FROM THE DOWNSHIRE LIBRARY
[CUMBERLAND, Richard.]
Arundel. By the author of the Observer.
London, Printed for C. Dilly … 1789.
Two vols, 12mo, pp. [2], 296; [2], 300; a nice copy in contemporary full calf, spines gilt with black morocco labels and dark green numbering pieces (one missing); marbled endpapers; binding a little rubbed; Downshire monogram to spine; ownership inscription of Mary Hill as ‘L[ad]y Fairford’ at head of each title page (see below).
First edition. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811) was the grandson of the great scholar Richard Bentley, and great-grandson of the Bishop of Peterborough; he had already made his name as a playwright in London, and was also the author of a periodical paper the Observer when he published this, his first novel. For his biographer in Oxford DNB it ‘begs comparison’ with Grandison (not necessarily a recommendation, even for admirers of Richardson): the format is epistolary and the fiction of the author being the ‘editor’ is kept up throughout. Richardson’s influence may be seen in the form and subject, but the pace of the work, and its lively dialogue, derive from Cumberland’s experience in writing for the stage, where he also favoured ‘sentimental’ themes of virtue in distress.
Contemporary reviewers, however, were not kind: the Critical Review expressed its disappointment, and Andrew Becket in the Monthly Review found it unoriginal and the characters ‘faint and imperfect sketches’. On the other hand, the work was clearly successful with readers because there were two more London editions and a Dublin reprint, as well as French and German translations within two years of its first appearance.
Provenance: from the library of Mary Hill (née Sandys, 1764–1836), Marchioness of Downshire and later Baroness Sandys. Lady Downshire was a wealthy heiress, society hostess and literary patron who married the young but ill-fortuned politician Arthur Hill in 1786. Raised by her uncle, one of Samuel Johnson’s ‘Streatham worthies’, she became a friend of both the Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert, and once entertained the Prince for four days at the family seat of Ombersley. She built up a fine collection of contemporary fiction, mostly by women, to add to the family library. The present work must have been bought by Lady Downshire at the time of publication: the inscriptions ‘Ly Fairford’ would have to date from before August 1789, when her father-in-law became Marquess of Downshire and her husband thus promoted to the subsidiary title of Earl of Hillsborough. It was bound (or the spine stamped) after her husband succeeded as Marquess in 1793.
Garside 1789:37; Tomkins pp. 348 and 352n.
