Novel
Modern Chivalry
Hugh Henry Brackenridge · 1792
Opening lines
Captain John Farrago, was a man about forty-five years of age, of good natural sense and considerable reading; but in some things whimsical, owing perhaps to his greater knowledge of books, than of the world ; but in some degree, also, to his having never married, being what we call an old bachelor ; a characteristic of which is, usually, singularity and whim.
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
Captain John Farrago, a bachelor of about forty-five who farms a small property in western Pennsylvania, saddles an old horse and sets out to observe human nature, followed by his Irish servant Teague O'Regan. From the first election, the voters want to send Teague to sit in place of a weaver; a society of philosophers takes an interest in him, he wants to become a preacher, and his master sets about steering him away from the offices offered to him. The book advances episode by episode, interrupted by chapters in which the author comments on what has just been read.
Context
The first two parts appeared in Philadelphia in 1792, and the work would never stop growing: a third part in 1793, a fourth in 1797, a revision in 1805, a last addition in 1815. Twenty-three years of publication, at the mercy of the author's political reverses. The avowed model is Don Quixote, to the point that a Western periodical wrote that the book was to the American West what that of Miguel de Cervantes had been to Europe.
Who it is for
A long, rambling book made up of episodes interspersed with moral and political reflections, in the English of the late eighteenth century. No complete French translation.
Prizes and reception
Often regarded as the first important work of fiction on the American frontier, and as the birth certificate of satire in the American novel.
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