Hungarian Brothers, The. (3 vols.)
A Popular Triple Decker
Porter, Anna Maria. The Hungarian Brothers. In three volumes. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, And Ormi, 1808.
3 vols., small 8vo.; laid paper; contemporary female owner’s signature on title page (Hannah Ann Maxwell), with her family’s herald-motif bookplate on front pastedown; red ribbon bookmark bound in at spine; light tan full calf, decoratively stamped in blind and gilt; light wear to extremities; all edges marbled; a fine copy of a lovely publication. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Second edition, occasioned by the unforeseen success of the first edition of one of Porter’s most popular triple novels examining women’s roles at various historical moments and European locales; this one is set in 19th-century Hungary, and depicts women who face the sad reality of unfaithful husbands (who travel often from Hungary to Vienna, where they pursue other lives), as well as the collective fear of imminent border wars and a potential Napoleonic invasion. A strong subplot deals with the plight of women trapped, by their fear of financial devastation, in loveless marriages. At its heart, like all of Porter’s work, this is a strictly moral tale which rewards virtue and punishes sin. Wolff 5599 (for the first edition).
Porter was born in Durham, England in 1780, the youngest child of Jane Blenkinsop and William Porter, an army surgeon who died before her birth. In her infancy the family moved to Edinburgh, where she was educated, and then to London in the 1790s. Porter began her authorial career in her teens: she published her first juvenile, Artless Tales, under her own name in 1793 and published verse in Universal Magazine in 1795. In 1797 she published anonymously a courtship novel called Walsh Colville. That same year, with her sister Jane and brother Robert (later a historical painter and traveler) she produced a literary periodical called The Quiz.
Porter then returned to the form for which she would best be known, the novel. Porter’s novels tended to juxtapose male and female private moral and life crises and intrigues against a backdrop replete with vivid references to European history and geography. She achieved great success with this form: many of her nearly 30 works, were published first in England and then were brought out American and French editions for a growing market. The Hungarian Brothers was a commercial success. Other favorites include Ballad Romances and Other Poems (1811); Tales of Pity on Fishing, Shooting, and Hunting (1814); and The Knight of St. John (1817). Porter’s last book, The Barony (1830) appeared two years before she died of typhus at age 52.
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