New Tales of the Castle; or, The Noble Emigrants, A Story of Modern Times. By Mrs. Pilkington.
London: Printed for J. Harris, Successor to E. Newbery, 1803. Second edition. The first edition was published in 1800. All editions are scarce, known in just a few copies. Engraved frontispiece by J. Scott after Satchwell, dated Jan. 1, 1800. Binding extremities a bit rubbed and worn, spine slightly soiled. Front hinge cracked, but sound. First few leaves lightly sprung, minor offsetting from frontispiece. Intermittent minor staining, not affecting legibility. A very good copy of a scarce, fragile work. Contemporary quarter red roan over marbled boards, spine lettered and ruled in gilt. Twelvemo. 215 pp. Item #17351
Mary Pilkington (1761-1839) was an educational and children’s writer. After being denied her inheritance upon her father’s death, she married John Pilkington, a naval surgeon, and became the governess of four motherless children. Following a period of illness, she eventually decided to use her experience as a teacher and interest in education to become a professional children’s writer. She also began writing for the then-growing market of girls-boarding schools, producing A Mirror for the Female Sex (1798), Biography for Girls (1798), and the present work. She praised such controversial figures as Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Robinson, and Helen Maria Williams, and is best remembered for an abridgment of Oliver Goldsmith’s Natural History, which proved to have the most longevity of all her publications. A contemporary review of New Tales of the Castle in Volume IX of The Monthly Mirror states: “These ‘New Tales’ are calculated to excite an equal interest with any that have preceded, and abound with useful observations on the vicissitudes of life” (pp. 33-34).
Oxford DNB. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, pp. 855-856. OCLC records three copies of the present edition, one in the United States at UCLA.
Price: $375.00