WARD (Mrs. Catherine G., later Mason). The Rose of Claremont, Or Daughter, Wife & Mother. By Catherine G. Ward, Authoress of "The Mysterious Marriage," "The Daughter of St. Omer," "My Native Land," &c. &c. London: Printed for Thos. Kelly, 17, Paternoster Row, N.D. [1821]. [The Rose Of Claremont Or Daughter, Wife & Mother. Vol.II. London, Pubd. by J. Tallis, 7, Warwick Sqe. Newgate St. Bull [del. et sculpt.] 1821.]. 2 Vols., lge.post 8vo, signed both in fours and triplets of four (the latter intermittently and somewhat irregularly); engraved frontispiece and eight plates called for in volume one, frontispiece and six plates called for in volume two, the present copy being without the frontispiece to volume two, and including the correct number of plates otherwise, but with one duplicated, having been included by the publisher in mistake for another which is consequently lacking; each volume with engraved title-page; volume one without the letterpress half-title and dedication leaves apparently called for by both the pagination and the signatures, the second volume without two preliminary leaves allowed for by the pagination, but not by the signatures; pp.[5]-600; [5]-602; modern three quarter green Niger morocco, tooled and lettered gilt, grey boards. Slight scattered dusting and foxing, but in general a nice copy.

This title not in Wolff. Summers, pp.487-8, records the publication details as ‘J. Tallis and G. Virtue, 1820. Another ed., Kelly, 1823'; Block, p.248 says ‘Tallis, [1820]', quoting the British Library copy and two bookshop copies. Both date the first edition, presumably, from the dedication, which is so subscribed. The present copy has, at least in part, a different setting of text from the edition published by Tallis and Virtue, but the engraved plates are the same. Since the date otherwise appears only in the engraver's imprint on the title-page to volume two, and the work was almost certainly first issued in parts, ‘1820-21' would probably be correct for the original date of issue, the edition being in fact technically undated. The Kelly title-page is the same as that used by Tallis and Virtue, with the sole difference of a variant imprint, but the combination of the two title-pages reflects a more complex problem, for the book is made up of gatherings pieced in together throughout both volumes from two different issues, the one being virtually a line for line reprint of the other, though with minor differences of spelling and lineation (the latter being responsible for at least one discontinuity, the repetition at the top of p.17 in volume one of the last four words from the foot of p.16). The one issue is signed throughout in triplets of four leaves, presumably for issuing in parts, as well as more conventionally in fours, the other being signed in fours alone, but with the addition of the title identification letters ‘R. C.'. The two issues are most readily distinguished, however, by the presence in the headlines throughout the ‘parts' issue of a comma after the word ‘wife'. A further issue is also sometimes seen, which, though it agrees line for line with the issue signed ‘R.C.', is without that prefix to the signatures: it otherwise agrees in its general characteristics with that printing, being signed in fours only, and being without the comma in the headline. Detailed comparison of this with the other two issues reveals differences of punctuation, however, this third version being invariably the inferior (for example, on p.145 of volume one l.16 it has a comma at the end, where in those signed in triplets or bearing the letters ‘R.C.' it does not, which is obviously correct; at the end of the last line on the same page, it has a the full stop after ‘Estifania', whereas in the other two the dash is present, as is called for by the sense: though in the version signed in triplets the lineation is different at this point, the line concerned falling at the head of the next page). Quite evidently the present copy was pieced together by the joint publishers from leftover stocks of sheets. The issue with the comma in the headline was printed in Oxford by Bartlett and Hinton, the issue without either the comma or the identification letters in London by C. Baynes, 9, Cook's Court, Carey Street. The novel is based on the life of the Princess Charlotte Augusta, daughter of George IV.

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