Domestic Manners of the Americans by Trollope, Frances - 1832

London: Whittaker, Treacher, and Co., 1832. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good/very good. A Fine copy of the first edition, first printing, finely bound by Bayntun-Riviere of Bath in three-quarters blue leather with elegantly marbled boards and endpapers, with the pages trimmed and their top edge gilted. Frances Trollope's report on American manners. Of course, Frances Trollope was Anthony Trollope's mother. Her husband, his father, was a lawyer whose law practice suffered from Trollope's habit of yelling at his Clients. Ultimately, the father took up farming, at which he also was a miserable failure. In 1827, Frances moved to America, living first in Fanny Wright's utopian community in Tennessee and, when that community failed, removing to Cincinnati, a frontier town at the time, to open a general store. As Frances Trollope had no experience in that line of work, the store was a miserable failure as well, adding to the family's financial stress. However, after her return to England, the indomitable Mrs. Trollope, having observed the cultural peculiarities of the Americans first-hand, wrote "Domestic Manners of the Americans", in which she presented a caustic view of the Americans, portraying them as uneducated and lacking in proper manners, and describing America's appalling middle-class egalitarianism. Acerbic and witty, the book was an instant sensation in England -- with multiple editions of the work being issued during its first year of publication -- and brought her from the brink of financial ruin to prosperity and fame. Of course, the book was not well received in America and of it Mark Twain said "Mrs. Trollope was so handsomely cursed and reviled by this nation [for] telling the truth... she was painting a state of things which did not change at once. ... I remember it." The book is illustrated with 24 lithographs by August Hervieu who accompanied Mrs. Trollope to America, a fact which resulted in much speculation about their relationship. Frances Trollope went on to further literary success and fame by authoring numerous well-received novels. Without doubt her experiences shaped her the careers of her two most literary sons, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, and the more famous Anthony Trollope. A Fine copy, elegantly bound. (Please also see our listing for a RARE print published by Childs & Inman in Philadelphia in response to Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans mocking Mrs. Trollope and containing a visual speculation about her relationship with August Hervieu.)