PORTER, Jane.

£25,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Thaddeus of Warsaw. First edition of the author's first book, rare in commerce. In the preface to her innovative historical novel, Porter declares "I have made no ceremony of making Truth the help-mate of fiction" (vol. I, p. x). This copy was owned by the peeress Mary Hill, and has her signatures on the title pages of volumes I and II and monograms to spines. Hill (née Sandys, 1764-1836) was the heiress to a wealthy landowning family and became the Marchioness of Downshire when her husband inherited the title in 1793. After her son took over the family estates in Ireland in 1809, Hill moved to England and built an extensive library in the Sandys residence in Worcestershire. The diary of her daughters Charlotte and Mary records a visit in 1814 during which they read the novel together over two days: "Finished Thaddeus of Warsaw. Don't think we shall find anything of the sort half so beautiful" (quoted in Davis, p. 10).The eponymous main character was inspired by the Polish military leader and statesman Tadeusz Kościuszko, who became a popular hero for his part in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's struggles against Russia and Prussia during the 1790s. Porter drew on eyewitness accounts from Polish refugees, using as informant her brother Robert, who had met Kościuszko. In her tale, she "crafted and pioneered many of the narrative tools most commonly associated with both the national tale and the historical novel" (McLean, p. 99), including accurate historical details, a foc

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