BROUGHTON, Rhoda.

£2,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Second Thoughts. First edition, this copy in a beautiful and unusual example of a Victorian cloth publisher's binding. This "charming fairytale around the theme of growing up and distinguishing reality from appearance" (Terry, p. 127) is likened by scholars to Pride and Prejudice.Broughton (1840-1920) was a well-connected novelist who began her career with sensationalist romances before her fiction turned to celebrated and witty studies of social mores. Amongst her literary acquaintances was Oscar Wilde, who "was said to have felt threatened by Broughton as someone who might out-talk and out-epigram him, and soon declined to invite her to any more of his parties. Broughton retaliated with the satiric portrait of an aesthetic poet in Second Thoughts" (Orlando).This copy has variant floral endpapers; Sadleir, who mentions that "Broughton 'firsts' are not common in any state", only notes black endpapers for this title.Provenance: The Bentley file copy; Douglas C. Ewing copy (bookplate; sale, Christie's New York, 7 April 1978, lot 56); Stephen C. Massey, purchased from Pickering and Chatto, 25 May 1982.

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