48 Books by and About Women - Mostly 18th and 19th Century

MICHAEL THOMPSON BOOKS, 8242 West
Third Street, Suite 230, Los Angeles, CA 90048
Phone: (323) 658-1901; Fax: (323) 658-
5380; e-mail address: mrtbooks@mrtbooksla.com
Member, ABAA, ILAB


The First Woman in the United States to Make Her Living as a Writer

1. ADAMS, Hannah. An Alphabetical Compendium of Various Sects Which have appeared in the World from the beginning of the Christian Aera to the present Day. With an Appendix, Containing a brief Account of the different Schemes of Religion Now embraced among Mankind. The whole collected From the best Authors, ancient and modern...Boston: Printed by B. Edes & Sons, 1784. Octavo. [2], ii, [2], 204. lxxxiii, [1, errata], [22, index, and list of subscribers] pp. Handsomely bound in full recent antique-style mottled calf. Gilt-ruled covers, gilt spine with red morocco label. Occasional foxing, as usual. Portion of top blank margin of title-page clipped away, old ink signature on “To the Readers” page. Overall a very good copy. $1,500
First edition.
Hannah Adams (1755-1831) was the first woman in the United States to make her living as a writer. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams was a distant cousin of President John Adams and the daughter of a lifelong bibliophile called “Book” Adams, whose history included a failed attempt at bookselling. Too frail to go to school, she was taught Latin, Greek, geography and logic by theological students who boarded with her family. One of these students introduced her to Broughton’s Dictionary of Religions, which led to her interest in writing on religious topics. The present book, Adams’ first, was an important contribution to this literature, in that she represented denominations from the perspective of their adherents, without injecting her own opinions. (She herself was a Unitarian). It includes one of the earliest accounts of the Shakers and a description of modern Jewry. This work went through four editions in America under different titles and was republished in England. Her other works include A Summary History of New England (1799), The Truth and Excellence of the Christian Religion (1804), History of the Jews (1812), Letters on the Gospels (1826).
Evans 18319. Sabin 208.

2. ALCOTT, William A. The Young Woman’s Guide to Excellence. Boston: George W. Light, 1840. Twelvemo. 356, [4, ads] pp. Original dark brown blindstamped cloth, spine lettering in gilt. Light wear at spine extremities, intermittent light foxing, as usual. Donor’s inscription, dated December 25, 1850. A very good, bright copy. $250
First edition.
William Andrus Alcott (1798-1859) was the cousin of Bronson Alcott. He became interested in popular education at an early age. He began teaching at the age of eighteen, and amassed a variety of teaching experience in New England and in the South by the time he started attending classes at Yale Medical School and eventually earned a diploma to practice medicine and surgery. He wrote a number of books about education and health, including The Young Mother or Management of Children in Regard to Health (1836), Confessions of a Schoolmaster (1839), The Young Man’s Guide (1839) The Home Book of Life and Health (1856) and Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders (1859). His works were popular, but have been criticized by later feminists as being too rigid.

Enlightenment History of Women

3. ALEXANDER, William. The History of Women, from the Earliest Antiquity, to the Present Time; Giving some Account of almost every interesting Particular concerning that Sex, among all Nations, ancient and modern…Dublin: Printed by J.A. Husband, For Messrs. S. Price, R. Cross…[et al.], 1779. Two volumes, octavo. [10], xxii, 448, [22, index], [2, blank]; [4], 449, [1], [25, index], [3, blank] pp. Contemporary calf, gilt red morocco labels. Small splits in spine, but generally a very good copy, tight and fresh. Light pencil annotations throughout by a former owner (late nineteenth-century). Includes the half-title to Volume I and the terminal blanks.
$1,500
First Dublin edition, published the same year as the first (second edition overall), of this wide-ranging history of the female sex.
William Alexander (bap. 1742?, d. 1788?) was a University of Edinburgh-educated medical doctor. The present work, which has sociological and anthropological overtones, is his best know. It “deserves to take a place among Enlightenment histories of civil society. Though Alexander clearly knew and was influenced by Montesquieu and the encyclopédistes, it was to contemporary Scottish historians such as John Millar, Lord Kames, and Gilbert Stuart that he owed his greatest debts. Like them, he attempted to place the history of women and gender roles firmly within the history of civil society, though he also perpetuated their disagreements and inconsistencies. The History is long, rambling, and inconsistent, and omits any scholarly references. In it, Alexander drew widely and indiscriminately upon biblical history, theological studies, classical and medieval histories, and travel literature to construct narratives of women's employment, marriage, child-rearing patterns, customs and ceremonies, and the status and public power of women. He explored the relative influences of nature, or biology, and education, or environment, in shaping the manners of women; the potential for the moral corruption of nations in the absence of female chastity; the relationship between the progress of ‘civilization’ and the condition of women; and the distinctive characteristics of both ‘northern’ and British women. On the whole Alexander was inclined to give little weight to the influence of Christianity in the improvement of the condition of women, and there is an anti-Catholic and anti-clerical tinge to much of his discussion” (D.N.B.). The History of Women went through three British editions in as many years. It was translated into French and German, and two American editions were produced.

4. [ALEXANDER, William.] Histoire des femmes depuis la plus haute antiquité kisqu à nos jours, Avec des Anecdotes curieuses, et de Détails très intérressans sur leur état civil et politique, chez tous ls peoples barbares et civilizes, anciens et moderns. Traduit de l’anglois Par le C. Cantwell…Paris: Chez Briand, 1794. Four volumes, [4], xxxiii, [1], 238, [2, errata]; [4], 312, [2, errata]; [4], 240, [2, errata]; [4], 301, [1], [1, errata] pp. Four engraved frontispieces by Philibert Boutrois. Complete with half-titles. Contemporary mottled calf, gilt flat spines with brown and black morocco labels, edges stained red. Light wear to binding extremities, a little light foxing. A very good, clean se $950

First French translation of this well known Hitory of Women, which first appeared in 1779.
OCLC notes only three copies (Leeds, UCLA and the University of Kansas).

5. BENNETT, John. Letters to a Young Lady, on a Variety of Useful and Interesting Subjects, Calculated to Improve the heart, to form the manners, and enlighten the understanding…The Third Edition. London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies…1803. Two volumes, twelvemo. pp. [iii]-xx. 240; [2], 264 pp. Bound without the half-titles. Contemporary tree calf, Gilt-decorated flat spines with red and black morocco labels. Minor signs of insect damage on the back cover of Volume II, but a fine, bright copy. Early ink signature on title-page of each volume (“Maria Frances Montgomery”), engraved bookplate of the same owner (“M.F. Montgomery Convoy”). $600
First published in 1789, this courtesy book in epistolary form went through a number of editions, both in England and America. The author, a clergyman who also wrote Strictures on Female Education (1780) aimed to “rouse young ladies from a vacant or insipid life, into one of usefulness and laudable exertion to recall them from visionary novels and romance into solid reading and reflection and from the criminal absurdities of fashion, to the simplicity of nature and the dignity of virtue. He has attempted a method of uniting, in their character, the graces with the virtues; an amiable heart with elegant manners and an enlightened understanding.”

6. [BOURDIER DE VILLEMERT, Pierre Joseph.] L’ami des femmes. Paris: Quay des Augustins, 1758. Small octavo. [iv], 188, [2] pp. Contemporary blue boards with printed paper label. Extremities of boards rubbed, old ink monogram on title-page, portion of bottom margin of title-page cut out to remove an ownership mark, not affecting text. A good, clean copy. $500
First edition of Boudier de Villemert’s classic treatise on women, reprinted dozens of times and translated into English as The Lady’s Friend. Includes chapters on women’s rank in society, their education and suitable occupations (The study of science is frowned upon.), women’s dress, love and marriage, domestic management, etc.
Despite the popularity of this book, the first edition is fairly scarce: OCLC lists five copies in North America (Berkeley, Library of Congress, Indiana, Harvard, North Carolina).
Cioranescu 13039.

7. BROOKE, Mrs. [Frances]. The Siege of Sinope. A Tragedy As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent-Garden. London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1781. Octavo, in fours. [viii], 71 pp. Recent half calf over marbled boards, new endpapers. A very good, clean copy.
First edition. $300
The most famous play of Mrs. Frances Brooke 1724-1789), who is chiefly known today as Canada’s first novelist for her works, The History of Julia Mandeville (1763) and The History of Emily Montague, written while she and her chaplain-husband were in Quebec. Mrs. Brooke was highly regarded in her time. The Catalogue of 500 Celebrated Authors of Great Britain Now Living (1788) described her as a “female writer of very distinguished merit,” and she was frequently mentioned in the Gentleman’s Magazine. She was a friend of Samuel Johnson’s and Fanny Burney’s.

Etiquette for Ladies

8. BUGG, Lelia Hardin. A Lady. Manners and Social Usages. Second Edition. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1893. Twelvemo. 317 pp. White cloth with front cover and spine stamped in gilt. All edges gilt. Spine lightly soiled, minor soiling to covers. A very good, tight copy. $250
Lelia Bugg, who was from Wichita, Kansas, was the author of numerous self-improvement books, including The Corrrect Thing for Catholics (1891), Correct English (1895), A Little Book of Wisdom: Being Great Thoughts of Many Wise Men and Women (1897). She also wrote several works of fiction, including Orchids (1894) and The Prodigal’s Daughter and Other Tales (1898). Though reasonably popular in their own day, most of her books are now scarce. Of the present work, OCLC notes five copies of this second edition and two copies of the first. This is a practical etiquette book for young women. Topics discussed include the well-bred woman and man; the dress, amusement, and manners of children; the use of words, and tact in conversation; letter writing, invitations, acceptances and regrets; introductions; balls, manners at table; weddings; being a good hostess; proper dress; funerals and mourning attire, etc.

9. BURNAP, George W. Lectures on the Sphere and Duties of Woman and Other Subjects. Baltimore: John Murphy, Printer and Publisher, 1841. Twelvemo. 272 + [4] pp. publisher’s ads. Original brown blindstamped cloth with spine stamped in gilt. Head and foot of spine worn, spine lightly cocked. A good, clean copy. $150
First edition.
George Washington Burnap (1802-1859) was an American Unitarian clergyman and pastor of the First Independent Church Baltimore. This is a series of ten lectures of interest to women on the subjects of education, development of the intellect, literature, health, and rights. Burnap was regent of the University of Maryland and one of the original trustees of the Peabody Institute, as well as a founder of the Maryland Historical Society. (See DAB.)

10. [CARACCIOLI, Louis-Antoine, Marquis de]. La vie de Madame de Maintenon, Institutrice de la Royale Maison de Saint-Cyr. A Paris: Chez Buisson, Libraire…1786. Twelvemo. [xxiv], 524, [3, approbation and privilege] pp. Engraved frontisportrait. Contemporary half sheep over mottled brown boards, gilt spine with burgundy morocco label, edges sprinkled blue. Joints starting to crack, but cords sound, a bit of wear to binding extremities. A good copy. $450
First edition of Caraccioli’s account of the life of Francoise d’Aubigne Maintenon (1635-1719), the governess who became the second wife of Louis XIV. Madame de Maintenon created a famous school for girls at St.Cyr, which provided girls of noble birth but impoverished means the opportunity to get the education expected when they would marry at their level or beyond.
This book is remarkable for being one of Caraccioli’s (1719-1803) longest works. The fact that the subject should be a female educator is interesting, though not surprising, coming from the author of books like Le véritable mentor, ou L’education de la noblesse (1759) and Derniers adieux de la maréchale de *** à ses enfants (1769). La vie de Madame de Maintenon is a scarce book: OCLC lists ten copies in North America and four in Europe.

the most learned lady in England during the eighteenth century”

11. CARTER, Elizabeth. Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, with a new edition of her poems, some which have never appeared before; to which are added, some miscellaneous essays in prose, together with her Notes on the Bible…By the Rev. Montagu Pennington, M.A.…London: Printed for F.C. and J. Rivington, 1808. Two volumes, octavo. [8], 501; [2], 428 pp. Engraved frontisportrait. Late nineteenth-century half tan calf over tan cloth boards, marbled edges and endpapers. Bookplate of Charles Arthur Wynne Finch (1841-1903), Lieutenant-Colonel in the service of the Scots Guard. A very good, clean copy. $850
Second edition.
Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806) was, to quote Priscilla Dorr in Schleuter’s Encyclopedia of British Women Writers, “the most learned lady in England during the eighteenth century.” She was one of the most famous members of the Blue Stocking Circle, which also included Catherine Talbot, Elizabeth Vesey, Elizabeth Montagu, Hester Chapone, and Hannah More. Despite an early learning disability and “with a persistence that won the praise of V. Woolf in A Room of One’s Own,” (as Margaret Drabble reminds us in the Oxford Companion to English Literature) she learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in childhood with her brothers, and later studied French, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Arabic. She was a friend of Samuel Johnson, who thought her one of the best Greek scholars he had known, and invited her to contribute to The Rambler. She made a number of translations, of which her Epictetus is the masterpiece.

The Two Major Works of a Leading Bluestocking

12. CHAPONE, Hester. Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Young Lady [With:] Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. London, J Walter/ E.& C. Dilly, 1773-75. Three volumes, small octavo. viii, 200; [2], 230; xii, 178, [2, ads] pp. Lacking the half-title to Volume III. Uniformly bound in contemporary mottled calf. Gilt-decorated flat spines with black morocco labels. Binding extremities lightly rubbed, front joints of the first two volumes neatly repaired. Ink signatures of three early women owners. A very good, attractive set. $950
Second edition of the first work, first edition of the second work.
Hester Chapone (1727-1760) was one of the Bluestockings. She was associated especially with Elizabeth Carter, and Elizabeth Montagu, to whom this work is dedicated, but was also a friend of Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney d’Arblay, and Gilbert White. She came to the attention of Samuel Johnson, who admitted four of her pieces to The Rambler. The publication of Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, (1773), a treatise on female education, brought her fame, if not fortune; she was paid £50 for it. She was paid five times that for Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, which included her early verses, moral essays, and “The Story of Fidelia,” first published in The Adventurer (See the Linda V. Troost article in An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers).

13. CHAPMAN, Priscilla. Hindoo Female Education. London: Published b R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside; and sold by L. and G. Seeley, 1839. Twelvemo. xii, 175, [3], [2, ads] pp. Four lithographic plates. At the end is a list of members of the Ladies Society for Promoting Female Education in India. Original black cloth, chipped at head and foot of spine, front joint cracking, but sound, some light foxing, especially to preliminaries and first plate. Bookplates of the Bath Literary and Scientific Institution. A good copy of an uncommon book. $750
First edition of what would seem to be an early treatise on the plight of women in India, and the state of their education, or lack of it. Topics discussed include the relationship of females to males, the influence of the climate and famines, the condition of the poor, the state of medicine, polygamy, bathing, the native church, etc. The plates school a central school, an orphan refuge, and a village scene.
According to the preface, the Baptist Missionary W. Ward brought the “degraded and neglected state of females in India” to the attention of the women of Liverpool in 1821, and the Ladies Society for Promoting Female Education in India was born shortly thereafter. The Society for Promoting Native Female Education in China and the East already existed. The object was, of course, to introduce Christianity and well as to ameliorate the lives of women. We know nothing about the life of Priscilla Chapman. This appears to be her only book.

A Regency Scandal

14. CLARKE, Mary Anne. The Rival Princes: or, A Faithful Narrative of Facts, Relating to Mrs. M.A. Clarke’s Political Acquaintance with Colonel Wardle, Major Dodd, &c. &c. &c. Who Were Concerned in the Charges Against the Duke of York; Together with A variety of Authentic and Important Letters, and Curious and Interesting Anecdotes of Several Persons of Political Notoriety…London: Printed for the Author, 1810. Two volumes, twelvemo. [12], 216; [4], 307, [1], [4, ads] pp. Engraved portrait. Original boards, uncut, rebacked in later tan calf with burgundy and green morocco labels. Volume II lacks front free endpaper. Light offsetting at a couple of spots in Volume II from old acidic inserts (I4-5, X6-Y1, Z2-3). Nineteenth-century bookseller’s label on front pastedown of Volume I. Still, a very good, large copy, with half-titles and ads present.
First edition. $500
Mary Anne Clarke (1776?-1852), whose background remains obscure, was the mistress of Frederick, Duke of York (1763–1827). She was accused by Colonel Gwyllum Lloyd Wardle of soliciting bribes from the military in exchange for preferments and commissions from the Duke. The case became a great Regency scandal and resulted in a flurry of pamphlets. In more recent times, it became the subject of a novel, Mary Anne (1954), written by Mrs. Clarke’s great-granddaughter, Daphne du Maurier. According to the D.N.B., it was ghost-written by P. F. McCallum.

The Most Important English Work on Pedagogy
Between Locke and Spencer, Translated into French by a Friend of the Authors

15. EDGEWORTH, Maria, [and Richard Lovell Edgeworth]. Education pratique. Traduction libre de l’anglais…par Charles Pictet, de Genève. Genève: Chez Magimel…J.J. Paschoud, et à Paris, Magimel, An VIII [i.e., 1800?]. Octavo. [2], L, 458, [2, table and errata] pp. Contemporary calf over paste-paper boards, gilt spine. Two small tears at top of spine, front joint starting to crack, intermittent light dampstain at top edge. A good copy overall. $1,250
First French edition of “the most important work on general pedagogy to appear in this country between…Locke’s Thoughts…and Herbert Spencer’s Essay in 1861” (Muirhead, The English at School, 57). The fifty-page translator’s preface contains a significant discussion of Maria Edgeworth’s views on education, as well as an explanation of the liberties he has taken with the text. Pictet had a lengthy correspondence with Richard Lovell Edgeworth.
“This book…has a real value in the history of education. Mr. Edgeworth’s interest in the subject had been inspired by the study of Rousseau and by his friendship with Thomas Day. But he went beyond Rousseau, who developed his theories from his own ingenious mind and related an imaginary process. The Edgeworths brought a scientific method to their work. The second Mrs. Edgeworth (Honora Sneyd) began the collection of actual examples of conversations between the children and their elders. This was continued patiently by the writers of the book; and their reasonings were thus founded on an accurate record of childish methods of thought. They deprecated especially any measures that interrupted the child's own chain of reasoning. The chapters on the special subjects of study, chronology, geometry, &c., were written by Richard Lovell Edgeworth; those on toys, on rewards and punishments, on temper, &c., by his daughter” (Encyc. Brit., 13th ed.).
Charles Pictet de Rochemont (1755-1824) was a Swiss rural economist. As envoy-extraordinary, he attended the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and that of Paris in 1815. He wrote a Picture of the Present Condition of the United States of America (1796) and a Treatise on Agriculture. He was one of the editors of the Bibliothèque Universelle, where he published a translation of Maria Edgeworth’s Moral Tales. He also wrote Théologie naturelle (1804), freely translated from the English of Paley. He was the brother of Marc-Auguste Pictet (1752-1825), who succeeded Horace Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799) in the chair of philosophy at the college of Geneva. Both Pictets were friends of the Edgeworths.
OCLC lists only the Harvard, Michigan, and Yale copies. RLIN adds the New York Public Library copy. The Sadleir copy at UCLA is from Richard Lovell Edgeworth’s library.
Slade 30.

A Continuation of Some of Her Earliest Children’s Stories

16. EDGEWORTH, Maria. Harry and Lucy Concluded; Being the Last Part of Early Lessons. London: Printed for R. Hunter…Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy…1825. Four volumes in two, twelvemo. [iii]-xviii, 287, [1. blank], [2], 340; [2], 319, [1, blank]; [2], 336 pp. Lacking half-titles. Full late nineteenth-century calf. Gilt single-rule borders on covers, gilt spines with burgundy and black morocco labels. Light wear at feet of spines, intermittent light foxing. Ink signatures of original owner in each volume (“Emma Barnett, Janry. 29th, 1828”). A very good set. $500
First edition.
The original Harry and Lucy stories were part of the collection, Early Lessons (1801), and they were amongst the first children’s stories written by Maria Edgeworth. They demonstrate the educational theories of Maria Edgeworth and her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, as discussed in their work, Practical Education (1798).
Slade 23A. Sadleir 769.

Divorce in Normandy

17. EVERARD, Estienne. Metode pour liquider les mariages avenans des filles, dans la coutume generale de Normandie, & dans la Coûtume particulière de Caux. Seconde Edition, Revuë, corrigée & augmentée. A Rouen: Chez Jean-Baptiste Besongne...1734. Octavo. [20], 220, [47, table de matières], [4, privilege], [1, publisher's catalogue]. Contemporary mottled calf, gilt spine with brown morocco label, edges sprinkled red. Bottom corner of front cover bumped, corners lightly worn. A very good copy. $750
First published in 1696.
This second edition is not noted in OCLC. OCLC lists five copies of one 1696 edition—at Harvard, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego, plus two in France. It lists one copy of another 1696 edition (with a different collation) at the University of Leiden. We cannot be sure how this edition differs from the 1696 editions, though the table appears to be new.
This is a study of divorce under the Coutume de Normandie, a legal system that was instituted in this part of France in the tenth century and continued until the French Revolution. The factors which distinguish Norman law are an absence of distinctions between men who are equal before the law. The system of succession excludes females because of their inability to pass down property within the family.

The First Systematic Work to Deal with the Subject of Female Education

18. FENELON, [François De Salignac de La Mothe]. De l’education des filles. A Paris Chez Pierre Aubouin, Pierre Emery et Charles Clousier…1687. Twelvemo. [4], [3, catalogue], [1, blank], 275 [i.e., 269, pagination for pp. 193-8 omitted as usual, but complete], ], [6, privilege] pp. Title-page in black and red. Contemporary calf, gilt-decorated spine. Spine ends, corners lightly worn. Some light browning, but generally a very good copy. $950
First edition, mixed issue, of Fénelon’s (1651-1715) most important book. This copy has no errata, as is the case with first issue copies, according to Tchermerzine. It follows Tchermerzine’s description of the second issue, with p. 167, line 20 having the reading “sans vivre de son esprit” . However, it has the errors on p. 275 (“manifiques” and “simplieté”), as does the first issue. Both O4 (pp. 167-8) and pp. 275-6 (Z3) are on stubs.
Instructions for the Education of a Daughter was “…the first systematic attempt ever made to deal with that subject as a whole. Hence it was probably the most influential of all Fénelon’s books, and guided French ideas on the question all through the 18th century. It holds a most judicious balance between the two opposing parties of the time. On the one side were the précieuses, enthusiasts for the ‘higher’ education of their sex; on the other were the heavy Philistines, so often portrayed by Molière, who thought that the less girls knew the better they were likely to be. Fénelon sums up in favour of the cultivated house-wife; his first object was to persuade the mothers to take charge of their girls themselves, and fit them to become wives and mothers in their turn” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 13th edition).
Tchermerzine III, p. 164.

19. Genuine and Authentic Memoirs of a Well-Known Woman of Intrigue, Containing a great variety of curious and interesting anecdotes, which have never yet appeared in print, of several of the first characters in the fashionable world. Written by herself. London: Printed for J. Ridgway…1787 [but a nineteenth-century reprint]. Small octavo. 120 pp. Half red morocco over marbled boards, top edge gilt. Binding extremities lightly rubbed. A very good copy. $300
Two editions of this work were published by Ridgway in 1787. The first edition appears to have been a two-volume twelvemo, known to ESTC only through a copy of Volume II at Lodz Universytet Biblioteka. A stated second edition, a twelvemo extending to 169 pages, appeared the same year, though it has been conjectured that that is one volume only of the two-volume work. ESTC reports only one copy of the second edition, at the Bodleian Library. OCLC notes two nineteenth-century reprints, one published in 1860, known in one copy at the University of Miami, and another published in 1886, known only in one copy at the National Library of Scotland. The collation of both matches that of the present book, which only includes the date 1787. It is not clear whether this copy is the same edition as one of those reported by OCLC, or yet another variant. In any case, all editions of this book are rare.

20. GISBORNE, Thomas. An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex. London: Printed for T. Cadell jun. and W. Davies…1797. Octavo. viii, 426, [2] pp., with the final advertisement leaf. Contemporary calf over marbled boards, rebacked with new endpapers, gilt black morocco spine label. A little foxing. A very good copy. $750
First edition.
Thomas Gisborne (1758-1846) was an Evangelical clergyman and a close friend of Wilberforce and Hannah More. “His ethical writings are directed against Paley’s expediency, and endeavor to provide a basis of absolute right; but his criterion is mainly utilitarian. His sermons were held to rank with the best contemporary performances; but he shows more refinement and good feeling than intellectual force” (Leslie Stephen, D.N.B.). The present work is one of many advice books for young women that followed Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women. Gisborne argues that women's subordinate nature is innate. He commends the traditional feminine virtues and the domestic role for women. Law, politics and government, scholarship, philosophy, navigation and war all “demand the efforts of a mind endued with the powers of close and comprehensive reasoning, and of intense and continued application” and are thus best left to men. However, he does share Wollstonecraft's view that women should not conceal their intellectual abilities and that parents should never force their daughters into marriage. The first edition is surprisingly scarce: only one copy has come up at auction in the past twenty-five years.
See Alice Browne, The Eighteenth-Century Feminist Mind (1987); and see 'Appendix 2, Women: the Evidence of the Advice Books' in William St. Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys
(1989).

Original Boards, Uncut and Partially Unopened

21. GRANT, Mrs. [Anne.] Poems on Various Subjects. Edinburgh: Printed for the Author by J. Moir; London: Sold by Longman and Rees and J. Hatchard, 1803. Octavo. pp. 1-10, pp. 17-447. (Despite erratic pagination, the text is complete.) Long subscriber’s list at rear (according to Jackson, the subscribers totaled 3,000). Contemporary blue boards, uncut and partially unopened, rebacked to style, with new printed paper label. Edges of boards rubbed, old ownership signature, dated 1859. A very good copy. $750
First edition.
This is the first book of Anne MacVicar Grant (1755-1838), the Glasgow-born poet and author. Grant and her mother followed her father, a military man, to New York in 1758, and they remained there for ten years. She discusses her experiences in Memoirs of an American Lady (1808). In 1779, she married a clergyman named Grant, who was garrison-chaplain at Fort Augustus and minsiter of the parish of Laggan in Inverness-shire. Her husband’s death in 1801 left her penniless and in need of providing for her children, so she began a writing career. Her works include Letters from the Mountains; being the real correspondence of a lady between the years 1773 and 1807 (1807), Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders (1811), and translations of Ossian. Her literary friends included Scott, Lockhart, and DeQuincey.
Jackson, Romantic Poetry by Women, p. 137.

The Cleverest Woman in London”

22. GROTE, Harriet. Collected Papers, (original and reprinted,) in Prose and Verse. 1842-2862. By Mrs. Grote. London: John Murray, 1862. Octavo. [2], iv, [2, contents with verso blank], 293, [1, blank], [1, colophon], [1, blank], 12 [advertisements, dated November, 1861] pp. Original terra cotta cloth with covers blocked in blind and spine blocked and lettered in gilt. Half-inch tear along back joint, contemporary ownership signature, remains of glue from an old bookplate. A few light pencil marks in margins. Overall a very good, bright copy. $300
First edition.
“The brilliant daughter of Thomas Lewin, an Indian civil servant, and a Miss Chaloner, Harriet Lewin [1792-1878] fell in love with the son of a neighbour near Bexley in Kent, George Grote [1794-1871], under whose careful tuition she prepared to share in his historical and political interests and whom she married in 1820. Harriet Grote devoted her considerable intellectual and practical talents to furthering her husband’s political career as a Radical Member of Parliament and later became closely involved in the preparation of his celebrated History of Greece (1845-56). Her vivacity and attested conversational skills made their home a natural centre for the parliamentary Radicals and for George Grote’s later literary and administrative activities…Her friend and biographer Elizabeth Eastlake once pronounced her ‘the cleverest woman in London’ [and] in 1862 she published her Collected Papers in Prose and Verse, mainly essays on literary, political, and economic subjects, many of them in accordance with the old Radical views” (Joanne Shattock, The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers, p. 195f).

23. HALE, Mrs. [Sarah]. Manners; or, Happy Homes and Good Society All the Year Round. Boston: J.E. Tilton and Company, 1868. Octavo. [2], 377 pp. Green cloth with covers blocked in blind and spine stamped in gilt. Top edge gilt. Bottom of spine lightly frayed, remains of bookplates on pastedowns. A good copy, clean and bright. $450
First edition, variant of Blanck’s Printing 2, with the collation given, and printed on laid paper with brown-coated endpapers, but in green cloth, as Blanck’s Printing 1. It is not clear whether Blanck is indicating a priority. He makes no argument for priority, and indicates that copies of Printings 1 and 3 were received at Boston Public Library on the same day—December 18, 1867.
Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879) was a novelist and poet, who is best known as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, and as the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Born in a small town near Newport, New Hampshire, she was educated at home by her mother and brother, both of whom had attended Dartmouth College. Her views of “woman’s role” and “woman’s sphere” are summed up in Manners: or, Happy Homes and Good Society All the Year Round. She was a strong advocate for women’s education and an arbiter for taste among middle-class American women. She was one of the founders of Vassar College and is credited with making Thanksgiving a national holiday in the United States. (It has previously been celebrated only in New England.)
OCLC notes twenty copies of the first edition, mostly in East Coast libraries. Though it was reprinted many times, the first edition is uncommon.
BAL 6897.

“An Important Attempt to Deal Seriously with the Life of an Admirable Roman Woman”
(Feminist Companion to Literature in English)

24. HAMILTON, Elizabeth. Memoirs of the Life of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus…In three volumes. Bath: Printed by R. Cruttwell; for G. and J. Robinson, Pater-noster-row, London, 1804. Three volumes, octavo. xxxciii, 319; v, [1, blank], 340; viii, 352 pp. Later nineteenth-century calf over marbled boards, gilt spine with burgundy morocco labels, edges sprinkled red. Marbled endpapers, armorial bookplate of Donegal landowner Horatio Granville Murray Stewart (1834-1904) in each volume. Remains of small circular label on spine of Volume I, some light dampstaining at fore-margin, and a few marginal pencil marks in the same volume. Otherwise a very good, attractive set, complete with half-titles. $850
First edition.
Elizabeth Hamilton (1758-1808) is best known for her influential works on education, such as Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education. She was “one of the earliest British pioneers of the theories of Pestalozzi” (Stewart & McCann, p. 14), and was much admired by Maria Edgeworth. She also wrote social criticism, somewhat in the style of Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World, and books on Scottish manners and customs, which earned the praise of Sir Walter Scott. The present work is considered admirable in its understanding of Roman laws and customs. It has been called “an important attempt to deal seriously with the life of an admirable Roman woman” (Blain, Clements and Grundy, Feminist Companion to literature in English.

Logic for Ladies

25. KNIGGE, Philippine, Freiin Von. Versuch einer Logic für Frauenzimmer…Hanover: Christian Ritscher, 1789. Small octavo. 162 pp. Silhouette portrait vignette on title-page. Contemporary brown cloth over decorative boards, paper spine label with title in manuscript. Spine ends, edges of boards rubbed. Occasional light foxing. Former owner’s rubberstamp on front free endpaper and dedication page. A very good copy. $2,000
First and only edition of a philosophical manual written by the fourteen-year old Baroness Philippine von Knigge (1775-1841). She was the daughter of Adolf von Knigge (1752-1796), author of several satirical novels and best known for Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788), “a work of practical wisdom on the conduct of life” (Garland). In later years, Philippine von Knigge translated Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s life of Swift, together with her father (1795), and wrote by herself Lebensregeln aus den besten ältern und neueren Schriftstellern (1799). All of her works are rare.
This highly original work, for the young author states that no other work has been consulted, is the fruit of lessons in philosophy given by her father, and is published here that it might benefit women interested in the subject. It is divided into five sections: 1) of ideas or concepts; b) of symbolic knowledge; c) of judgments and theses; e) of conclusion and syllogisms. The whole is introduced by a preface detailing the use of logic and its place in philosophy, and concludes with some practical examples.
OCLC locates four copies: at Washington University, Princeton, the University of Texas, and Theologische University Kampen Broederweg in the Netherlands. Stanford also has a copy.

Hair Dressing for Women, by a Master Stylist

26. LEFEVRE, MAITRE COEFFEUR. Traité des principes de l’art de la coéffure des femmes, où il est démontré qu’avec un peu de réflexion on peut apprendre avec facilité à coëffer, & soi-Même, & toute autre personne. Paris: Chez l’Auteur, 1778. Twelvemo. [4], 168 pp. The words “avec approbation & privilége” have been crossed out on the title-page in a contemporary ink, and the two leaves of approbation and privlège have been excised from this copy (and probably in others as well). Nineteenth-century tan polished calf. Gilt triple-ruled borders on covers, gilt flat spine with red and brown morocco labels. Two small pieces of paper have been affixed to the lower margin of the title-page and last page of text, possibly to obliterate an ownership mark. A very good copy of a rare book. $1,250
First edition of a rare book on the styling of women’s hair, written by a professional. In his preliminary note, the author asserts that proper attention to hairstyling can turn a mediocre beauty into a great beauty, and can ensure a lasting marriage.
This is a comprehensive study. Topics discussed include the art of combing hair, how to separate the hair around the face from the hair at the back of the head, the correct way of cutting hair, the right time for a new haircut, how to make curls of different sorts, the use of a curling iron, how to decorate and powder a chignon, the use of buckles, how to place the bonnet after having one’s hair styled, etc.
Not in OCLC, RLIN or COPAC. Colas 1811. Hiler p. 534 (mistakenly citing the date as 1738). A second edition was published in 1783.

27. [LOS-RIOS, Charlotte-Marie de]. L’Encyclopédie enfantine, ou Magazin pour les petits enfans…Edition augmentée. Dresde: Chez les Frères Walther, 1791. Octavo. [2], 233, [3] pp. Engraved frontispiece, engraved title-page vignette. Original light blue boards, gilt paper spine label, author’s name in manuscript on spine. Spine lightly browned, a little foxing to covers, occasional light foxing to text. A very good copy overall. $1,250
First edition, later (third?) issue, with a cancel title-page.
This is one of a series of educational works written by Charlotte Marie de Los-Rios, wife of the colorful Lyons bookseller, Jean François de Los-Rios. The first issue appeared in 1771 with the same collation as ours, and it is generally ascribed to Angelique de Los Rios. The present issue seems to be from the same sheets, with a new title-page. Querard lists a slightly different title, Magasin des petits enfans, ou Recueil d’amusements à la portée a leur age: suivi de deux traités instructifs & édifians, and OCLC cites editions of this title in 1774 and 1756 (of 144 pages). An “edition augmentée” of this present title appeared in 1780, but library cataloguing does not give the collation. Perhaps it is a second issue of the 1771 work, with a cancel title--page—or not. OCLC lists a 1791 edition of the “edition augmentée,” but it is only 110 pages in length. It lists no copies of this 233-page edition. Of the first edition, OCLC records two copies, one at Gottingen and one at Richmond Public Library in Virginia. It lists copies of the 110-page 1791 edition at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Nottingham. All issues are rare.
This work is divided into several sections, including etiquette and “good grace,” precepts of a father to his children, general ideas and definitions of things that children ought to be taught, short definitions of the different arts and sciences, and precepts of civilized life. Various different stylistic formats are used, including poems, fables, and a series of questions and answers, in an effort to make this didactic work more accessible. The terminal ads list other works by this author.

On Johnson’s Friend, Mrs. Piozzi

28. [MANGIN, Edward]. Piozziana; or, Recollections of the Late Mrs. Piozzi, with Remarks. By a Friend. London: Edward Moxon, 1833. Octavo. [234]. [2, ads] pp. Frontispiece facsimile of Mrs. Piozzi’s handwriting. Original drab boards, rebacked in later cloth, paper spine label. Boards lightly dampstained near bottom edge. A good, sound copy. $200
First edition.
Recollections by the miscellaneous writer, Edward Mangin (1772-1852), who knew Piozzi personally. “A man of wide reading and of fascinating conversation, combined with a natural aptitude for drawing, and with a remarkable memory, the possession of ample means enabled him to spend his time in study, and he was universally recognised as the head of the literary students of…[Bath]” (DNB).

29. MARCET, Jane. Willy’s Holidays; or Conversations on Different Kinds of Governments. Intended for Young Children. London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1836. Twelvemo. vi, [2], 149, [1] pp. Quarter red straight-grain morocco over marbled boards, gilt-ruled flat spine with title also in gilt. Foot of spine lightly worn, boards lightly rubbed. A good, clean copy. $350
First edition.
Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769–1858) was born in London, to a wealthy Swiss family, and was tutored at home. She was married to Alexander Marcet, a Swiss physician living in London. Through her husband, she met many leading scientists. After helping her husband proofread her husband’s books, she decided to write her own, and she produced many valuable introductory science books and a few on other subjects. Her Conversations on Chemistry (1819) is said to have inspired Faraday as a boy working in a bookbinder's shop. She wrote several works on economics, including Conversations on Political Economy, in which the Elements of that Science are familiarly explained (1816), John Hopkins's Notions on Political Economy (1833), and Rich and Poor (1851). After 1833, she increasing wrote books for children, including a series of tales of a curious boy named Willy and his sisters, of which this is one. Marcet, a strong advocate of the working class, uses this as a vehicle to express her opinions of despotic sovereigns, flogging, and slavery. On the subject of the latter, she tells Willy, “I am sorry to say that slavery still exists in some countries…but as people become wiser and better they see how wicked it is to deprive fellow creatures of their liberty…”

An Attractive, Unsophisticated Edition of This Scarce Piracy

30. MARLBOROUGH, Sarah, Duchess. Authentick Memoirs of the Life and Conduct of her Grace, Sarah, late Dutchess of Marlborough, containing a genuine Narrative of her Grace's Conduct...Likewise All her Grace's Letters to the Queen...To which is prefix'd, The last Will and Testament. London, for the proprietors and sold by R Walker, 1744. Twelvemo. 228 pp. Engraved portrait of Sarah, and of John, Duke of Marlborough. Contemporary speckled sheep, later paper label. A fine, clean copy. $600
First edition thus. This is an unauthorized printing by Robert Walker, who has stolen the substance of Nathaniel Hooke’s An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough of 1742 and added the Duchess’s will and codicil, which comprise the first seventy-two pages.
The edition is scarce: ESTC lists twelve copies, six in America.

31. MORE, Hannah. Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic: With Reflections on Prayer. London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, in the Strand, 1819. Octavo. xxiii, [1, blank], 518 pp. Full period-style brown calf, gilt spine with red morocco label, new endpapers. A very good, clean copy. $600
First edition.
Hannah More (1745-1833) was the most prolific and one of the most famous of the Bluestockings and the author of the poem “The Bas Bleu,” (1782), in which she saluted London’s female intelligentia. Under the patronage of David Garrick, she wrote a number of religious dramas, including The Inflexible Captive (1774) and Percy (1777), but after Garrick’s death in 1779, her interest in the theatre waned. She turned her interests to a series of prose works in which she exhorted her readers to embrace true Christianity, by which she meant an Evangelical form of Anglicanism. The present work was one of her last works of this sort. More was so popular at this point that the it went through three editions in the first year, plus an American edition (Boston: Wells and Lilly). “Her writings have the old-fashioned flavour of the eighteenth century; while they now represent the teaching of the evangelical school, which looked up to Newton and Cecil, and of which William Wilberforce and his friends were the recognised political and social leaders. Though now out of fashion, they show not only high moral and religious purpose, but strong sense, as well as considerable intellectual vivacity…Her services to education as a time of general indifference deserve the highest praise…” (Leslie Stephen in D.N.B.).
See also Encyclopedia of British Women Writers.

32. MORE, Hannah. Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education. With a View of the Principles and Conduct Prevalent Among Women of Rank and Fortune…in two volumes…London: Printed for T. Cadell jun. and W. Davies…1799. Two volumes, octavo. xix, [1], 274; vii, [1], 322, [2, ads] pp. Complete with half-title in Volum e I and fly-title in Volume II. Contemporary calf rebacked, to style, gilt spine with brown and green morocco labels, edges sprinkled gray. Covers rubbed. A very good copy, well-margined and very clean. $1,500
First edition of one of More’s (1745-1833) best-known and most important works.
Written in the vivacious style that made her popular, this book emphasizes the acquisition of factual knowledge by young ladies, with warnings against the “dangers arising from an excessive cultivation” of imagination and of the fine arts. The study of history, geography, and “accuracy in language” is not only worth while in itself, but of religious and moral benefit, helping to protect young ladies from the “dissipation an d the modern habits of fashionable life.”
At least seven editions of this book were published in 1799.

33. MORGAN, [ Sydney Owenson ], Lady. La France; Par Lady Morgan, Ci-devant Miss Owenson; Traduite de l’Anglois par A.J.B.D. Seconde Edition revue, corrigée et augmentée, avec des notes critiques par le traducteur. Paris et Londres: Chez Truettel et Würtz, 1817. Two volumes, octavo. xiv, 346; [4], 478 pp., including half-title in each volume. Contemporary quarter calf over marbled boards, spines gilt, with red morocco labels. Small ink stain at lower margin of first four leaves of Volume I. Front board of Volume II shows some wear. A very good, attractive set. $650
Lady Morgan’s popular book was published both in French and English in 1817, with second editions following in the same year. This translation into French by Phillipe Alexandre Lebrun de Charmettes adds a number of notes and observations on her work. Lady Morgan’s book also inspired another commentary, that of Auguste Jean Baptiste Defauconpret, Observations sur l'ouvrage intitule: La France; par Lady Morgan. Par l'auteur de Quinze Jours et de Six Mois a Londres.

34. [MULOCK, Diana Maria, later Mrs. Craik]. A Woman’s Thoughts About Women. By the author of “John Halifax, Gentleman, &c. &c. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1858.Octavo. [vi], 348, [4, ads] + [24] pp. publisher’s catalogue. Original purple blindstamped cloth with spine stamped in gilt. Some light soiling, hinges cracking, but sound. Contemporary ownership inscription on front free endpaper. A very good copy. $300
First edition.
Diana Mulock (1826–1887), who was trained as a governess, was the author of several novels and tales for children. John Halifax, Gentleman (1856), the archetypal story of a poor boy who makes good through initiative and hard work, was extremely popular, and in her own day, she was often compared to George Eliot and the Brontës. A Woman’s Thoughts About Women was originally published serially in Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts. She addresses single women like herself and urges them to become financially and emotionally independent, all the while acknowledging the pain and loneliness of the single woman’s life. She also advocates a sense of sisterhood among women. Though she advocates marriage and motherhood as the highest calling for women, she stresses that women should be able to support themselves happily should this avenue not be open to them.

35. [NICKLIN, Susan]. Address to a Young Lady on Her Entrance into the World…London: Printed for Hookham and Carpenter, 1796. Two volumes in one, octavo. [2], 202; [2], 216 pp. Contemporary calf with gilt stamp of the Greenock Library in Scotland, dated 1783. Rebacked in recent calf, gilt-ruled spine with burgundy morocco label. Bookplate of the Greenock Library, later bookplate of John Lawson. New endpapers, some light foxing, especially to title-page of first volume, small dampstain at top margin of the last few leaves. Ink signature on first title—page. A good copy. $1,250
First edition.
This seems to be the only book written by Susan Nicklin, a governess about to retire. Nicklin stresses the importance of young women being taught to lead a Christian life. There are chapters on reading the Scriptures, the observation of the Sabbath, on content as a habit of mind, on the duty of children to parents, etc.
This is a very scarce book. ESTC lists six copies, four in North America (Huntington Library, Library of Congress, Library Company of Philadelphia, Yale). OCLC adds Columbia, the Winterthur Museum, UCLA, and the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.

36. PANKHURST, Sylvia. The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement 1905-1910. New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1911. Octavo. [12], 517 pp. Original cloth. Old bookplate on front pastedown. A very good, bright copy. $200
First edition.

37. [PENNY, Anne]. Poems, with a Dramatic Entertainment. By **** *****. London: Printed for the Authour; and sold by J. Dodsley…and F. Newbery, [1771]. Quarto. [20], 220 pp. Copper-engraved title and other vignettes after Wright. Dedication to the philanthropist, Jonas Hanway. With the errata, and a list of subscribers, including the names of Hanway, Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Carter, Thomas Astle, etc. Nicely bound in recent calf over decorative boards, gilt spine with red morocco label, edges stained red, new endpapers. Small library rubberstamp on title and a few other leaves. A little light browning. Generally a good, clean copy of an attractively printed book. $850
First edition.
Anne Penny (1731-84) was born in Bangor, Wales. In 1746, she married Captain Thomas Christian, a retired and wealthy naval officer. Her son became an admiral. In 1761, she published a versified Rambler story inscribed to Samuel Johnson, Anningait and Ajutt: A Greenland Tale. The next year she published pastoral poems from a new English prose version of Gessner’s Idyllen. The present book reprints these, along with a “dramatic entertainment” called “The Birth Day,” verse on many public occasions, and praise of Elizabeth Montague. Her second husband was Peter Penny, who left her in financial distress. (See Feminist Companion to Literature in English).
Jackson, Romantic Poetry by Women, p. 254, no. 1.

38. [RICCOBONI, Marie-Jeanne Laboras De Mezieres]. Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby, à Milady Henriette Campley, son amie. A Amsterdam, 1759. Twelvemo. [2], 250 pp. Recent antique-style calf. Gilt spine wit morocco label. Small hole in upper margin of title. Otherwise a very good, attractive copy, in a Portuguese binding. $750
First edition of this epistolary novel, set in England.
Madame Riccoboni (1714-1792) was an actress, and the wife of comedian and dramatist Antoine Francois Riccoboni. She quit acting in 1761, when her success as a writer allowed her to retire. She was much influenced by English writers, and her novels have been compared to Mackenzie and Fielding.Her novels include Lettres de mistriss Fanny Butlerd (1757), and Histoire de M. Le Marquis de Créssy (1758), She also wrote a continuation of Marivaux’s unfinished Marianne and a novel on the subject of Fielding’s Amelia. The present work was reprinted numerous times. This first edition, however, is scarce. OCLC lists ten copies, eight in North America.
Cioranescu 53043.See Julia Kavanagh, French Women of Letters (1862).

39. [ROBERTS, Mary]. Select Female Biography; Comprising Memoirs of Eminent British Ladies, Derived from original and other authentic Sources. London: Printed for John and Arthur Arch, 1821. Twelvemo. ix, [1, [2, contents], 331, [1], [2, ads] pp. Original boards, rebacked in recent board, with original printed paper spine label laid down. Boards lightly foxed, minor foxing internally, old ink signature on title-page. A very good, uncut copy. $750
First edition of an uncommon book. OCLC lists only one copy, at Cambridge. A second edition, which is much more common, appeared in 1829. There are some changes in the contents of the two editions.
Mary Roberts(1788-1864), who came from a Quaker family, wrote primarily in the area of natural history. Her best known work, Annals of My Village (1831), deals with the natural history and daily rural life of the village of Sheepscombe. Other works include The Wonders of the Vegetable Kingdom Displayed (1822), The Conchologist’s Companion (1824), and A Popular History of the Mollusca (1851). She also sometimes wrote for children.
In the present work, Roberts presents biographies of twenty-four women, some of them quite recently deceased. Subjects include Anne Askew, Elizabeth Carter, Elizabeth Hamilton, Caroline Symmons, and Elizabeth Smith.

40. STAEL-HOLSTEIN, [ Anne Louise Germaine ] de, and Jacques Necker. Memoirs of the Private Life of My Father…To which are added, Miscellanies by M. [Jacques] Necker. London: Printed for Henry Colburn, 1818. Octavo. xvi, 416 pp. Original drab boards, uncut and partially unopened, neatly rebacked, with printed paper label. A very good copy. $450
First edition in English of Madame de Stael’s (1716-187) account of her father, Jacques Necker (1732-1804), the eminent Geneva-born financier who directed French finances from 1776 to 1781, when his famous Compte rendu or report on French finances led to his resignation. Madame de Stael’s commentary is followed by close to 300 pages of miscellaneous writings by her father.
The original French edition of this work was published in 1804, following Necker’s death. The English edition was released shortly after Madame de Stael herself died. It includes an introduction , excerpted from the Mercure de France, edited by her close associate, Benjamin Constant.

First French Edition

41. [SCOTT, Caroline Lucy, née Douglas]. Tryvelyan. Par l’Auteur d’Elisa Riwers et du Mariage dans le grande monde. Paris: Adolphe Guyot…Mansut fils [volume 3], 1834-5. Three volumes, large octavo. [xvi], 352; [iv], 325; [iv], 267, [3] pp. With the half-titles. Contemporary quarter purple calf, spine decoratively stamped in gilt and blind, edges sprinkled turquoise. Intermittent light foxing throughout, but generally a fine, attractive set. $500
First French edition of the most successful novel of Carolina Scott (1784-1857). Scott, who began writing in her forties, produced three novels, A Marriage in High Life (1828), Trevelyan (1833) and The Old Grey Church (1856). The present work was the most successful and the highest regarded. The theme was he conflict between pious individuals and their more fashionably self-indulgent friends or family. The Quarterly Review thought it “the best feminine novel … that has appeared since Miss Edgeworth's Vivian” (vol. 50, 429, quoted in Oxford DNB). George Eliot famously ridiculed The Old Grey Church in her essay, “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists.”
OCLC lists only one copy of this book, at Yale University.
See also The Feminist Companion to English Literature.

The Leading English Actress of the Late Eighteenth-Century

42. [SIDDONS, Sarah]. CAMPBELL, Thomas. Life of Mrs. Siddons. London: Effingham Wilson, 1834. Two volumes, octavo. [x], 299; vii, [1, blank], 394 pp. Engraved frontisportrait by Thomas Lupton after a painting by Thomas Lawrence. Half early twentieth-century tan calf over marbled boards, gilt spine with tan and grey morocco labels, edges sprinkled red. Spines lightly faded, first and last few leaves of each volume foxed, minor foxing otherwise. A very good copy. First edition. $300
Dedicated to Samuel Rogers: “I have heard you say, that, rare as it was to meet with so gifted a genius as that of Mrs. Siddons, it was almost equally so to meet in human nature with so much candid and benignant singleness of mind as belonged to her personal character. Though this was always my own conviction, yet I was gratified to hear it strongly expressed by one so well acquainted with her, and possessing so much perspicacity.” According to a letter from Rev. Alexander Dyce to Sir Egerton Brydges, once in the possession of G. Thorn-Drury, Campbell was assisted by Dyce in the writing of this work. Dyce did not wish the fact to be publicly known.

43. SMITH, Elizabeth. Fragments, in Prose and Verse: by Miss Elizabeth Smith, Lately deceased. With some account of her life and charcter, by H.M. Bowdler. A new edition. London: Printed by Richard Cruttwell...and sold by Cadell and Davies...1810. Two volumes, octavo. xxii, 274; xiv, 242 pp. Frontisportrait. Half calf over marbled boards. Spines stamped in gilt and blind, black morocco labels. Edges sprinkled blue. Binding extremities rubbed, some light foxing. Ink signatures on half-titles (“Sophia JB Price. Additional signature with annotation on an opening blank of Volume I: “Sophia Boodie Septr. 1st 1810. A Birthday present from my dear Mary—“ A good copy. $200
First published in 1808, two years after the author’s premature death.
Elizabeth Smith (1776–1806) was an accomplished scholar, though largely self-taught. She knew French, Italian, Spanish, German, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, some Syriac, and Erse, and was studied in music, mathematics, and astronomy. Henrietta Maria Bowdler, her great friend, introduced her to Elizabeth Hamilton, who greatly admired her. Hannah More praised her in Coelebs in Search of a Wife (1804). In her short life, she completed a translation of Job, and translated F. G. Klopstock's memoirs for publication. This posthumous work proved very popular, going through sixteen editions before 1815.

Supplementing Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’

44. WARENS, Madame de [Louise Eleonore de La Tour du Pil, baronne de]. Mémoires de Madame de Warens et de Claude Anet, pour servir de Suite aux Confessions de J.J. Rousseau…Edition Originale. A Chambéry, & se trouve a Paris: Chex Leroy…1786. Octavo. [6], xvi, 237 pp. Engraved portrait.
Apparent first edition. Another edition was published in Chambéry in the same year, without the notation “edition originale” on the title-page. Rousseau lived in Chambéry from 1732 to 1740 with his mistress and onetime mentor, Madame de Warens (1700-64) and her friend and gardener, Claude Anet (b. 1697) in an apparent ménage à trois. Anet taught Rousseau about botany, which became a continuing interest; Rousseau’s Lettres Elementaires Sur La Botanique was published in 1771-73. The editor of this volume is general and physician Amédée Doppet (1753-1800). Doppet led the army of the Alps and directed the siege of Lyons in 1793. He also wrote several significant medical texts, some relating to Mesmer and animal magnetism.
[bound with:]
[MERCIER, L.S.]. Le destruction de la ligue, ou la reduction de Paris, Piec Nationale en quatre actes. Amsterdam [i.e., Paris:] 1782. Octavo. xliii, [1], 209, [1] pp. Contemporary boards with modern calf backstrip. Spine ruled in gilt and blind, with brown calf label, edges stained yellow. Armorial bookplate of Holland House. A very good, clean copy. $450

One of two editions with the Amsterdam 1782 imprint. This is a play about the destruction of the Catholic League during the reign of Henry IV, a subject which also attracted Voltaire.

Actress’s Memoirs

45. WELLS, Mary Leah. Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sumbel, late Wells; of the Theatres-royal, Drury-lane, Covent-garden, and Haymarket. Written by herself. Including her correspondence with Major Topham, Mr. Reynolds the dramatist, &c. &c. &c. London: Printed for C. Chapple, 1811. Three volumes, twelvemo. xvi, 239; [4], 241, [1, blank], [2, ads]; [4], 232pp. Late nineteenth-century half sheep over marbled boards, gilt spines with red and black morocco label, marbled edges and endpapers. Binding extremities rubbed, label chipped in Volume I. A little light foxing. A good, clean copy of an uncommon book, bound with the half-titles. $950
First edition.
Mary Leah Wells (1762-1829), the daughter of a Birmingham carver and gilder, made her debut on the London stage in 1781. She was a celebrated beauty, and was much in demand at her peak, playing roles such as Jane Shore in Nicholas Rowe's Tragedy of Jane Shore, Mrs Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Lady in Milton's Comus, and Fatima in Garrick's Cymon. She was less successful in her personal life. Her first husband, a fellow actor, left her. She then began a liaison with the journalist and playwright Edward Topham, who deserted her for another woman, taking their three daughters. Her second husband, a Moorish Jew who was secretary to the ambassador from Morocco, left her in destitute means. The present work chronicles her various adventures and marital woes. She spent her final days on an annuity from the Covent Garden Theatrical Fund.
Lowe, Arnott and Robinson, 3620.

With Color-Printed Title-Page and Ten Color-Printed Plates

46. WRIGHT, Thomas. Womankind in Western Europe from the earliest times to the Seventeenth Century. London: Groombridge, 1869. Small quarto. xii, 340 pp. Color-printed title, and ten fine color-printed plates, some with gold. Half later green crushed morocco over green cloth boards. Gilt spine with raised bands, all edges gilt. Binding extremities lightly rubbed, some light spotting to front cover. First and last few leaves foxed, a little minor foxing otherwise. A good copy of a scarce piece of color printing, which isn’t listed in any of the standard sources. $350
First edition.
Thomas Wright (1810-1877) was a distinguished antiquary and a prolific writer. He was one of the founders of the Camden, Percy, and Shakespeare Societies, and of the British Archaeological Association. His publications include Queen Elizabeth and her Times (1838) and History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages (1862). He co-authored several books with Shakespeare scholar J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps and edited several works for the Roxburghe Club.

47. WILKES, Wetenhall. A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady: Being A System of Rules and Informations; digested into a new and familiar Method, to qualify the Fair Sex to be useful, and happy in every Scene of Life…London: Printed for C. Hitch…1748. Twelvemo. [6]. 198 pp. Contemporary calf, gilt spine with red morocco label. Head of spine lightly worn, joints cracking, but cords sound. Small piece of leather worn away on back cover. Lacks front free endpaper and terminal blank. Otherwise a good, clean copy. With the bookplate of John Lawson.
Fifth edition, “carefully revised, corrected, and enlarged by the author.” $450
Wilkes (1705/6-1751) was an Irish poet and theological writer, known for his works, An Essay on the Existence of God (1730), and The Mourning Muse, a Verse Elegy (1738). The present work was originally published by subscription in 1740. Jonathan Swift subscribed to twenty copies. Wilkes’s notion of female education is very limited, and he emphasizes her role as wife and helpmate. He attaches great importance to chastity and modesty.
All editions of this book are scarce. OCLC notes only a handful of copies of each of the first five editions in libraries.

48. [YONGE, Charlotte]. The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest. By the Author of the ‘Heir of Redclyffe.” In two volumes. London: Macmillan, 1866. Two volumes, octavo. xvi, 271, [2]; 6, 250, [2] + 28 pp. publisher’s catalogue. Original royal blue cloth, neatly recased. Westerton’s English and Foreign Library copy, with their label on the front cover of each volume. Back cover of Volume I darkened, a little light soiling and a few minor stains. A good, clean copy. $350
First edition of this novel, set in the Middle Ages. The protagonist is a single mother raising two boys and educating them to be virtuous young men, using books she hid in her clothing.
Charlotte Yonge (1823-1901), a popular women’s and children’s writer, published nearly 160 books. Yonge, who herself was raised according to the system advocated by Maria Edgeworth and her father, was the child of a man who believed at once in higher education for women and female subservience to men. Not surprisingly, her work has not been embraced by modern readers. Still, her novels are important for their rounded views of women, and their insistence on the importance of the education and intellectual nurture of women. While few of her books are rare, they are difficult to find in fine condition.
Wolff vol. 4, p. 289 (which notes the titles of his Yonge gift to Harvard). Not in Sadleir.