Author: MORE (Hannah): SAMMELBAND.
Title: The Inflexible Captive: A Tragedy. The Third edition.
Description: Bristo: Printed and sold by S. Farley....; Sold also by T. Cadell..., 1774. 8vo,, 208 x 120 mms., pp. [viii] [1] 2 – 83 [84 adverts]. BOUND WITH: Percy, A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. London: Printed for T. Caell…, 1778. Pp. [viii], [1] 2 – 87 [88 adverts], with an errata slip before the Prologue, which was written by David Garrick. FIRST EDITION. BOUND WITH: The Fatal Falsehood: A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. By the Author of Percy. Second Edition. London: Printed for T. Cadell…, 1780. Pp.[viii] [12 – 87 [88 adverts]. BOUND WITH: Sir Eldred of the Bower, and the Bleeding Rock: Two Legendary Tales. The Second Edition, corrected. London: Printed for T. Cadell…, 1778. Pp. [vi], [1] 2 – 49 [50 adverts].Four works in one volume, page size 208 x 122 mms., bound in contemporary mottled calf, gilt roll border on covers, spine gilt in compartments to an urn motif, black leather label, with a numbering label at the base of the spine; some slight wear to binding, but a good copy, with the bookplate of Antony Charles Thomas/ Lambessow/ St. Clement on the front pasted-down end-paper. "More's reputation for lionizing the London literati might be regarded as shameless sycophancy were it not for the fact that she was busy making a name for herself. She had earned Johnson's good opinion of her literary merit when she showed him two ballads, Sir Eldred of the Bower and The Bleeding Rock, published by Cadell in 1776. Her passion for drama was nurtured by Garrick, her favourite actor and increasingly her close friend and mentor, who put on her first play, The Inflexible Captive (a reworking of her Metastasio translation), at the Theatre Royal in Bath in April 1775. The encouraging audience notwithstanding, she resisted Garrick's suggestion to transfer the play to the London stage and instead began writing a new play, Percy. This was a tragic tale, set in the borders in the twelfth century, of two lovers whose happiness was doomed by the feud between the Douglas and Northumberland families. Despite its static nature and stilted dialogue Percy met with a rapturous reception at Covent Garden in December 1777. After attending the first and second nights More wrote home all of a flutter at its success, even with the critics. In keeping with her conviction that the theatre could have a powerful moral influence what pleased her most was the audience's reaction: 'One tear is worth a thousand hands [applause], and I had the satisfaction to see even the men shed them in abundance' (W. Roberts, 1.125). She made nearly £600 from the rights (the first edition of nearly 4000 sold out within weeks) and, to her barely concealed delight, her authorship of the season's hit became an open secret.... Ever since Garrick's death in January 1779 she had lost her appetite for the glittering London scene, and this was compounded by the theatrical failure in the summer of her third and final play, The Fatal Falsehood, which played for only a few nights. Furthermore she was embarrassed by Hannah Cowley's public accusation that she had plagiarized Cowley's tragedy Albina, a charge that she categorically refuted in the St James' Chronicle. Although a second edition of The Fatal Falsehood appeared in 1780, her publisher Thomas Cadell advised More that she was 'too good a Christian for an author' (W. Roberts, 1.172)." (ODNB).

Keywords: Drama women literature


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