{"product_id":"2940016168944","title":"Thaddeus of Warsaw","description":"This edition contains ten illustrations as they appeared in the George Virtue publication of 1845.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe hero of \"Thaddeus of Warsaw,\" is Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the beloved pupil of George Washington, the grandest and purest patriot the Modern World has known. The enthusiastic girl was moved to its composition by the stirring times in which she lived; and a personal observation of, and acquaintance with, some of those brave men whose struggles for liberty only ceased with their exile, or their existence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJane Porter placed her standard of excellence on high ground, and—all gentle spirited as was her nature—it was firm and unflinching between what she believed was right and true. We must not therefore judge her by the depressed state of \"feeling\" in these times, when its demonstration is looked upon as artificial or affected. Towards the end of the 18th century, and the beginning of the 19th century, the world was roused into an interest and enthusiasm, which now we can scarcely appreciate or account for; the sympathies of England were awakened by the terrible revolutions of France, and the desolation of Poland; as a principle, we hated Napoleon, though he had neither act nor part in the doings of the democrats; and the sea-songs of Dibdin, which our youth now would call uncouth and ungraceful rhymes, were key-notes to public feeling; the English of that time were thoroughly \"awake,\" the British Lion had not slumbered through a thirty years' peace. England was a nation of soldiers and sailors and patriots; not of mingled cotton-spinners and railway speculators and angry protectionists; people did not say which state of things were best or worst, they desired merely to account for what may be called the taste for heroic literature at that time as compared to the literature of the present, which seem mostly to be made up as shreds and patches—bits of gold and bits of tinsel things written in a hurry to be read in a hurry and never thought of afterwards, suggestive rather than reflective, at best: and we must plead guilty to a too great proneness to underrate what our fathers probably overrated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn any event, we must bear in mind, while reading or thinking over Jane Porter's novels, that, in her day, even the exaggeration of enthusiasm was considered good tone and good taste. How this enthusiasm was fostered, not subdued, can be gathered by the author's ingenious preface to \"Thaddeus of Warsaw.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis story brought her abundant honors, and rendered her society, as well as the society of her sister and brother, sought for by all who aimed at a reputation for taste and talent. Jane Porter, on her husband's death (he was the younger son of a well-connected Irish family, born in Ireland, in or near Coleraine, and a major in the Enniskillen Dragoons), sought a residence for her family in Edinburgh, where education and good society are attainable to persons of moderate fortunes, if they are \"well-born;\" but the extraordinary artistic skill of her son Robert required a wider field, and she brought her children to London sooner than she had intended, that his promising talents might be cultivated. The greater part of \"Thaddeus of Warsaw\" was written in London, either in St. Martin's Lane, Newport Street, or Gerard Street, Soho (for in these three streets the family lived after their arrival in the metropolis); though, as soon as Robert Ker Porter's abilities floated him on the stream, his mother and sisters retired, in the brightness of their fame and beauty, to the village of Thames Ditton, a residence they loved to speak of as their \"home.\" The actual labor of \"Thaddeus \"—her first novel—must have been considerable; for testimony was frequently borne to the fidelity of its localities, and Poles refused to believe that the author had not visited Poland; indeed, she had a happy power in describing localities.","brand":"OGB","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47153128341744,"sku":"2940016168944","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940016168944_p0.jpg?v=1763630549","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940016168944","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}