THE POWER OF SYMPATHY: OR, THE TRIUMPH OF NATURE. FOUNDED IN TRUTH. IN TWO VOLUMES

Book Description

Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Company, 1789.. vi,[7]-138,[blank leaf];158pp[blank leaf]. 12mo. Two volumes bound in one. Contemporary sheep, neatly rebacked in matching calf, gilt label. Inserted engraved frontis by Samuel Hill (unsigned in this copy). Characteristic offsetting from frontis to title, some occasional foxing and spotting, several relevant clippings affixed to rear binder's endsheet and pastedown; withal, a very good copy. First edition of the prose work generally accorded status as the first American "novel," its few potential predecessors being more properly categorized as political or religious allegories. This epistolary romance was long ascribed to Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton due to parallels of incident with events in her life, but the attribution to Brown is now canonical. The novel's intended purpose, "to expose the dangerous consequences of seduction," is accomplished, though with a high moral tone, via a narrative of infidelity, suicide and a near miss at an incestuous marriage. The plot's parallels with a reported liaison between Sarah Morton's husband, Perez, and her sister, Frances Apthorp, lead to the earlier misattribution, and a hostile reception by the clergy and the press, leading to anecdotal tales of destruction of copies shortly after publication. In most copies, including all those examined by BAL, the frontispiece is signed by Hill in the plate below the lower frame; this copy does not bear the cutline, and though BAL records that such copies have been reported, implies those reports may be erroneous. However, it was also not present in the Bennett-Martin copy, and precedence (if any) does not seem to have been established. This copy has a number of early 20th century clippings about the book, its rarity, and the question of authorship affixed to the rear binder's endsheets. EVANS 21979 BAL 1518. WRIGHT I:432. WEGELIN (FICTION), p.26.

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