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BELLAMY, THOMAS AND ELIZABETH GOOCH.

The Beggar Boy: A Novel in Three Volumes. By the Late Mr. Thomas Bellamy.

Place and Imprint: Alexandria: Printed by Cottom and Stewart, Booksellers, 1802.
Edition: First American edition.
Bibliographical References: American Bibliography 1860; cf. Garside & Schöwerling 1801:15 for the English edition.
Condition: Binding rubbed and worn; label chipped; moderately foxed and stained; conrer of one leaf torn, with loss to about seven lines of text, but not the sense; a good copy.
Book ID: 27515

Physical Description

3 vols in 1, as issued, 12mo, contemporary sheep, red morocco label, gilt rules and lettering. Separate title-pages for volumes 2 & 3, but the pagination is continous.

Comments

The first American edition of Thomas Bellamy's picaresque novel about young boy, Alfred, who is abandoned by his mother and lives through numerous "calamitous vicissitudes" as a beggar, but in the end is saved by a generous family. The Beggar Boy was left unfinished at Bellamy's death, and his friend the novelist Elizabeth Sarah Villa-Real Gooch (1757-1807) completed the work. Gooch was also abandonded, by her husband, which she wrote about in a pamphlet that began her career as a writer; the theme of abandonment and mistreatment inspired many of her subsequent works, including poetry and fiction.

Price: $350.00