Printed in Leominster MA, 1797

The History of Constantius & Pulchera, or Constancy Rewarded. Leominster, MA: Charles Prentiss for Robert B. Thomas, 1797.

Early edition of a rare and delightful early American novel, in a contemporary binding—the first American action girl. This anonymous romance is an American take on the Ancient Novel plot, with star-crossed lovers on perilous sea voyages set amidst the American Revolutionary War. The picaresque heroine is Pulchera, a Philadelphia merchant's daughter who defies her father's wishes for her marriage and takes to sea disguised as a soldier named Valorus. After a series of wild adventures including shipwreck and pirate attack, she arrives in Paris in time to rescue her missing beloved from his own unhappy nuptials. Originally serialized in The Gentlemen and Ladies' Town and Country Magazine in 1789-90, it appeared in book form in 1794 and thence in many editions, all of which are now very scarce. RBH records no copies at auction of this edition. Of the 18th-century editions altogether, there only 6 copies recorded at auction going back to the Brinley sale in 1886. The scholar Cathy Davidson gives this title as an example of how America's first novels "played a vital role in the early education of readers previously largely excluded from elite literature and culture." Evans 32254; Wright 1199. See Encyclopedia of American Literature of the Sea and Great Lakes (2001), p. 196, and Davidson, Revolution and the Word (1986), p.69.

12mo (138 x 81mm). 5 pp. ads at end (some toning and foxing). Contemporary quarter sheep and marbled paper over wooden boards (much of the marbled paper lost revealing boards, bottom of spine panel lacking); modern box.