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DON ESTEBAN; OR, MEMOIRS OF A SPANIARD.
(London: Henry Colburn, 1825). 206 x 130 mm. (8 1/8 x 5 1/4"). Three volumes. FIRST EDITION.
Contemporary brown paper boards, printed cream paper labels on spine, edges untrimmed. Titles with ink ownership signature of M. O'Hara. Garside, Raven, and Schöwerling, The English Novel, 1770-1829 1825:55; Wolff 4163; not in Sadleir. Volume I with a three-inch separation along lower joint, light rubbing to extremities, contents with a dot of foxing here and there, but IN REMARKABLE CONTEMPORARY CONDITION--clean and crisp throughout, and in extremely well-preserved bindings.
This largely autobiographical historical novel by John Keats' brother-in-law is offered here in its first edition and in its remarkably well-preserved publisher's boards. Spanish writer, translator, and politician Valentín Llanos Gutiérrez (1795-1885) was exiled for his opposition to the absolutist King Ferdinand VII, and spent the next several years traveling through Europe. In Rome, he met and befriended Keats, after whose death he traveled to England, where he fell in love with and married his late friend's sister, Fanny. Published toward the beginning of Llanos Gutiérrez's lengthy stay in London, "Don Esteban" follows the titular character (loosely based on the author) through the tumultuous years following the Spanish War of Independence, dramatically concluding with the 1820 revolt led by Rafael del Riego, which briefly restored liberal rule to the country. The plot contains ample passion, intrigue, turbulence, political commentary, and enough social detail to serve as a scholarly source of understanding about Spain during the Romantic period. Ours is an unusually fine, entirely contemporary copy, with all volumes retaining their half-titles, and with their fragile temporary publisher's boards having survived to the present while showing only the most gentle signs of use. (ST21003)
Price: $3,200.00