1856 The Martins of Co' Martin

Description

First Edition, Illustrated, Leather Binding

First edition. 

Bound in half crushed morocco.

With a frontispiece, vignette title page and thirty-eight plates by Hablot Knight Browne or 'Phiz'. Collated, complete. 

From Anglo-Irish author Charles Lever, 'The Martins of Co' Martin' depicts the fall of a Connemara estate in the period between the Catholic Emancipation Bill. The central figure is Mary Martin, a compassionate heroine who seeks to reform the estate and improve the lives of their impoverished tenants.

During the early stages of this work, Lever, living in Florence, was deeply in debt owing to his extravagant, aristocratic lifestyle that he could not sustain on a diplomat’s salary. All that kept him afloat financially was the advances from Chapman and Hall on the new novel.

This volume, like Lever's other novels, is decorated with the illustrations of Hablot Knight Browne better known by his pseudonym 'Phiz'.