The Life of Ulrich Zwingle, the Swiss Reformer
first edition Translated from the French, by Lucy Aikin. 1 vols. 8vo
1812 · London
by Hess, J.G.
London: Printed for J. Johnson and Co, 1812. First edition in English. Translated from the French, by Lucy Aikin. 1 vols. 8vo. Modern cloth, leather spine label. Fine copy. First edition in English. Translated from the French, by Lucy Aikin. 1 vols. 8vo. Translated by 'Mary Godolphin'. An early and and scarce work by the translator, Lucy Aiken (1781-1864), perhaps better known as the "Mary Godolphin" whose editions of the classics in one syllable words educated generations of English children. Her first important published work was EPISTLES ON WOMEN, in 1810, written when she was barely seventeen, but it is her later historical works which made her literary fame (MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, 1818; MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF JAMES 1, 1822; THE LIFE OF ADDISON, 1843). For this work, Aikin supplies an interesting preface, from an English vantage point, with the occasional swipe at Napoleon: "The attentive reader will observe ... in the measure expressions of the biographer of Zwingle ... that kind of apprehensiveness, which must necessarily haunt every man of free and generous sentiments, when writing under the eye of a despot. (Inventory #: 23739)