The Honest Farmer. A Drama, in five Acts, to which are added, Vanity punished, and Blind-Man's Buff [...]

Bookseller Notes

The first British edition of this play for children, with a rural setting.This five act morality play was penned by the French children's author Arnaud Berquin (1747-1791). Berquin's most famous work, L'Ami des Enfants (1782) was first translated into English and bowdlerised by Mary Stockdale and published by her father John Stockdale as The Looking-glass for the Mind (1783). It may be safely assumed that the present work is a similar joint production by Mary and her father. The play focuses on the fortunes of kindly farmer Throwgood and his family, as they contend with the loss of their cattle and the whims of their landlord Squire Sparks. An English edition was also published in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1794, which is also scarce. ESTC records just five copies of the present edition.