The Provoked Wife: The Life and Times of Susannah Cibber

First edition, first impression.  370pp, with black and white illustrations in text.  Black publisher's cloth-covered boards, gilt-stamped lettering on the spine.  8vo.  Cloth a little pushed and rounded at corners and spine ends.  The last few leaves in the volume have a mild warp.  In a worn dust jacket, bumped at edges, rubbed at spine ends and shelf worn, with creases on front and rear inner flaps. Susannah Cibber, sister to Thomas Arne and daughter in law of the then poet laureate, Colley Cibber, was a sky and bookish woman, albeit a talented actress.  Her husband, Theophilus Cibber, to aid his waning fortunes, encouraged her admires and her affair with William Soper, a well-to-do member of the landed gentry.  He then prosecuted the lovers in a celebrated 'alienation of affections' trial, and Susannah's career seemed ruined by the scandal.  But another of her admirers, the composer Handel, came to her aid, composing passages of the Messiah for her voice and she returned to the stage, triumphantly, with a performance in Dublin, piquing the London theatre world to welcome her back - although she remained excluded from polite society for the rest of her life.