Rowson, Susanna Haswell | The exceedingly rare first American edition of Susanna Rowson's popular eighteenth-century seduction novel

Rowson, Susanna Haswell

Charlotte. A Tale of Truth. Philadelphia: Printed by D. Humphries for M. Carey, 1794 

2 vols. in 1, 12mo (169 x 96 mm). 9-page bookseller's catalogue dated April 17, 1794; light spotting, name clipped from title, the margin neatly restored (not affecting text), additional marginal repair to A4. Half calf over marbled boards, leather title labels to spine; a trifle scuffed with some fading to boards. Green half-morocco slipcase with cloth chemise. 

The exceedingly rare first American edition, and the earliest procurable example of Rowson's popular novel.

"Susanna Rowson (née Haswell), a writer, actress, and educator, published her first novel, Victoria, in 1786. Along with her husband, William Rowson, she emigrated to the United States in 1793, where the couple performed with both the Philadelphia New Theatre and Boston’s Federal Street Theatre. In 1797, Susanna made her final stage appearance and opened the Young Ladies’ Academy in Boston, a prestigious school for girls, which followed a progressive curriculum and relied on textbooks written by Rowson herself. A writer of novels, plays, and poetry, her best-known work, Charlotte: A Tale of Truth, enjoyed extraordinary popularity in its day; some half a million readers read the so-called seduction novel that told a cautionary tale of a naïve young woman who is seduced and abandoned after being lured to America by a young man" (Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art).  

We can trace only one other copy of the first American edition at auction in the last 75 years, and no examples of the first English edition.

PROVENANCE

Daniel F. Appleton (bookplate, Bangs & Co., 13 April 1903, lot 350) — Frank Maier (bookplate, Anderson Galleries, 23 November 1909, lot 1777) 

REFERENCE

ESTC W4915; Evans 27649; BAL 16997; Grolier/American 23; Sabin 73604.