[NOVEL].
A Sketch of the Times; or, memoirs of Lord Derville.
“WHEN A WOMAN TAKES EVERY METHOD TO ATTRACT YOUR NOTICE…WHAT PROPRIETY CAN YOU ACCUSE THE MAN AS THE CAUSE OF HER RUIN”
Rare. First published in London in the same year (BL and Columbia only). This Dublin edition is recorded at BL only. The only copy of this novel recorded on Rare Book Hub is a single copy of the London edition offered at Sotheby’s in 1978 (bought by Quaritch, £340)
A rare “infamous” epistolary novel in which various upper class characters (both male and female) find themselves snared by marriage and scandalised by affairs. Much of the action is set in London, “a most delightful place…for the man of pleasure” where Lord Derville discovers his “prostitute” wife in a compromising position.
The newspaper reviews warned that this novel risked, “exciting the vices which he [the author] delineates” (Critical Review April 1781) while the Monthly Review suggested that perhaps the novel might be based on a true story and noted: “This infamous story is well told but in its vicious tendency every other merit is totally lost” (Jan 1781).
