Adam's Works on Paper ONILNE Auction Ending August 10th 2020

128 Bidding ends 10am Monday 10 th August 354 SMYTH, WILLIAM Memoirs Of Mr. [Richard Brinsley] Sheridan Leeds: [Privately Printed for J. Cross], 1840. 12mo. ii, [3], 2-26, 29-62, 65-68, 71-74 pp. Lacks three leaves [pp. 27-28, 63-64, 69-70]. Original brown ribbed cloth. ‘Sheridan’ in gilt on upper cover within a gilt decorated border. Spine professionally rebacked with original backstrip laid on. Presentation inscription on half title “The Gift of the Author Professor Smyth of Cambridge to Jean Trench Jan. 1841.” All edges gilt. Nice copy with a remarkable provenance. A most interesting association copy with ownership signature on front flyleaf of novelist Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and his initialled notes totalling fifty-four words about his great-uncle, the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. On p.67 Le Fanu has underlined part of a passage about Sheridan’s emotional state after rejection by his political party due to his intemperance, and written: “Had incipient misery of mind & ultimate despair - nothing to do with those insults? He was then 63.” The second notes concerns Sheridan’s relationship with his wife, underlining “Guilt appetite interfered.” He writes: “This is strictly contrary to Lady Gifford’s repeated statement to me, founded I assume on the evidence of Mrs. Joan Sheridan, her mother. She always repeated upon one point he was unimpeachable-fidelity to his wife. J. S. L.” Smyth was tutor to Sheridan’s son, Thomas (1793-1806), and saw much of the elder Sheridan. He describes his intercourse with him as ‘one eternal insult, mortification, and disappointment,’ and writes with mingled humour, pity, and anger of Sheridan’s eccentricities and disregard of the duties of life ...” D.N.B., which in 1922 said this book was “Privately Printed, and now rare.”Loosely inserted is a card with genealogical details of the Le Fanu and Sheridan families, written in green ink. € 1,500 - 2,000