THE LAWYER, OR MAN AS HE OUGHT NOT TO BE. A TALE. Pittsburgh: Printed for and published by Zadok Cramer, and sold at his Bookstore (Franklin's Head) Market street, 1808. 12mo, pp. [i-iii] iv [v] vi-vii [viii] [9] 10-236, inserted frontispiece, contemporary (original?) marbled boards with leather shelf back, untrimmed. First edition. Watterston's anonymously published first novel. An early American Gothic novel, by an admirer of Charles Brockden Brown (according to Petter) and perhaps William Godwin too, in which a crooked lawyer who has committed seduction and attempted murder is menaced by his past and frustrated in his attempts to escape punishment for his misdeeds. A psychological thriller in which "scenes of and in darkness abound ... such as the seduced Matilda's wanderings in the storm, the apparitions in Morcell's room, or the attempted murder of Ansley. These dark scenes echo the element of violence beyond the control of reason in Morcell, in the vindictive Edwards, and in the passionate Ansley too." - Petter, p. 323. "The English crime novel, the English Gothic novel, and the English novel of radical ideas all leave a strong imprint on this early American Gothic." - Frank, Through the Pale Door: A Guide To and Through the American Gothic 482. Petter, The Early American Novel, pp. 322-24; 438. Wright (I) 2683. Sabin 102163. Shaw and Shoemaker 16673. Binding quite worn at edges, front cover nearly detached, worm holes in bottom margins of first quarter of the text block, old repair to closed tear in frontispiece, text paper tanned and foxed, a good copy of a rare book. (#154555).
Price: $2,000.00
No statement of printing.