[GRIFFITH, Ralph (1720–1803)]

Ascanius, or the Young Adventurer

(London: T. Johnson, 1746)

8vo; pp. [frontispiece], [i]–viii, 9–288 [complete]

Very rare first edition of this classic Jacobite romance. After the Jacobite defeat at Culloden, Charles Edward the Young Pretender fled to the Highlands, where he was never betrayed in spite of a £30,000 reward placed by the government.

This is the subject of Griffith’s sensational tale Ascanius (Ascanius was Aeneas’s son, King of Alba Longa), the best known of the romances that immediately followed the Jacobite Rebellions.

Griffith was a fascinating character: he was a watchmaker’s apprentice from Shropshire who had come to London to seek his fortune. This he quickly did as publisher of the Monthly Review. Success with Ascanius and then (again as publisher) Fanny Hill secured his reputation and his fortune.

Good condition: original full-calf binding with gilt panelling and five raised bands. Small bookplate inside the front cover and early ownership inscription to the front flyleaf (flyleaf torn with some loss to the signature); internally very good; faint spotting to the frontispiece but generally clean throughout; engraved tailpiece. An excellent copy in fully original condition.