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WILLIAM ST CLAIR'S COPY

FENWICK, Made. [Eliza]. Leçons pour les enfans: ou premiers élémens de morale, de politesse, et de sensibilité.

London. Printed for M. J. Godwin and Co., 1820. First edition in French.
12mo. In four parts. [2], 39, [1], 38, 40, 41pp, [1]. Numerous woodcut vignettes in the text. Contemporary sprinkled sheep. Heavily rubbed, boards held by cords only, surface loss to spine. Internally clean and crisp. William St Clair's copy, with his distinctive pencilled ownership inscription and manuscript notes to front endpapers.
The first French language edition of educator and children's author Eliza Fenwick's (1766- 1840) popular series of cautionary tales Lessons for Children; or, Rudiments of Good Manners, Morals and Humanity (1808).

From the late 1780s, Fenwick had associated with William Godwin and his circle. In 1797 Eliza Fenwick attended Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin’s first wife, at the birth of their daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later Shelley), and was one of the signatories on the baby’s birth certificate. From November 1807 to early 1808 Fenwick was employed as a manager in the children’s bookshop run by Godwin and his second wife, Mary Jane Godwin, and in the years that followed also wrote several works for the Godwins' publishing imprint, M. J. Godwin and Co. beginning with Lessons for Children.

William St Clair (1937-2021), British scholar and senior civil servant, notable as the author of The Godwins and the Shelleys, The Biography of a Family (1989) and The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (2004).

OCLC and COPAC record copies at just seven locations (Amsterdam, BL, Cambridge, Miami, Morgan, Princeton, and Toronto).
£ 450.00 Antiquates Ref: 31327