WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI'S COPY
WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary.
An Historical and moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it has produced in Europe. Volume the first [all published].
London, J. Johnson, 1794.
8vo, pp. xvi, 522 [2 (advertisements, blank)]; some gatherings slightly foxed or toned, withal a very good copy; in early green cloth-backed boards with drab paper sides; neatly rebacked, spine laid down, endpapers renewed, a few marks to boards, corners worn; ownership inscription to title-page of John Deffett Francis, inscription to endpaper in the recipient’s hand ‘W M Rossetti from J. Deffett Francis 1875’, pencil note facing the title in Rossetti’s hand (see below).
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An Historical and moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it has produced in Europe. Volume the first [all published].
First edition of Wollstonecraft’s eloquent analysis of the causes of the French revolution, written as an antidote to Burke’s Reflections, our copy with manuscript notes by William Michael Rossetti. The work was never completed before Wollstonecraft’s death in 1797, though the first volume went through three London editions, as well as printings in Dublin and Philadelphia.
‘The rapid changes, the violent, the base, and nefarious assassinations, which have clouded the vivid prospect that began to spread a ray of joy and gladness over the gloomy horizon of oppression, cannot fail to chill the sympathizing bosom … But … we shall be able to discern clearly that the revolution was neither produced by the abilities or intrigues of a few individuals; nor was the effect of sudden and short-lived enthusiasms; but the natural consequence of intellectual improvement, gradually proceeding to perfection in the advancement of communities, from a state of barbarism to that of polished society, till now arrived at the point when sincerity of principles seems to be hastening to the overthrow of the tremendous empire of superstition and hypocrisy, erected upon the ruins of gothic brutality and ignorance’ (Preface).
This work is almost as important as Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, not only for her eye-witness account of events and conditions, but for the ‘sidelong glances at her own experience’, and ‘the passages where she tried to formulate her political faith’ (Tomalin, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, 1974).
Although appalled at the excesses of the Terror – she writes of ‘the race of monsters’ she saw rising to power – Wollstonecraft was predisposed to be sympathetic to the revolutionaries. ‘Frenchmen had reason to rejoice, and posterity will be grateful’. At the end are advertisements for the second edition of the Vindication as well as works on the education of daughters and the ‘improvement of young women’.
Provenance: given to William Michael Rossetti (1829–1919) by the Welsh artist, antiquary, and book collector John Deffett Francis (1815–1901). Rossetti’s research on Shelley and his circle would inevitably have taken in Wollstonecraft. Here, Rossetti notes that ‘This book is very far from being a panegyric of the French Revolution. The abstract principle of Liberty as agst despotism is fully asserted, & both the King & Queen are severely arraigned; but neither the French national character, nor the proceedings of the legislature, nor the severities of the democracy & its leaders, are treated with the least general approval, or even leniency’. Rossetti’s wife, Lucy Madox Rossetti, later published a biography of Wollstonecraft’s daughter, Mrs. Shelley (1889), which drew heavily on Wollstonecraft: ‘It was almost as if the two Marys, mother and daughter, coalesced for her’ (Thirlwell, William and Lucy, the Other Rossettis (2003), p. 263).
ESTC T36310; Windle 6.
