Ann Eliza Bleecker, 1793

BLEECKER, Ann Eliza (1752-1783). The Posthumous Works... To which is added a collection of essays, prose and political, by Margaretta V. Faugeres. New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, 1793.

First edition of Bleecker's collected works, containing a fictionalized account of the captivity of Maria Kittle. Ann Eliza Bleecker was born in New York and after her marriage to New Rochelle attorney John James Bleecker eventually settled in a frontier village near Albany. Bleecker encouraged Ann's writing and by all accounts they enjoyed a pastoral life until it was interrupted by the Revolution. The first separate edition of her epistolary novel The History of Maria Kittle would not be published until 1797. The early captivity novel—possibly the first of its kind—tells the story of the capture of an American woman by Native Americans during the French and Indian War. Margaretta Faugères (1771-1801), whose work is included in the present volume, was Bleecker's daughter as well as a playwright, poet, and political activist. Uncommon at auction: the most recent copy sold in 2009, but before that one had not appeared since the Hoe copy in 1939. Evans 25208; Howes B-530; Sabin 5896; Wegelin Early American Poetry 22; Wright 328.

12mo (159 x 100mm). Frontispiece portrait of Bleecker engraved by Tiebout (small chip not affecting text to final leaf). 19th-century half calf over marbled boards (some rubbing). Provenance: W.P. Chandler (ownership inscription and pencil notes to front flyleaf).