Author: BAILLIE (Joanna):
Title: Die Leidenschaften. Eine Reihe dramatischer Gemälde nach dem Englishcen von Joanna Baillie von Carl Friedrich Cramer,
Description: Amsterdam un Leipzig, im Verlage von Rohloff und Compagnie, 1806. FIRST GERMAN TRANSLATION. 3 volumes. 8vo, 180 x 111 mms., pp. cxvi, 418; [7] 8- 400; [v] vi - xvi, [5] - 656, contemporary dark green half calf, spines, red morocco labels, marbled boards; top of spine chipped volume 2, corners worn, some sligthly wear to binding, but a very good and attractive set. The plays of Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) did not have the success in her lifetime that they perhaps deserved, and their reputation was not much helped by a leading article published in 1803 inThe Edinburgh Review, written by Francis Jeffrey, who dealt rather severely with the group called Plays of the Passions, the ones translated here. They were published in 1708 and 1802, with a third volume in 1812. In this translation the plays are characters, perhaps rather Teutonically, by sub-genre: Love, Hate, and Ambition. The translator, Carl Friedrich Cramer (1752 - 1802) also successfully translated the works of Rousseau and Diderot into German, and Klopstock and Schiller into French: Joanna Baillie then must have had qualities in her dramas that Cramer considered on a literary and aesthetic level associated with better-known, and still read, authors of this period. Norma Clarke in her ODNB entry on Baillie asserts that, "Few women writers have received such universal commendation for their personal qualities and literary powers as Joanna Baillie. Her intelligence and integrity were allied to a modest demeanour which made her, for many, the epitome of a Christian gentlewoman. She was also shrewd, observant of human nature, and persistent to the point of obstinacy in developing her own views and opinions. What Francis Jeffrey called her 'narrow and peculiar views of dramatic excellence' (EdinR, 261) remained essentially unchanged throughout her life, and she took pride in having carried out her major work, the Plays on the Passions, more or less in the form she had originally conceived. Her inventive faculties were widely remarked upon. She was on friendly terms with all the leading women writers of her time. Maria Edgeworth, recording a visit in 1818, summed up her appeal for many: 'Both Joanna and her sister have most agreeable and new conversation, not old, trumpery literature over again and reviews, but new circumstances worth telling, apropos to every subject that is touched upon; frank observations on character, without either ill-nature or the fear of committing themselves; no blue-stocking tittle-tattle, or habits of worshipping or being worshipped.'" Goedeke, IV 1 1091, 40, and VII, 726, 428, 1; Price and Price, Literature 51; Brockhaus Directory p. 1; Schütt (Cramer) p. 325. OCLC locates two copies in Germany, two in The Netherlands, two in Denmark, one at the National Library of Scotland, and another at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. No copies traced in any American library.

Keywords: Drama women literature


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