The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck, by
Baron Trenck, Edited by Henry Morley, Translated by Thomas Holcroft

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Title: The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck
Vol. 2 (of 2)

Author: Baron Trenck

Editor: Henry Morley

Release Date: October 16, 2007 [eBook #2669]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF BARON
TRENCK***

Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org, proofed by Kenyon, Uzma G., Marie Gilham, L. F. Smith
and David.

THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
BARON TRENCK

TRANSLATED BY
THOMAS HOLCROFT.

VOL. II.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1886.

INTRODUCTION.

Thomas Holcroft, the translator of these Memoirs of Baron Trenck, was the
author of about thirty plays, among which one, _The Road to Ruin_,
produced in 1792, has kept its place upon the stage. He was born in
December, 1745, the son of a shoemaker who did also a little business in
horse-dealing. After early struggles, during which he contrived to learn
French, German, and Italian, Holcroft contributed to a newspaper, turned
actor, and wrote plays, which appeared between the years 1791 and 1806.
He produced also four novels, the first in 1780, the last in 1807. He
was three times married, and lost his first wife in 1790. In 1794, his
sympathy with ideals of the French revolutionists caused him to be
involved with Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, in a charge of high
treason; but when these were acquitted, Holcroft and eight others were
discharged without trial.

Holcroft earned also by translation. He translated, besides these
Memoirs of Baron Trenck, Mirabeau's _Secret History of the Court of
Berlin_, _Les Veillees du Chateau_ of Madame de Genlis, and the
posthumous works of Frederick II., King of Prussia, in thirteen volumes.

The Memoirs of Baron Trenck were first published at Berlin as his
_Merkwurdige Lebensbeschreibung_, in three volumes octavo, in 1786 and
1787. They were first translated into French by Baron Bock (Metz, 1787);
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