Dublin edition of the Irish novelist Anne Fuller’s 1789 'The Son of Ethelwolf.'

Anne Fuller. The Son of Ethelwolf: An Historical Tale. Dublin: Printed for Messrs. L. White, P. Byrne, P. Wogan, H. Colbert, A. Grueber and M’Allister, C. Lewis, J. Jones, and J. Moore, 1789. 12mo [16.5 x 10.1 cm], vi pp., 278 pp. Bound in contemporary calf, lettering piece laid to spine, red edges. Short separation at joints at upper extremity of spine. Rubbing, abrasion and edge wear to spine and boards, bookseller’s pencil notes on front pastedown, inscriptions on front free endpapers (“Tho. Walsh Jan. ’90”). Minor internal toning, occasional staining, quire C is loose and pinned in with an old stick pin resulting in edge wear to those leaves, title with pencil ownership annotation (“Miss E. A. Brown 1833”).

1789 Dublin edition—published in the same year as the London first edition—of the Irish writer Anne Fuller’s (d. 1790) The Son of Ethelwolf, a historical novel about the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred the Great (c. 849-99).

Fuller, considered to be one of the earliest women writers of gothic fiction, is also known for her novels The Convent; or, The History of Sophia Nelson (London: T. Wilkins, 1786) and Alan Fitz-Osborne, an Historical Tale (Dublin: P. Byrne, 1787).

“In Anne Fuller’s 1789 novel The Son of Ethelwolf, a young Alfred realises the importance of putting statesmanship before lovemaking and learns about the responsibility that should come with power. In the course of a rather prolonged disguised visit to the Danish camp, he observes the pandemonium that passionate jealousy over women causes among his enemies, and during his time in hiding stays in not one but several rustic cottages, where he is prompted to recognise the ‘unequal and unjust distribution’ that afflicts his country, and to swear ‘be it the care of Alfred to reverse it.’ Fuller’s novel was dedicated to George, Prince of Wales, at a time when there had been much consternation about the prospect of the dissolute prince acting as regent during George III’s illness. The preface to the novel expresses relief at the recent recovery of the king, but Fuller’s choice of title—presenting Alfred as his father’s son—suggests that she intended to impress upon her readers the importance of remembering that Prince George, however apparently unpromising as royalty, remained his father’s son, and was perhaps only in need of learning, like Alfred, the necessary lessons of youth. Fuller’s Son of Ethelwolf was the first Alfredian novel to be written (just as the first Alfredian drama and epic poetry were produced in the eighteenth century). As such, it introduced many features which became common in nineteenth-century Alfredianism … One such trait was the melodramatic images of bacchanalian, oath-swearing Vikings performing gory Odinic rites which added a touch of spice to the novel…” (Joanne Parker, ‘England’s Darling’: The Victorian Cult of Alfred the Great, p. 67).

OCLC and KVK locate U.S. copies of this Dublin edition at Case Western, NYU, Emory, Yale, Notre Dame, Amherst, Duke, Ohio St., Penn and Wisconsin.

*Joanne Parker, ‘England’s Darling’: The Victorian Cult of Alfred the Great.