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NISBET, James. The french in rheinstadt: A Romance of the Day. A friendly voice from the avon's banks to the nations of germany, and other poems..

London. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844. First edition.
8vo. [10], 173pp, [3]. With a terminal leaf of publisher's advertisements. Contemporary richly gilt-tooled red morocco, A.E.G. A trifle rubbed and dulled, upper joint starting. Internally clean and crisp.
The sole edition of a poetry collection by author James Nisbet, of whom little is known. The primary poem within, The French in Rheinstadt, received a mixed review in the Eclectic Review of 1845, noting its historical background 'grounded on the attempts of the French in 1830 to renew the work of revolution in Germany'. Nisbet's idealism towards the German people, clearly inspired by 'charming recollections of his German sojourn', leads him to paint the country as a peaceful, placid nation, threatened by the relentlessness and brutality of the French. The piece is 'of a strong conservative tendency', to the extent that Nisbet believes even the King of Prussia to be 'a most excellent monarch', and the overall message tends towards excessively sentimental anti-war propaganda, disregarding both the political tensions beneath Germany's surface and the right of the German people to their own self-defence.
£ 150.00 Antiquates Ref: 28819