8vo. In two volumes. xii, 339pp, [1]; iv, 323pp, [1]. With a terminal leaf of errata to Vol. II. Contemporary gilt-tooled navy half-calf, marbled boards, without lettering-pieces. Rubbed and marked. Occasional light damp-staining and marking to leaves.

The first edition of a later novel by Irish novelist Lady Sydney Morgan (1778-1859), whose works, controversial for their explorations of Irish nationalism and proto-feminist thought, were admired by Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. The book was widely successful, with international editions published in Brussels, New York, and Paris in the same year. Throughout her life, Lady Morgan was subject to vitriolic and threatening criticism from conservative statesman John Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review, who accused her heroines of being too forthright, independent, and ambitious. In response, her novel Florence Macarthy (1818) included a bumbling Quarterly reviewer, insulted with pointed invective.