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GOUBAUD, After Innocent Louis (1780-1847)
Clara Mowbray St. Ronan's Well
London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1830. Mezzotint, printed in colours, by Henry Dawe (Expertly repaired tear to lower margin, small tear to right margin just touching image area). Image size (including text): 21 1/4 x 15 3/4 inches. Sheet size: 23 3/8 x 16 7/8 inches.
A very fine imaginary portrait of the tragic heroine of Sir Walter Scott's novel 'St. Ronan's Well'.
'St Ronan's Well is a satirical novel focusing on fashionable society in the early nineteenth century. It is set in the Scottish spa of St Ronan's Well in 1812 and centres around two half-brothers, sons of the late Earl of Etherington. The younger son, Valentine Bulmer, holds the title, though he is not entitled to it, and is therefore at odds with his older half-brother, Francis Tyrell. Their enmity towards each other also stems from Valentine's intervention in a love affair between Francis and Clara Mowbray, the daughter of the Laird of St Ronan, where Valentine impersonated his brother at a midnight marriage. Clara finds herself wed to a man whom she fears and detests. The brothers make a pact that Clara's name should remain undisturbed and that both men should never return to Scotland. But Valentine, now Earl of Etherington, and paranoid about losing his estate to his brother, learns that an unexpected accession of fortune will become his if his marriage to Clara is acknowledged, and so he returns home to St Ronan's. To guarantee Clara's submission, Valentine threatens Clara's brother with revealing his gambling vice. In response, Mowbray forces his sister to accept Valentine's hand. Meanwhile, Francis has been plotting himself, and Valentine's identity is finally revealed.'
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#6572 $1,500.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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