[Eliza Kirkham Mathews]: 'Argus : the house-dog at Eadlip. M...

Hammer

£360

[Eliza Kirkham Mathews]: 'Argus : the house-dog at Eadlip. Memoirs in a family correspondence, by the Author of Constance and the Pharos.', London, T. Hookham, 1789, 1st edition, 3 volumes bound in 1, half title, [2],261pp; [2],262pp; [2],225,[3]pp ads at end, contemporary half calf gilt. Rare comic novel by the British novelist and poet Eliza Kirkham Mathews, née Strong (1772-1802), who completed several novels and children's books as well as numerous uncollected poems, including a collection of essays, who married the theatre manager and comic actor Charles Mathews (1776-1835) in 1797. Her final publication, the 1801 novel What Has Been, concerns a woman's inability to support her family by writing fiction. She dies of consumption in York in 1802, aged 30 years old