Two novels by Enos Hitchcock, 1790 and 1793

HITCHCOCK, Enos (1774-1803). Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer Andrews, 1790. Evans 22570; Sabin 32255. Two volumes, 12mo (173 x 100mm). Contemporary calf (rebacked preserving original spines); modern cloth chemise and slipcase. Provenance: Mattapan Literary Society (blindstamps).

[With:] –. The Farmer's Friend, or the History of Charles Worthy. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer Andrews, 1793. Evans 25609. 12mo (172 x 103mm). Contemporary sheep, morocco label on spine (boards detaching, losses at foot and head of spine panel). Provenance: Thomas Johnson (inscription located Leominster).

First editions of two early epistolary novels by minister Enos Hitchcock, both printed by Isaiah Thomas. Hitchcock, a stern Federalist who served as a chaplain in the Revolutionary War, conceived of his novels as antidotes to the melodramas of Goethe and Brown; he objected in particular to the use of suicide as a plot point. His scrappy rural heroes and heroines are all ultimately rewarded for their virtue and grit. The Farmer’s Friend has not been recorded at auction by RBH since the Hogan copy in 1945.