[Album de la Pléiade] - [STENDHAL].-Livre Rare Book
Les Frères Anglais roman traduit de l'anglais par Mme Élisabeth de B. traducteur de la Dame du Lac etc. etc. The English Brothers or Anecdotes of the Howard family
1814réf. 91120Paris: Chez H. NicolleDe l'Imprimerie de C.-F. Patris 1814. Fine. Anonymous work attributed to Anna Maria Porter which inspired Stendhal's masterpiece ""La Chartreuse de Parme"" Chez H. Nicolle De l'Imprimerie de C.-F. Patris Paris 1814 10.2 x 17.4 cm Relié First edition of the French translation by Élisabeth de Bon gathering in 2 volumes the 4 parts of this anonymous English novel originally printed in 1809 which according to André Marc in his Dictionnaire des romans anciens et modernes of 1819 is the work of Anna Maria Porter younger sister of the novelist Jane Porter. The Porter sisters contemporaries of Jane Austen and famous before the Brontës were close to the Scottish poet Walter Scott. Contemporary full brown tree sheep smooth spines divided into compartments richly gilt in decorative rolls of laurels annulets and lozenges two compartments with a lozenge network formed by interlacing fillets with fleurons at the corners red and green morocco lettering-piece and numbering-piece blind-tooled fillet border to boards gilt fillet to turn-ins edges sprinkled red marbled endpapers in pebbled pattern. Some light surface wear and minor offsetting to boards corners slightly worn. On volume 1 a charming error in the decorative roll at foot of spine corrected by the binder. On volume 2 small piece of leather at the edge of the numbering-piece slightly detaching. Scattered foxing and faint marginal damp-staining to upper margins. In volume 3 two minor marginal repairs to half-title and p. 8. Several period textual corrections in brown ink and pencil: volume 1 p. 131 volume 2 p. 90 and volume 3 p. 21. In the early nineteenth century English novels were widely translated into French. According to the critic signing as ""E."" in the Journal de l'Empire Les Frères Anglais is a success and according to another reviewer writing for the Gazette de France the French translation as much as the original text deserves praise: ""We have already had the opportunity in this Gazette to praise the translator. English novels are much vaunted but the choice is vast; some prove mediocre and even detestable. This one does honour to the good sense of Madame Elisabeth de B. The situations are lively and varied the characters well drawn; the work pleases and holds one's attention from beginning to end."" Gazette de France December 4 1814 ""What astonishes readers who cannot transport themselves into the society whose customs are depicted and who insist on judging everything by the habits of their own circle is the liberty of young English ladies. If their novels offer a faithful picture of their manners and habits these young women converse familiarly in tête-à-tête with their suitors; they write to them even give them their portraits; they tell their parents without ceremony that their heart is engaged. Never would a French demoiselle make such a frank avowal; at most she allows her secret to be guessed."" Journal de l'Empire May 10 1815 our own translation Two women of letters were behind this literary success: Élisabeth de Bon a translator renowned in her lifetime also a novelist short-story writer and co-proprietor of the periodical the Mercure de France and a mysterious authoress. The name of Anna Maria Porter absent from the title-page would be revealed by the bookseller André Marc as that of the author in 1819. Precocious and prolific Anna Maria began writing and publishing books during adolescence nearly a decade before her elder sister Jane. In 1807 she published The Hungarian Brothers and in 1809 she is thought to have written The English Brothers. These two works with their near-identical titles like false twins are the starting point according to Richard Bolster for the attribution of the latter novel to Anna Maria Porter. It was precisely the same translator Élisabeth de Bon who undertook the translation of the third edition of The Hungarian Brothers in 1818 and in 1815 that of another of the author's works The Recluse of Norway. The En Chez H. NicolleDe l'Imprimerie de C.-F. Patris hardcover
