SURR, Thom[as Skinner]. ~ Latimore, ou le plus infortuné des hommes au sein de l’opulence et des grandeurs. Nouvelle anglaise traduite sur la 5e édition de Splendid misery, by Thom Surr, author of Georges Barnwell etc. Par Joseph Martin... Paris: [P.N. Rougeron for] Villet ‘et à Verdun’, 1807.
3 vols, 12mo (162 × 94 mm), pp. viii, 235, [1]; [4], 247, [1], [4], 201, [1], complete with half-titles. Minor waterstaining to extreme upper margins of vol. 2, contemporary booksellers stamps of O. Renault, Lormes (Nièvre) to vol. 3. Contemporary marbled sheep, gilt, spines in compartments with green morocco labels, green silk markers. Slightly rubbed, some further wear to forecorners, headcap of vol. 3 chipped with slight loss, but an excellent set.
A rare French edition of Surr’s Splendid Misery (1801), perhaps the first in French. It is one of two French translations of 1807, the other entitled Splendeur et souffrance published by Maradan. It is not clear which was the first. Though little remembered, Surr’s several novels of fashionable British society were bestsellers in England and were much read in both France and Germany. He was born in London in c. 1770 and was educated at Christ’s Hospital before becoming a clerk at the Bank of England. Garside, Raven and Schöwerling, The English Novel 1770-1829, 1801, 64 (noting the Splendeur et souffrance edition only. Worldcat lists copies of Latimore at Bn and University of Illinois only; COPAC adds no British copies. For Splendeur et souffrance OCLC lists copies at Bn and Universities of Erfurt and Göttingen only; COPAC adds no British copies.