A very curious work by Daniel Defoe ´The History and Remarkable Life of the truly Honourable Col. Jacque, commonly call’d Col. Jack, who was born a, Gentleman, put ‘Prentice to a Pick-Pocket, was Six and Twenty Years a Thief, and then Kidnapp’d to Virginia. Came back a Merchant, married four Wives, and five of them prov’d Whores went into the wars, behav’d bravely, got preferment, was made colonel of a regiment, came over, and fled with the Chevalier, and is now abroad compleating a life of wonders, and resolves to dye a general´, printed in London in 1723.
The title-page exists in two variants: in one, lines 13-14 read (as in the present copy) “married four wives, and five of them prov’d whores“ in another the lines are corrected to ”“was five times married to four whores”, also, the collation varies, and later issues have a single ff. before the 399 pp., and one at the end. Advertised in the Post Boy for 18-20th December as published “this day”.
A second edition was published in 1723 (a reissue of the first edition with a reset title-page), a third edition appeared the following year, then in 1738 a fourth edition (“Written by the author of Robinson Crusoe”) was published, and a fifth in 1739.
A very rare Defore novel, published in the same year as Moll Flanders, in which the protagonist, Jack, is sold as a slave and travels to Virginia where he works on a plantation before being captured by the French on his attempted return to England. “Colonel Jacque”, as the protagonist now styles himself, fights on the side of the French and later returns to North America – all the time embroiled in many troubles with various women, “five of them prov’d Whores” – before escaping to the West Indies and later Havana.
“Jack [the protagonist], like Crusoe and Singleton, is a citizen of the world and a man on the make in a predatory economy. Like Singleton, he is left on his own in childhood. Over his long life he is a thief, a soldier in northern England, a kidnapped bondservant, a plantation owner and colonial trader, a gentleman traveller, a soldier in France and Italy on the side of France and Spain, a Jacobite who witnesses the battle at Preston (and is, therefore, a rebel), a captive of privateers, and a smuggler. As violent a novel as any written by Tobias Smollett, Col. Jack depicts a society in which only the legal system works efficiently, and all Jack’s occupations seem to be based on warfare, military or economic. His ships are sunk, captured, and confiscated, and in this crazy, evil world he fights for France and is robbed by French privateers, is a traitor because he prefers a former king over a present king, and experiences brutality in the streets, in London, in Edinburgh, on ships, on the plantations, and even in private homes regardless of his wealth, status, or citizenship. Something of a romantic in his individuality and especially in his yearnings for a home, a country, and happiness, Jack is never truly at home in the sombre violent societies in which he tries to operate” (Paula R. Backscheider, ODNB).
Extremely rare: no copy in the British Library, and only five copies recorded by ESTC. Rare Book Hub records three copies of this first edition at auction in the last 100 years, the last, at PBA, with the collation of a later issue.
