Clement Moore's Copy
Clement Moore's Copy
Clement Moore's Copy
Clement Moore's Copy
Kevin F. Kelly, bookseller LLC

Clement Moore's Copy

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[Stendhal. (Marie-Henri Beyle.) The Life of Haydn in a Series of Letters Written at Vienna... The Life of Mozart, With Observations on Metastasio, And on the Present State of Music in France and Italy. Tranlated from the French of L. A. C. Bombet.

Clement C. Moore's copy, with his signature on the title page. Clement Moore is most well known for his "A Visit from St. Nicholas", he was a scholar of diverse accomplishments. One of Moore's earliest known works was an anonymous pro-Federalist pamphlet published prior to the 1804 presidential election, attacking the religious and racial views of Thomas Jefferson (the incumbent president and Democratic-Republican candidate). His polemic, titled in full "Observations upon Certain Passages in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, which Appear to Have a Tendency to Subvert Religion, and Establish a False Philosophy," depicted Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) as an "instrument of infidelity" that "debases the negro to an order of Notes on the State of Virginia creatures lower than those who have a fairer skin and thinner lips."- Wikipedia

Apparently the First American Edition, from the first English Edition published by John Murray in London in 1817. This is Stendhal's first book, written before he took his famous pen-name. While the book is not traditionally held in high regard given that it consists of plagiarization of a few sources, recent scholarship suggests it offers  insight into the author's personality and style. 

"The life of Haydn is a plagiarism of G. Carpani's Le Haydine; the biographical part of the Mozart is, practically, a reproduction of Winckler's Notice biographique sur Jean-Chrysostom-Wolfgang-Théophile Mozart, which in turn is a translation of Schlichtegroll's Mozarts Leben; the last letter of the Mozart and the letter on Metastasio are Bombet." -COPAC. William Gardiner (1770 - 1853) was the compiler/author of Sacred Melodies (1812 - 1838).


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