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); more fully by Letourneur (Paris, 1788); and again by himself (Strasbourg, 1788), with considerable additions. Holcroft translated from the French versions.

H.M.