Ɵ Leandro Fernández de Moratín, La Mojigata, Comedia en tres actos, a play in Spanish, presentation copy from the author to Baroness Holland, manuscript on paper [Spain, 1804 or immediately before]To view a video of this lot, click here.86 leaves, complete, collation i7, ii-viii10, ix9 (binding too tight to allow further collation, but text continuous), unfoliated but quires numbered, single column of approximately 27 lines in an italic hand, numerous stage directions, watermark of horse and inscription "ANTo BARBAROSA", purple marbled doublures and pastedowns, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, 228 by 165mm.; early nineteenth-century white pigskin by Charles Meyer (his small yellow label affixed to endleaf; d. 1809, royal bookbinder of St. Martins Lane, London), blindstamped with vertical garlands and rows of small dots, some surface dirt, else robust condition An important copy of this work, containing the only unexpurgated version of it, and perhaps the only copy approved of by the author Provenance:1. Copied for, or even by, the author of the work, perhaps intended for use as a stage copy (see Kitts, 2006, p. 9, noting 18 stage directions here not found anywhere else), and then presented to Elisabeth Vassall Fox (1771-1845), Baroness Holland, during a meeting in Madrid in the summer of 1804: lengthy pen inscription on front endleaf most probably in hand of Baroness Holland herself. Thereafter in her library at Holland House, Kensington (the meeting place of the 'Holland House set' including the Prince of Wales, Whig politicians, Sheridan, Byron, Dickens and Wordsworth): printed armorial bookplate pasted to front pastedown. Described as an "imperious battle axe", she dominated the men in her life, travelled widely and added significantly to the library at Holland House. Her journal survives in the British Library, with Additional MS 51931, fol. 110v recording the meeting with Moratín, and describing him as "at present the best and most distinguished poet and man-of-letters in Spain". On 16 August, she also records going to the opening of the Coliseo de la Cruz in Madrid to see a new play of Moratín's named the Mogigata. This volume presumably lay in her lap as she watched its public performance. On the death of her husband their line went extinct, and the house passed to the Earls of Ilchester. It was bombed during the Blitz in 1940 and was hit by 22 incendiary bombs in a single raid, with the house itself nearly destroyed but the library sustaining only slight damage. Sales then began soon after, with Hodgson & Co. of London, on 10 July 1947 ('Rare and Beautiful Books saved from the Holland House Library'), with three sales following in 1947-8, and Sotheby's holding seven further sales in 1962-3 (see L.J. Gorton in British Museum Quarterly, 29, 1965, p. 78, n. 30 & 32).2. Book dealership of H.P. Kraus of New York, their R6731, appearing in cat. 196, Spain, Portugal, and their Overseas Empires (1994), no. 116, and again cat. 202, European Literature (1996), no. 187; acquired by the present owner from Kraus in 2002. Reported in 2002 as part of the residue of the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (see Kitts, 2006, p. 5), but without any of Phillipps' marks, and in fact more probably acquired from the dispersal of the Holland House library (see also D. Hook, The Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Manuscripts of Sir Thomas Phillipps, 2017, n. 532). Text:La Mogigata is a neo-Classical tale of hypocrisy and false devotion, which had its measure of popularity in the last decades of the eighteenth century and the opening ones of the nineteenth century. However, sufficient differences exist between the seven extant manuscripts of the play (listed by Kitts, 2006, p. 7) and the printed version that appeared in 1804, to conclude that it was censored by the author, removing references to scandal and criticisms of the Church "for fear of giving offence to the devotees" (in the words of the inscription at the front of this witness). The present manuscript contains the only known 'full' version of the text, with 550 lines not found elsewhere. The play had existed in some form since the 1790s, and had been performed in private settings and provincial theatres in the closing decades of the eighteenth century, with its author referring to the many revisions and alterations made to it. However, these versions appear to have been swept away and destroyed when the shortened version was produced for its first performance in May 1804 (the second performance in August attended by Baroness Holland). The fact that the author himself presented an unexpurgated copy to Baroness Holland between the dates of these two performances suggests he was not yet satisfied by its final form, making this apparently the only witness to the format of the work approved by the author. Published:S.A. Kitts, 'Leandro Fernández de Moratín's La Mogigata: The Significance of the Holland Manuscript in the Light of Comments from Elizabeth, Lady Holland's Spanish Journal (BL, Add. MS. 51931)', Electronic British Library Journal, 2006S.A. Kitts, Leandro Fernández de Moratín, La Mogigata, edición, introducción y notas, 2015
