8vo. In three volumes. viii, 300pp; [2], 283pp; [4], 320pp. With half-titles. Modern gilt-ruled calf backed light blue paper boards, contrasting red and black morocco lettering-pieces. A trifle rubbed and marked, with minor surface loss to lower board of Vol. III. Inked ownership inscription of Croydon's Library, dated Jan 4th 1817 to title of Vol. III.

The first edition of English dramatist and miscellanist Thomas Holcroft's (1745-1809) posthumous memoir, completed after his death by pre-eminent literary critic and essayist William Hazlitt. Reprinted, albeit abridged, in 1852, contemporaries raised questions as to the memoir's accuracy - it appeared to many that Hazlitt had simply taken large stretches of the narrative from Holcroft's partially autobiographical novel Alwyn (1780). Holcroft, best remembered for his political career and activism, assisted in publishing the first part of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man in 1791. As a result of his reformist campaigning, he wound up indicted in Newgate for High Treason by 1794 - thankfully, the acquittal of his compatriots resulted in an eventual release. His later dramatic works, Deaf and Dumb (1801) and A Tale of Mystery (1802), contributed to the early popularisation of melodrama in the English theatrical sphere.