Henriette de Gerstenfeld, ou Lettres écrites pendant la dernière guerre de 1779, pour la Succession de la Baviere, &c. En 3 vol. 8°. ornés de figures en taille-douces. Tome Premier [-Troisième]. Geneva, Nouffer de Rodon, 1782.
First Edition in French. Three parts in one volume, 12mo, (163 x 95mm), pp. [ii], iv, 174; [ii], 232; [ii], 152, eight engraved plates in the text, considerable browning in the first and last sections, some insignificant tears to text, wanting the front free endpaper, in contemporary calf backed boards, rubbed but sound, spine ruled in gilt with orange label lettered in gilt.
A scarce translation of this German sentimental novel set in wartime, attributed to the German writer Adam Beuvius. Originally published as Henriette oder der Husarenraub, in Briefen bey Gelegenheit des gegenwärtigen Krieges, Berlin and Leipzig, 1779. It has also been attributed to Christopher Martin Wieland (1733-1813). An English translation of the first volume appeared in Dublin in 1786, with the attribution to Wieland on the title page: Henrietta of Gerstenfeld. Translated from the German of Mr. Wieland, Dublin, H. Chamberlain for the Translator, 1786. The Wieland attribution was dropped when the second volume, which was printed by William Lane at the Minerva Press, followed in 1788: Henrietta of Gerstenfeld; a German Story.
Andrew Becket evidently expected something more from a German novel: ‘on the score of morality it is truly excellent. -But it is greatly wanting in those delicate and pathetic touches, which so particularly distinguish the writings of a Gesner, and a Klopstock...’ (Monthly Review, quoted in GRS, I, 377).
OCLC listst BN, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, St. Gallen and Chicago only.
MMF 82.15; see also Garside, Raven and Schöwerling 1786:17.