Le Jugement par Jury, ou la Vengeance d’une Femme... by…

2 vols bound together, 12mo (156 × 92 mm), pp. 239, [1]; 216, complete with half-titles, plus two mezzotint frontispieces. Minor loss to margin of one leaf (from careless opening). Contemporary quarter sheep, spine gilt in compartments, sides with jade green marbled paper. Slightly rubbed and soiled but a most attractive copy.

First edition. A novel illustrating the contemporary vogue for fiction based on the records of the French law courts. A contemporary reviewer in the Revue encyclopèdique savaged the novel itself but evidently found the 38-page introduction interesting - being a commentary on the merits of the relatively recent development of trial by jury in France. The book found several other reviews in the same year and evidently divided opinion. The Revue bibliographique du Royaume des Pays-bas simply noted ‘Cet ouvrage a été saisi par la police’.

Dubergier, who did not put his name on the title, was prolific both as a translator from English and as a novelist in his own right — usually favouring popular literature of the Walter Scott variety, sometime with Scottish or Irish settings. Querard, 11, p. 115. Worldcat lists the Bn and Princeton copies only.