1811 ~ Memoirs of Caroline, Princess of Hasburgh, or Spirit of \"The Book\", Ashe

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1811 ~ Memoirs of Caroline, Princess of Hasburgh, or Spirit of \"The Book\", Ashe :
$70.75

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\"The Spirit of \'The Book;\' or, Memoirs of Caroline Princess of Hasburgh, A Political and Amatory Romance.\" In Three Volumes (bound in one), Edited by Thomas Ashe, Esq. London: Printed and Published by Allen & Co., No. 15, Paternoster-Row. 1811. First Edition. From the title page:\"The Book.\" - Any Person having in their Possession a Certain Book, printed by Mr. Edwards in 1807, but never published, with W. Lindsell\'s Name as the Seller of the same on the Title Page, and will bring it to W. Lindsell, Bookseller, Wimpole Street, will receive a handsome Gratuity. - Times Paper, 27 March 1809\"
As important as this book of its own merit, the editor (Thomas Ashe), was quite a colorful character noted in many peoples manuscripts, diaries and reports, including Lewis and Clark (who found him to be a \"slippery character\"). Though the author represents himself as defending an innocent woman\'s honor, in many ways he was much more notorious, and perhaps his motives should be questioned.The following is gleaned from Ricorso.net:

1770-1835 [Capt. Ashe, ‘gentleman vagabond’]; b. Glasnevin, Co. Dublin; ran away to join the army; served with the Duke of York; held commission in 83rd foot; clerical work in Bordeaux and Dublin; years of foreign travel; with Lord Edward Fitzgerald at his marriage to Pamela; caught in Flagrante delicto with the mistress [Mrs. Leeson] of the Viceroy Lord Westmoreland in Dublin; discovered embezzling in sinecure obtained through the offices of his brother, a clergyman; sold his black wife to a backwoodsman in America; reput. ed. National Intelligencer for Thomas Jefferson, and quarrelled with him; brought first mammoth’s bones to Britain; arrested for stealing church treasures in Latin America; journalistic wars with Pitt and Cobbett in London; believed to have acted at Fishamble St., 1793; gained confidences from Caroline of Brunswick and was bought off before publication; Travels in America (1806, var. 1808); The Liberal Critic (1812), contains his estimates of literature; Memoirs and Confessions (1815), autobiography recounting criminal escapades beginning with the seduction of a girl in France and the killing of her brother in a duel; The Soldier of Fortune (1816); The Soldier of Fortune (1816); also Spirit of the Spirit, a concise abridg. of The Spirit of ‘The Book’ or Memoirs of Caroline Princess of Hasbrugh (1811), running to six editions; his memoirs are the subject of a play by John Arden poor ‘Tom, thy Horn is Dry’. ODNB DIW OCIL DIL

From the Preface: The editor of \"The Spirit of the Book\" fondly indulges the hope, that a fair, candid, and impartial perusal of these volumes will be accorded him: and that, until the work has been sifted to its last page, no harsh or unjust interpretation, no unwarrantable anticipation, nor ungracious prejudice, will bias the minds of those who honour his pages with their leisure: - he entreats them to bear in remembrance that it is as unwise as it is illiberal to draw premature conclusions on the nature and tendency of this work, merely because it professes to embrace the matter of the abominable and slanderous volume known by the name of \"The Delicate Investigation\". He deprecates, as every honest Englishman must, that unnatural, guilty, and malignant volume! - he contemns, in common with the rest of his countrymen, the ungenerous sentiment that could actuate to the publication of so gross a libel, and the mercenary principle that could compromise for its suppression.\"

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1811 ~ Memoirs of Caroline, Princess of Hasburgh, or Spirit of \"The Book\", Ashe :
$70.75