John Woodvil

London: Printed by T. Plummer … for G. and J. Robinson, 1802. First edition. 8vo. Uncut in publisher's pink boards; fine, in a custom green cloth chemise Fine first edition in boards of Lamb’s first play, a presentation copy from Fanny Holcroft to fellow author Catherine Hutton. Holcroft (1780-1844), a translator and novelist and friend of Charles and Mary Lamb, was the author of the anti-slavery poem “The Negro” and such novels as Fortitude and Frailty and The Wife and the Lover. Her father was the dramatist and radical Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), who published several of her translations in his Theatrical Recorder. Catherine Hutton (1756–1846) was a novelist (The Miser Married, The Welsh Mountaineer, Oakwood Hall) and prolific letter-writer.A letter from T. Harral, editor of the periodical La Belle Assemblée, to Catherine Hutton, May 20, 1827, records a gift of a Lamb title, presumably the present volume: "Miss Holcroft has given me a little volume for you, the production of a particular friend of hers, Mr. Charles Lamb, whom you will probably recollect as the author of some admirable paper signed 'Elia' in the London Magazine …" (Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century: Letters of Catherine Hutton, 1891, pp. 194-5).Following the blank-verse tragedy John Woodvil, which was rejected by Drury Lane and never performed, are several short works and the poem “Helen,” Mary Lamb’s first appearance in print.PROVENANCE: Catherine Hutton (contemporary presentation inscription from Fanny Holcroft on title-page); Robert S Pirie (book-plate)REFERENCE: Roff, pp. 47-52