Theodore, Or The Crusaders: A Tale for Youth

[1821]. 1st edition. [vi], 184pp plus 11 pages of beautiful hand-coloured engravings, two images each per page. Woodcut vignette on front board and title page. The frontispiece is absent. Quarter bound in decorated leather over card (boards are heavily rubbed and in places chipped at edges and joints, worn, lightly scuffed in places, soiled and faded but still strong with firm binding). Internally a little toning, especially on title page and occasional marks and foxing. Overall in good condition. Barbara Hofland (or Hoffland), nee Wreaks, the daughter of a Sheffield manufacturer, was raised by a maiden aunt before marrying T. Bradshawe Hoole, a local merchant. Upon his early death she published a volume of poems which attracted over 2000 subscribers – enabling her to open a boarding-school in Harrogate. With her second husband, the painter Thomas Hofland, she moved to London and began publishing novels, including a series representing the moral virtues: Integrity, Patience, Self-Denial, Humility, Energy, Fortitude, and Decision. She was a popular author of the early 19th century although many of her books are now hard to find in contemporary editions. Although CBEL dates the first edition as 1815, no copy of that date is known, and the gap between that date and reprinting of what was evidently a popular work, suggests that other authorities are right in choosing 1821 as the date of the first edition, on the authority of the English Catalogue of Books 1801-1836, and the fact that two of the book’s plates are clearly dated 20 August 1820 (Butts, p. 71).