History of the Celebrated Mrs. Ann Carson,The, Widow of the late Unfortunate Lieutenant Richard Smyth…
[Carson, Ann]. The History of the Celebrated Mrs. Ann Carson, widow of the late unfortunate Lieutenant Richard Smyth…With a circumstantial account of her conspiracy against the late Governor of Pennsylvania, Simon Snyder; and of her sufferings in the several prisons in that state. Interspersed with anecdotes of characters now living. Philadelphia: (Mary Wallingsford), 1822.
8vo.; unnumbered leaf removed between pages 70-71, 170-71, 176-77, 196-97, 214-15, 268-69, 274-75, 280-81 (two leaves), and 290-91; occasional foxing; staining and ink stamp to gutter of preliminaries; occasional marginal pencil marks and annotations, including a cast of characters in the rear; untrimmed; later 19th century three quarter morocco.
First edition. The NUC locates seven copies. Sabin 11083; Kaplan 938 (2nd edition only, 1838). A rare female autobiography, solicited and published by a woman, Mary Wallingsford, depicting in bewildering detail the life of an early 19th-century girl, from her early courtship and forced betrothal at the age of 14 through her marriages, family life, and extraordinary legal travails as she is unjustly arrested for bigamy. A series of letters between Carson and Wallingsford, and Wallingsford’s preface, suggest this is a serious investigation of societal ills, rather than a sensationalistic treatment of a licentious tale. Wallingsford writes, “If ever a breach of confidence was justifiable, the perusal of the present pages, will, I trust, justify me in the eyes of my fellow citizens of this happy republic.” She had requested Carson prepare an account of her life for her own edification, but upon reading it, was moved to offer it to the world in the hope of generating material support for Carson, of instilling in young women an awareness of moral pitfalls, and of arousing in parents a sympathetic awareness of the intellectual malleability of their daughters as early readers and their emotional independence as discontent wives. In part:
Her errors, I find, on perusing her history, have chiefly originated in the course of reading pursued at an early period of her life, i.e. voluptuous novels; these taught her to imagine love the first object to create happiness in existence, vitiated her mind, and gave a haughty independence to her character that rendered her careless of the world’s opinion, when set in opposition to her pursuit of pleasure. To this I may add, her too early establishment in life, with a husband incapable of yielding her that protection her youth and sex demanded. On these bases rest all her subsequent misfortunes. The perusal of her life will convey to every youthful female this simple, yet requisite, lesson, that a woman should not only be virtuous, but at all times appear what she really is. And to parents it will point out the propriety of a strict investigation of the authors their children are in the habit of studying, for a corrupt writer can impart a more deadly poison to a docile mind, and one more dangerous, than the balm from the Upas tree; the latter only destroys animal life, but the former kills the soul. Another lesson parents may from it obtain, is, to consult the feelings of their daughters’ hearts in marriage, rather than their interests, nor sacrifice the gentle impulses of nature to opulence, elegance, and an external appearance of happiness; a wife without affection for her husband, can never yield to his will that implicit obedience a man has a right to expect, and the forms of society demand. An unattached heart is ever in danger of meeting an object to awaken its sensibilities. It was this that destroyed the peace, fame, and fortune, of the unfortunate Ann, that her young and lovely countrywomen, may, by reading her wretched fate, shun the precipice from whence she has fallen, alas! to rise no more to her former eminence, is the sincere wish of their, and her, friend and well-wisher.
Carson’s autobiography offers a blow-by-blow account of her emotional oppression by
Print Inquire
