press edn., 1993). By McCalman’s account: ‘Sedley had a vulture’s instinct for corruption, and the Regent’s vendetta against Princess Caroline, as well as the Duke of York’s indiscretions with Mary Anne Clarke, provided him with especially rich pickings. His technique was to furnish victims with a title page and extracts from a projected book containing what he typically described as “extreamly unpleasant matter”. He would then offer to have the embarrassing material suppressed or expurgated for a price’ (pp. 35-6). According to McCalman, there is evidence that Sedley had United Irish affiliations, and that ‘he had been sent in May 1799 from Dublin gaol to England on a warrant for swindling and embezzlement’ (p. 36). (It is worth noting here that the name Elrington itself has strong Irish connotations-there was, for example, an Irish Bishop Elrington, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin-and the surname might just possibly have been adopted by Davenport Sedley as a nom de guerre). Considering the gravitational pull of the main Sedley scandal novels, it is also interesting find that Davenport Sedley appears to have gained access to ‘The Book’, concerning the ‘Delicate Investigation’ of Princess Caroline, no doubt making hay from this out of the establishment’s desire for its suppression (see p. 42). It is just feasible, then, that the Sedley part of Charles Sedley was a true name, and that J. F. Hughes’s output was more fully involved in extortion than has been realised. If so, Hughes was clearly telling at least a half-lie when claiming Sedley was a fictitious person. Granted the large body of scandal included, furthermore, it would also seem that any attempts to gain payment for suppression of materials were by no means always successful!

Conclusion
The six Sedley novels reflect so much the surreptitious world of scandal-mongering at this period as well as the underhand activities of a still largely unregularised book trade that it is highly possible the mystery of Sedley’s true identity will never be solved. Other possibilities exist as well as the options listed above. One is that, in spite of the projection of such a distinct author identity, these texts were put together from a variety of sources, representing in some respects a kind of pastiche. It has been discovered, for example, that a whole sequence in The Faro Table (see 3rd edn., I, 105-10), feeds on an account supposedly given by a ‘Femme de Chambre’ in an early issue of The Pic Nic (vol. 1, no. 6, Saturday, 12 February, 1803, pp. 203-8), a periodical run by a number of individuals active on the less respectable margins of London theatre life and published by J. F. Hughes. In the light of his increasing invasiveness in the later Sedley titles, it is also tempting to think that Hughes himself had a hand in creating and/or assembling materials. Certainly his own disappearance as a publisher, probably from inescapable bankruptcy, presently offers as good a reason as any for the disappearance of ‘Charles Sedley’.

Addendum 2: Mary Anne Radcliffe / Louisa Bellenden Ker