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SHELLEY GOES DUTCH

SHELLEY, Mrs. [Mary Wollstonecraft]. Lodore en zijne dochter.

Amsterdam. Hendrik Frijlink, 1836. First edition in Dutch.
8vo. viii, 312pp. With a lithograph frontispiece by H. J. Backer. Original publisher's green moire cloth-backed cream paper boards, contrasting black calf lettering-piece. Lightly rubbed and marked, chipping to lettering-piece. Internally clean and crisp.
The first edition in Dutch, printed in the year after the English original, of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's (1797-1851) fifth and penultimate novel; a romance that differs from her earlier work in its shift away from the supernatural or historical to a more contemporary setting to critique the limitations of the conventional Victorian class system. The novel's modern editor, Lisa Vargo (Lodore, 1997, Introduction p.18-19), has noted the text's engagement with the education and social role of women, suggesting that it dissects a patriarchal culture that pressured women into dependence on men. In the view of critic Betty T. Bennett (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: An Introduction, 1998): 'the novel proposes egalitarian educational paradigms for women and men, which would bring social justice as well as the spiritual and intellectual means by which to meet the challenges life invariably brings'. The Literary Gazette (No. 949, 1835) heaped praise upon the novel, dubbing Shelley 'one of the most original of our modern writers'.
£ 450.00 Antiquates Ref: 27067