Author: FIELDING, Henry.
Title: The Modern Husband. A Comedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane.
Description: London, for J.Watts 1732. Octavo later gilt calf (spine darkened). Some browning, a good, fresh copy, complete with the publisher's list at the end. With the bookplate of Viscount Birkenhead which seems to cover a smaller plate - perhaps his own predating his elevation? ¶ First edition. A copy that marks the heady days of the Fielding craze of the late 19th and early twentieth centuries when every good copy that could be found was banged into smart bindings by Riviere or Sangorski and flogged to millionaires. This binding isn't signed but looks Riviere. The Modern Husband was so thoroughly modern that it took a brave company to perform it and they were hissed on the first night. That a man could sell his wife to pay his gambling debts and then sue his customer for not paying enough was no surprise to London audiences but many did not want to see it dissected on stage. Enough did though and it had a respectable run. Fielding "began to think it was a good play till the Grub-street Journal assur'd me it was not".

Keywords: literature drama c18th England