Queechy. By Elizabeth Wetherell.

London: James Nisbet and Co., 1853. Second English edition, published the year after the first. Six engraved plates. Binding extremities lightly worn, spines a bit cocked, 1 1/2 inch tear along front joint of Volume I. A good, tight set. Original red blindstamped cloth with gilt spine. Two volumes, small octavo. viii, 339, [1, blank], [4, ads]; [4], 332 pp. Item #8087

Susan Warner (1819-1885) grew up in New York City. When her family was in difficult financial straits, she took up writing. Her first novel, The Wide, Wide World, appeared in 1849, followed by Queechy, which appeared at the end of 1850. Both were extremely popular in both England and America. “The source of her popularity…seems to have been her sensibility, which equaled that of any of the more extravagant English novelists of the later eighteenth century. It was her descriptions of the emotions of her characters—emotions that found expression in tears on almost every page—that compensated in the minds of her readers for the absence of action” (Granville Hicks, writing in the D.A.B.).

Price: $125.00

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