Coghlan, Margaret:

$6,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

MEMOIRS OF MRS. COGHLAN, (DAUGHTER OF THE LATE MAJOR MONCRIEFFE,) WRITTEN BY HERSELF, AND DEDICATED TO THE BRITISH NATION; BEING INTERSPERSED WITH ANECDOTES OF THE LATE AMERICAN AND PRESENT FRENCH ... The scarce first edition of Margaret Coghlan's memoirs of her life as a prisoner in America, her notorious affair with Aaron Burr, and her long career as a courtesan in London and Paris.Née Margaret Moncrieffe, Mrs. Coghlan's life was tied up with the American Revolution from the very beginning: she spent her youth living with General Thomas Gage, who took in Margaret and her father after the death of her mother. After her father's second wife died as well, the new third was a close friend of John Jay. While her father remained true to the Crown during the Revolutionary War, she was first under the care of Jay's brother Frederick, and later under the watchful eyes of Putnam and Washington. Thus by the age of 14 she had experienced life in households both staunchly Loyalist and Patriot, and met many of the major figures of both sides of the conflict while being shuffled around more-or-less under house arrest as the daughter of a British officer. Despite herself, she fell in love with an American officer generally known to be Aaron Burr, and their affair is what her Memoirs are most remembered for today (though he goes unnamed in the text). The author was married to the Scottish officer John Coghlan despite protestations when she was finally reunited with her father – an unhappy m

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