What Katy Did
[SMEDLEY, Agnes]. MacKinnon, Janice R. and Stephen R. Agnes Smedley. The Life and Times of an American Radical. Berkeley: University of California Press, (1988). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Smedley was born in a two room cabin in rural Missouri. She died in Oxford, England. Her ashes are buried in the Cemetary for Revolutionaries near Beijing, China. The Mackinnon's biography paints a fascinating picture of this vagabond activist. With notes, a bibliography and an index.
[DAB. NAW. Sweeney 1142, listing the publication date as 1987 in error]. $20.00. #5606
SMILEY, Jane. A Thousand Acres. New York: Crowell, 1991. Tall octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
The author's modern interpretation of Shakespeare's play King Lear recently saw a film adaptation. $50.00. #5885
[SMITH, Jessie Wilcox]. Nudelman, Edward D. Jessie Wilcox Smith American Illustrator. Gretna (Louisiana): Pelican Publishing, 1990. Profusely illustrated, with many color plates. Quarto, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First (trade) edition. With the prospectus, and a chronology.
The name of Jessie Wilcox Smith ranks among the most important artists of the golden age of American illustration. Her paintings for such classics as Heidi, Mother Goose, A Child's Garden of Verses, and Little Women define the texts. Prolific with a capital P, Smith illustrated every cover of Good Housekeeping magazine for over fifteen years. A postage stamp was recently issued in her honor.
[NAW]. $125.00. #12698
[SMITH, Jessie Wilcox]. Schnessel, S. Michael. Jessie Wilcox Smith. New York: Crowell, n.d. Profusely illustrated. Quarto, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine.
Smith was leader of the distaff side of the Brandywine school of art, founded by Howard Pyle. The volume features four appendices which give detailed listings of her illustrated books, magazine covers, illustrations and posters.
[NAW. Sweeney 1148]. $75.00. #2792
[SMITH, Lillian]. Gladney, Margaret Rose, Editor. How Am I To Be Heard? The Letters of Lillian Smith. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, (1993). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. First edition, an advance review copy.
This southern liberal's best known books are Strange Fruit (1944), an interracial love story and Killers of the Dream (1949), an autobiographical critique of race relations below the Mason-Dixon line. Smith (1897-1966) opened Dixie's closets and rattled the skeletons of race, class, gender and sexuality to some powerful disapproval. With notes, bibliography and an index.
[DAB. NAWM]. $40.00. #2790
[Smith, Margaret Chase]. Graham, Frank Jr.. Margaret Chase Smith Woman of Courage. New York: Day, (1964). Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (very lightly rubbed at spine ends). Fine. First edition. With review slip laid in.
Smith was the first woman to win her seat in the United States Senate as well as being the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress. Advance reveiw slip laid in this favorable biography of the then Senator from Maine and Presidential aspirant. A gremlin has also laid in an unsigned dissenting opinion: "Mrs. Smith is an intellectual, but I do not believe she is strong enough for President at this time. The country is in too much of a chaos". With an index.
[Sweeney 1151]. $25.00. #19219
Ross, Ishbel. Charmers and Cranks. Twelve Famous American Women Who Defied the Convention. Carbondale: Harper & Row, (1965). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth , pictorial dust jacket (very lightly rubbed). Upper edge of covers slightly browned, else fine. First edition.
Among those charmers and cranks not presented in greater depth elsewhere in this catalogue are Margaret and Kate Fox, Mrs. Jack Gardner and Madame Jumel. The Scottish-born author penned numerous popular biographies of American women. With notes and an index.. $20.00. #19921
SONTAG, Susan. The Volcano Lover. A Romance. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, (1992). With a frontispiece. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Ink inscription on front paste-down. Fine. First trade edition.
A novel based on the life of Lord Nelson, Sir William Hamilton and his scandalous wife, Emma. $20.00. #5607
ST. DENIS, Ruth. Ruth St. Denis, an Unfinished Life. An Autobiography. New York: Harper, 1939. Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (chipped at edges). Fine. First edition, very scarce and rare in jacket.
The great dance popularizer (1879-1968) earned the title of "First Lady of American Dance". This impressionistic autobiography sees her to the rising curtain of her productive later life. With an extensive index.
[DAB. NAWM]. $175.00. #7005
Russell, Lillian. Sweet Caporal Premium Lillian Russell photo. N.p: n.d. Approximately 2-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches, on cardboard. Fine.
The photograph shows Lillian Russell facing the camera wearing a modiste's elaborate effort, the verso is printed with the Sweet Caporal Cigarette slogans.
Her mother was a well-known feminist, her father a newspaper publisher. Helen Louise Leonard, youngest of their five daughters, was born in Clinton, Iowa during the first year of the Civil War. She grew up to enjoy a long career as an actress and singer named Lillian Russell. An internationally famous beauty, she was her era's apotheosis of the feminine ideal.
[DAB. NAW]. $35.00. #21319
[STAFFORD, Jean]. Roberts, David. Jean Stafford. A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1988. Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Stafford's sad and moving life story. Her first novel, Boston Adventure, was a critical and popular success but dormant compulsions nestled in the secret, irrational places that formed the psyche of the gifted writer. With notes, selected bibliography and an index.
[Sweeney 1157. DAB]. $20.00. #2796
[STANFORD, Jane]. Nagel, Gunther W. Jane Stanford, Her Life and Letters. Stanford: Stanford Alumni Association, (1975). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Stanford and her husband Leland were co-founders of Stanford University. With a list of sources and a bibliography.
[NAW]. $20.00. #2798
STANTON, Elizabeth Cady. Eighty Years and More. Reminiscences 1815-1897. Boston: Northeastern University Press, (1993). Octavo, cloth. As new. First edition thus.
A concession to mind over matter. We simply have been unable to acquire an acceptable copy of the first edition. Nevertheless, this edition of a milestone book comes with an insightful introduction by Ellen Carol DuBois, afterword by Ann. D. Gordon, and an index of names. Originally published in 1898, Stanton's autobiography "conveys in lively and opinionated prose all the passion that made her a guiding force in the women's movement. Writing about her life from childhood into her eighties, Stanton recalls the discontent that led her to launch the woman suffrage movement at Seneca Falls in 1848 and the frustration at still having no voice in her own government after a half century of hard work. The new introduction and afterword to this edition relate the autobiography to the body of Stanton's writings and activities, and bring current scholarship to the appraisal of her importance". Offered at the published price.
[DAB.NAW]. $45.00. #19295
[STANTON, Elizabeth Cady]. Griffith, Elisabeth. In Her Own Right. The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Illustrated. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
"This is the first comprehensive, fully documented biography of the most important woman suffragist and feminist reformer in nineteenth-century America" (dust jacket). In 1848 Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York. With Susan B. Anthony she founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and served as its first President from 1869-1890.
The author is an historian and lecturer on women's issues. With appendices, notes and an index.
[DAB. NAW. Sweeney 1161]. $40.00. #2800
Steichen, Lilian. Sandburg, Carl. The Poet and the Dream Girl. The Love Letters of .... Urbana: University of Illinois Press, (1987). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth. Post office stamps on front pastedown, else fine. First edition.
Edited by Lilian and Carl's daughter from the letters in the Carl Sandburg collection at the University of Illinois. With appendices and an index. $20.00. #9457
STEIN, Gertrude. Dix Portraits. Paris: Éditions de la Montagne, (1930). Octavo, original printed paper wrappers, glassine jacket. Fine. First trade edition.
The total edition was 502 copies of which this is one of 400 on Alfa paper, unillustrated. The ten subjects are presented in the original English, followed by a French translation.
[Wilson, Gertrude Stein. A Bibliography A15d. DAB. NAW]. $200.00. #2801
[STEIN, Gertrude]. Four Americans in Paris. The Collections of Gertrude Stein and Her Family. New York: Museum of Modern Art, (1970). Profusely illustrated. Oblong quarto, fabricoid wrappers. Fine.
The other Steins were her brothers Leo and Michael and sister-in-law Sarah. As avant garde collectors, the foursome had a proselytizing effect on the world of modern art. This handsomely produced catalogue reflects their taste and life style in turn of the century Paris.
[Wilson B 65a. DAB. NAW]. $25.00. #2803
[STEINEM, Gloria]. Thom, Mary, Editor. Letters to Ms. 1972-1987. New York: Holt, (1987). Octavo, boards, dust jacket (slight wear). Fine.
Introduction by Gloria Steinem, the founder of Ms magazine which has the distinction of being the first major national women's magazine run by women. This eclectic correspondence "organized chronologically around such topics as love, sex, parenting, health, the workplace, sexist language and milestone events" even includes letters from staunch anti-feminists. $20.00. #2804
STEINEM, Gloria. Revolution from Within. Boston: Little, Brown, (1992). Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
From a start as a freelance writer Steinem used both journalism and political activism to become a leader in the late twentieth century women's rights movement. With appendices, notes and an index. $20.00. #7835
STEPHENS, Mrs. Ann S. Malaeska. The Indian Wife of the White Hunter. New York: Day, (1929). Illustrated with a frontispiece. Octavo, original orange cloth. Fine. First edition thus.
Stephens was a prolific novelist and contributor to periodicals. In the later capacity she wrote for Graham's Magazine (at a time when the staff included Edgar Allan Poe), the Ladies Wreath and Peterson's Magazine. She sold the reprint rights to this romance for $250.00 and in 1860 it became the inital volume in the famous Beadle's Dime Book series. The frontispiece is a photographic facsimile of that cover. $25.00. #2806
STERN, Madeleine B. We the Women. Career Firsts of Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Schulte Publishing, 1963. Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (spine slightly browned, a trifle rubbed). Fine. First edition.
Biographical portraits of pioneers in the arts, science, technology, business, industry and the professions and trades are targeted. With extensive notes on sources and an index. $25.00. #5596
[STEWART, Elinore Pruitt]. George, Susanne K. The Adventures of The Woman Homesteader. The Life and Letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, (1992). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition thus.
One of the "Women in the West" series published by this press, it combines Stewart's previously unpublished or uncollected letters thus offering a closer look at the woman herself. With a bibliography and index. $20.00. #2807
STRATTON, Joanna L. Pioneer Women. Voices from the Kansas Frontier. New York: Simon and Schuster, (1981). Profusely illustrated with photographs and endpaper map. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine.
Stratton finished her great-grandmother's project of editing manuscripts written by hundreds of pioneer women. With an endpaper map of frontier Kansas, an appendix guide to pioneer stories, bibliography and an index. The author is a remarkable tour guide, transporting the reader back more than a century almost as if one's self was there. $20.00. #2813
[SULZBERGER, Iphigene Ochs]. Dryfoos, Susan W. Iphigene. Memoirs of ... of The New York Times Family. New York: Dodd, Mead, (1979). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (spine slightly browned, a trifle rubbed). Fine. First edition. Inscribed by Susan W. Dryfoos, granddaughter of Sulzberger.
Daughter of the founder of The New York Times, she grew up to wear hats as wife, mother and mother-in-law of publishers of that distinguished newspaper. With an errata slip and an index. $35.00. #5597
SWANSON, Gloria. Swanson on Swanson. New York: Random House, (1980). Illustrated. Thick octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket (very slight wear). Name in ink on front endpaper. Fine. First edition.
While Swanson's offscreen life was a film in itself, her movie career started at fifteen as one of Mack Sennet's bathing beauties. Maugham's Sadie Thompson provided her silent screen theatrics with its best role; decades later her mannerisms of gesture and expression were underscored by a fine speaking voice as the macabre Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. $20.00. #2818
[TABOR, "Baby Doe"]. Burke, John. The Legend of Baby Doe. The Life and Times of the Silver Queen of the West. New York: Putnam, (1974). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (very slight rubbing of back). Fine. First edition.
A light-fingered, adjective-laden biography of Elizabeth McCourt Doe, the daughter of Irish immigrants whose fortunes rose to great wealth and fell to abject poverty in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado. With notes on sources, a bibliography and an index. $20.00. #2819
TALLENT, Annie D. The Black Hills or, The Last Hunting Ground of the Dakotahs. A Complete History of the Black Hills of Dakota From Their First Invasion in 1874 to the Present Time, Comprising a Comprehensive Account of How They Lost Them; of Numerous Adventures of the Early Settlers; Their Heroic Struggles for Supremacy Against the Hostile Dakotah Tribes, and Their Final Victory; the Opening of The Country to White Settlement, and Its Subsequent Development. St. Louis: Nixon-Jones, 1899. Illustrated. Thick octavo, original blindstamped green cloth lettered in gilt. Spine very slightly worn at extremities, else fine. First edition.
Tallent's work is a valuable source for the history of the invasion and settlement of the Dakota-Wyoming country by whites. It includes accounts of the first expedition to the Black Hills, as well as that of the Custer and Yellowstone expeditions.
[Howes T14. Graff 4061. Adams, Six-Guns 2180. Adams, Herd 2232. Jennewein 124]. $450.00. #2820
TAN, Amy. The Kitchen God's Wife. New York: Putnam's, (1991). Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket . Fine. First edition.
A tale set first in China and then the United States, it is the second novel by the author of The Joy Luck Club. $20.00. #5598
TAPERT, Annette. Edkins, Diana. The Power of Style. The Women Who Defined the Art of Living Well. New York: Crown, (1994). Profusely illustrated in color and black and white. Quarto, boards. Fine.
As co-author Tapert notes in the epilogue, "Fourteen women of style make for a very rich meal". Maybe so, but these classy lassies all seem like dessert to this writer. With a bibliography. $20.00. #7058
TARBELL, Ida M. The Life of Abraham Lincoln Drawn from Original Sources and Containing Many Speeches, Letters and Telegrams Hitherto Unpublished. New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1900. Two volumes. Illustrated. Octavo, original blind-stamped maroon cloth, gilt-lettered spines, top edges gilt. Spines browned but gilt lettering bright, brown stains to front free endpapers of volume I and upper corners of inner pages a little creased, back cover less so. Very good set. First edition.
A major Lincoln biography and one of the most popular. Assigned by her employer, the publisher S.S. McClure, the task of doing a fresh study of Lincoln, Tarbell got a break with a social introduction to his son, Robert. Tarbell spent two years on the work, interviewing people who had know him, including eye witnesses to the Lincoln-Douglas debates, while unearthing important new material and debunking some of the old.With a very extensive appendix.
[Monaghan 1309. Angle, A Shelf of Lincoln Books, pp. 38-40. Nevins v.II, p. 93 "an honest and judicious study." Browne p. 37. DAB. NAW]. $200.00. #2821
TARTT, Donna. The Secret History. New York: Knopf, 1992. Octavo, printed paper wrappers. Fine. First edition, an advance uncorrected proof copy.
Eight years in the writing, The Secret History "is a storytelling in the grand manner ... beyond its extreme intelligence, beyond its canny and subtle portrayal of the elite life of an idyllic New England college, beyond its alluring play of emotions and ideas, this is a novel of psychological suspense that immediately seizes the readers and does not let go" (publisher's statement, with which this writer concurs). Through the flash-back technique Tartt permits the reader to glimpse the secret at the start, but then one must wait until the denouement to see how that fate was brought about. As this is written Tartt's long awaited second novel has just been published in an edition of 300,000 copies. $60.00. #2823
[TAYLOR, Elizabeth]. Sheppard, Dick. Elizabeth. The Life and Career of Elizabeth Taylor. Garden City: Doubleday, 1974. Illustrated with photographs. Thick octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (chipped at spine ends and a little rubbed). Covers a little dust soiled, else fine. First edition. With gift inscription by the author on front free endpaper.
In a lifetime of visual awareness this writer has only seen one woman more beautiful and no, he's not old enough to have seen Helen of Troy's "face that launched a thousand ships". However, while employed in Scribner's famous Fifth Avenue bookstore circa fifty years ago, he did spot the young Taylor browsing in the stationery department and that mental picture remains a perfect ten. Taylor, who became an Academy Award winning actress and one of the superstars of the cinema, has had a life to match the most embonpoint screenplay. With an appendix of Taylor's films and an index.
[Sweeney 1236]. $20.00. #7090
[TEMPLE, Shirley]. Johnston, Annie Fellows. The Little Colonel. New York: A.L. Burt, (1935). Endpaper illustration, with title-page portrait and seven other inserted plates of scenes from the motion picture version starring Shirley Temple. Octavo, blue fabricoid, pictorial dust jacket (light wear). Near fine. The "Shirley Temple edition". Inscribed by the child star in block letters "Love Shirley Temple" under her photograph on the pictorial front endpaper . A contemporary inscription by the seven year old before she learned cursive writing.
The film's highlight is the famous staircase dance with Shirley and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. During this period the seven year old moppet became the most popular movie star in the world - and the highest paid. $750.00. #3749
[TEMPLE, Shirley]. Edwards, Anne. Shirley Temple. American Princess. New York: Morrow, (1988). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
From enormous success as the precocious child movie star of the 1930's, as an adult the talented Temple turned to real life roles as a member of the government's delegation to the United Nations, Ambassador to Ghana and, latterly, the first female chief of protocol of the United States.
With appendices, as well as a movie chronology including the casts of Shirley Temple films, notes, bibliography, and an index.
[Sweeney 1249]. $40.00. #2824
TENTLER, Leslie Woodcock. Wage-Earning Women. Industrial Work and Family Life in the United States, 1900-1930. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
For reasons stated in her introduction,the author's principal focus is on factory employment. Using this as a pattern, she threads the needle of the century-old precedents that endure to this day: occupational closed doors, glass ceilings, inferior wages.... Written by a history professor at the University of Michigan, with notes, bibliography and an index. $20.00. #2825
THOM, Mary. Inside Ms. 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement. New York: Holt, (1997). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine.
Ms. was the first national circulation magazine to emanate from the modern women's movement. The author started as a researcher for the periodical and worked her way up to its executive editorship. An interesting behind the scenes history. With an index. $20.00. #7035
[THOMAS, M. Carey]. Dobkin, Marjorie Housepian, Editor. The Making of a Feminist. Early Journals and Letters of M. Carey Thomas. (Kent, Ohio): Kent University Press, (1979). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine copy. Inscribed by the Bryn Mawr librarian, James Tanis.
Thomas was the long-time president of Bryn Mawr college. This is the story of her childhood and youth.
[DAB. NAW]. $20.00. #2828
[THURSBY, Emma]. Gipson, Richard McCandless. The Life of Emma Thursby 1845-1931. New York: New York Historical Society, 1940. Illustrated. Thick octavo, cloth, top edge gilt, other edges uncut. Fine. First edition.
Thursby was one of the first American singers to gain renown in Europe. An expensively produced book, with a chronology of Thursby's concert appearances and a comprehensive index.
[DAB. NAW. Sweeney1258]. $30.00. #2830
[THURSTON, Lucy Goodale]. [CUMINGS, Mrs. A.P.]. The Missionary's Daughter: A Memoir of Lucy Goodale Thurston. New York: Dayton and Newman, 1842. Frontispiece portrait. 12mo, original cloth. Foxed. The rare first edition.
Not to be confused with the American Tract Society reprint. With an appendix containing miscellaneous interesting information realting to Hawaii.
[Forbes, Hawaiian National Bibliography 1780-1900 vol. II]. $900.00. #7470
TJOMSLAND, Anne, M.D. Bellevue in France. Anecdotal History of Base Hospital No. 1. New York: Froben Press, 1941. Illustrated with eighty-two diagrams, pictures and endpaper maps of Vichy. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (spine browned, chipped at edges, internally repaired). Fine copy. First edition of an uncommon work.
The publisher's colophon ironically notes that the book is being published on December eighth, which may to some extent account for its unavailability. "The author was educated in Norwegian and American schools, received her degree in arts and medicine from Cornell University and interned in Bellevue Hospital". With appendices listing officers, nurses and civilians connected to the hospital. $50.00. #7504
[TOKLAS, Alice B.]. Simon, Linda. The Biography of Alice B. Toklas. New York: Doubleday, 1977. Illustrated. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition, review copy, with a review slip affixed to front free endpaper.
With an appendix, notes, bibliographies (Gertrude Stein, Toklas) and an index. The author had previously edited a book on Stein.
[DAB. NAWM. Sweeney 1260]. $20.00. #2831
TRAFTON, Adeline. An American Girl Abroad. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1872. Illustrated. Octavo, original brown cloth pictorially stamped in gilt on front cover and spine, lettered in gilt. Very lightly rubbed on edges, else fine. First edition.
The illustrations are by Miss L.B. Humphrey. Two innocents abroad, their trials and triumphs overseas in England and through Europe. "A guide book in narrative form with some dialogue".
[Wright II, 1496]. $65.00. #7841
TREADWELL, Mattie E. United States Army In World War II. Special Studies, The Women's Army Corps. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1954. Illustrated with photographs. Thick quarto, cloth. Slight cover wear. Near fine.
The comprehensive (841 page) and detailed history of the Corps. Among the illustrations is a frontispiece photograph of Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, first Director of the Corps. With appendices, bibliographical note, list of abbreviations and an index. $75.00. #2833
[TRUMAN, Bess]. Truman, Margaret. Bess W. Truman. New York: Macmillan, (1986). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Bess Truman lived to be ninety-seven, far longer than any other first lady. This insightful biography was written by her daughter; a slice of American history seen from the inside out. With an index.
[Sweeney 1262]. $20.00. #2834
Tucker, Sophie. Some of These Days. The Autobiography of Sophie Tucker. Garden City: Garden City Publishing Company, (1946). Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (worn). Worn at spine ends and channels, and corners, pages browned, else fine. Inscribed by the author in bold handwriting in blue ink on front fly leaf and title page.
The endpapers are collages of numerous photographs of the popular singer and vaudeville heavyweight headlined as "the last of the red hot mammas". The Russian-born daughter of Jewish emigrants, her first billing had been as dishwasher in the family restaurant, a memory she recalled "If I had a dollar for every greasy dish I've washed I'd be the richest woman in show business today". Dorothy Giles collaborated on the book.
[DAB. NAWM]. $26.00. #9434
TYLER, Anne. The Accidental Tourist. New York: Knopf, 1985. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket ( rear panel slightly soiled, spine ends a bit rubbed). Fine. First edition.
This story of an eccentric travel writer who had lost a son was made into a film in 1988. $20.00. #2836
STOW, Mrs. J. W. Probate Confiscation and the Unjust Laws Which Govern Women. San Francisco: Bacon & Company, (1876). Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of the author and decorative chapter headings and tailpieces. Octavo, original blindstamped blue cloth decoratively stamped in gold. Bookshop's stamp on front endpaper, a tiny bit rubbed. Overall a splendid copy of the rare first edition.
An important early work concerning women's rights, focusing upon probate law and practice in California vis-a-vis the legal status of women, especially widows. Marietta Lois Stow's is a very readable account of the injustices experienced by women of the time. The frontispiece is by the lithographic firm of Britton and Rey.
[Cowan, p. 620]. $500.00. #2808
TYLER, Anne. Breathing Lessons. New York: Knopf, 1988. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First trade edition.
The novelist was born in Minnesota but raised in North Carolina where, as something of a prodigy, she graduated from Duke University at age nineteen. $20.00. #2837
[TYLER, Priscilla Cooper]. Tyler, Elizabeth Tyler. Priscilla Cooper Tyler and the American Scene 1816-1889. (University, Alabama): University of Alabama Press, 1955. Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
This writer has been puzzled by some of the accolades of pulchritude bestowed upon certain of the earlier day ladies in this catalogue. Contrariwise, while tastes change with the times, in this case such an astute observer as Washington Irving had referred to Tyler as "not beautiful, but there is something very piquant in her countenance"; Well, if the frontispiece is any indiction, to these eyes she was an uncommonly attractive young woman. She was certainly a capable one, if in a supporting role. "Her contribution to her times resulted from her association with three men: her father, for whose sake she became for a brief span an actress; her husband, with whose career she identified herself; and her father-in-law, whom she served as hostess of the White House". (NAW). With notes and an index.
[NAW. Sweeney 1271]. $45.00. #2838
ULMANN, Doris. Photogravure of a black woman with a basket of cotton on her head, posed against a rustic fence. 8-1/4" x 6-1/2", 11-1/2" x 8-1/4" overall. Signed in pencil by the photographer.
A fine example of a remarkable woman's remarkable work. Ullman had been born into an affluent and cultured Jewish household on Manhattan's upper west side. Oddly, she was drawn to rural areas of Appalachia, the Carolinas (where she became a close friend and collaborator with the author Julia Peterkin) and elsewhere, documenting the simple people, customs and traditions of a vanishing bucolic culture. $3000.00. #2840
UNDERHILL, Ruth M. First Penthouse Dwellers of America. New York: J.J. Augustin, (1938). Illustrated with photographs by Lilian J. Reichard and endpaper map. Small quarto, cloth. Ink inscription on front free endpaper. Fine. First edition.
A popular history of the indians of the pueblos -the Hopi, Zuni, Keres and Tanoans- with stunning half and full page photographs. $65.00. #7009
UNTERMEYER, Bryna Ivens. Memoir for Mrs. Sullavan. New York: Simon & Schuster, (1966). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (faint soiling). A fine copy. First edition.
A biography of the unusual cat Bryna and Louis Untermeyer owned, named after its giftgiver, the actress Margaret Sullavan. The author had a long career in the magazine field, including five years as executive editor of She and another eleven as an editor for Seventeen. $20.00. #2842
van denburgh, Elizabeth Douglas. My Voyage in the United States Frigate "Congress". New York: Desmond FitzGerald, (1913). Illustrated. Octavo, original green cloth pictorially stamped and lettered in gilt, top edge gilt. Spine a little dulled, front endpapers split over joint, else fine.
Elizabeth Douglas Terrell was the eldest child of the U.S. Consul-General to Hawaii and his wife. She recalls their 1845-1856 voyage from Norfolk, Virginia around the Horn, up the west coast of South America and thence across the Pacific to Honolulu. Incidentally, the Congress and three of its officers -Commodore Robert F. Stockton, Commander Samuel Francis DuPont and the ship's Chaplain, Walter Colton- would very shortly thereafter play key roles in wresting California from Mexico. With an appendix. $30.00. #14587
[SUFFRAGE], Lowell, Orson. "Mamma's New Marching Costume". Original pen and ink drawing. 19" x 28" plus margins, hinged to an archival mat, 28" x 36" overall. Fine condition.
A wonderful illustration capturing a scene of the times, the lantern jawed suffragette admiring her uniform and the visages of the five onlookers reflecting a variety of opinions.
Orson Lowell (1871-1956) was a staff artist for the original Life magazine. A master pen and ink draftsman in the mold of Charles Dana Gibson, his inexhaustible fund of social humor addressed the topics of the day. $1000.00. #9380
Vandeveer, Sarah L. Holograph Leaf, docketed as being from ... Freehold Young Ladies Sem. Jan. 30, 1849. Approximately 8 x 10 inches, cream paper, written in brown ink, folded. Fine.
The heading is "Will the discovery of so much gold in California prove advantageous to the Country?" The jury is still out on that one. $100.00. #10926
[VASSAR COLLEGE], Cohen, Fanny and BOYD, Elizabeth E., Editors. Vassar. A College Souvenir. N.p. (New York: Chasmar Press), 1896. Profusely illustrated with photographs. Oblong quarto, original brown cloth lettered in silver. Spine and edges a little spotted, else fine. First edition.
It is not easy for a promotional publication to be charming and informative at once, but this book achieved it. In addition, the advertisments for "The Orient Bicycle; the Singer Sewing Machine; R&G Corsets; Barry's Tricopherous for the Hair; Dr. T.W. DuBois (Filling Teeth without Pain!)" and many others all add a nostalgic insight at state of the art advertising a century ago as well as a curiosity as to where the next hundred years will take Madison Avenue (or, for that matter, Vassar). $175.00. #7502
[VORSE, Mary Heaton]. Rebel Pen. The Writings of Mary Heaton Vorse. New York: Monthly Review Press, (1985). Octavo, cloth-like boards, pictorial dust jacket (tiny chip at top of spine). Fine. First edition.
In much the same way that Djuna Barnes had undergone force feeding in her reportage of the suffagist hunger strikes, Vorse sought to understand the inner workings of the unions, so that her writing reads and the history she records is not easily forgotten, though she herself largely has been.
Vorse (1874-1966) was a champion of the labor movement and covered the major strikes of the twentieth century through what might be called participatory journalism, even at one point to getting shot. Widowed by her first two husbands, she married and two years later divorced her third, the secretary of the Communist party in America.
[DAB. NAWM]. $20.00. #2846
WALKER, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, (1982). Octavo, boards, cloth spine, dust jacket. Fine. First edition. Signed by the author.
Walker's breakthrough book, which established her as a major literary voice of our time and helped herald a renaissance of writing by other women of color. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize for fiction it also won the National Book Award. An acclaimed movie version starred Whoopie Goldberg in her film debut. $1350.00. #2847
[WARREN, Mercy]. Brown, Alice. Mercy Warren. New York: Scribner's, 1896. Frontispiece portrait. Octavo, original gilt-lettered red cloth, top edge gilt. Fine. First edition.
One of the series "Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Times". Mercy Otis Warren was a poet, satirist, dramatist and historian. She "became in a manner the poet laureate and later historical apologist for the patriot cause" -DAB.
[DAB. NAW. Sweeney 1291]. $45.00. #2336
[WASHINGTON, Dinah]. Haskins, Jim. Queen of the Blues. A Biography. New York: Morrow, (1987). Illustrated. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Ruth Lee Jones - a.k.a. Dinah Washington - was one of the greatest of blues singers. Unfortunately, blues carried into her personal life: substance abuse; seven husbands; death at 39. Like so many gifted artists she could please others, but not herself. With a complete discography of Washington's recording career and an index.
[DAB. Sweeney 1292]. $20.00. #2851
WEEDEN, Howard (Miss). Old Voices. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1904. Illustrated by the author. Small quarto, original brown cloth decoratively stamped in darker brown and gilt, pictorial label. Spine ends slightly rubbed, endpapers faintly browned. An extremely good copy of a very scarce book. First edition.
Ms. Weeden (1847-1905) was an Alabama artist and poet and a friend of the writer Joel Chandler Harris, to whom this volume is dedicated. $125.00. #2852
WELTY, Eudora. The Robber Bridegroom. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, 1942. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (faint soiling and edgewear). Endpapers irregularly browned, else fine. First edition. Inscribed by the author in the year of publication.
The author's first novel, based on the tale by the Brothers Grimm but reset for adult readers in the 1790s of Natchez Trace, Mississippi. In a 1965 interview Welty recalled The Robber Bridegroom: "I had such a good time writing it! I had been working for the WPA or for the Mississippi Advertising Commission ... I had to do a lot of reading on the Natchez Trace ... Reading these primary sources ... fired my imagination. I thought how much like fairy tales all those things were. And so I just sat down and wrote The Robber Bridegroom in a great spurt of pleasure". (Prenshaw, Conversations with Eudora Welty, 24). The result became the model for a new kind of novel, one now recognized as a modern American classic. $2,500.00. #2853
WEST, Jessamyn. To See the Dream. New York: Harcourt, Brace, (1957). Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (light wear, one interior tape repair). Fine. First edition.
This is West's first book-length work of non-fiction. It describes her involvement as a script writer and technical advisor in the filming of her famous novel The Friendly Persuasion. A really interesting behind the scenes look at the politics and organized chaos of movie making. $20.00. #2857
WEST, Jessamyn. Except for Me and Thee. A Companion to The Friendly Persuasion. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, (1969). Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (a bit of edgewear and faint soiling to rear panel). Fine. First edition. Inscribed by the author.
Prequel and sequel to Friendly Persuasion, being other events in the lives of the endearing Quaker family. $50.00. #2858
WESTHEIMER, Ruth. All in a Lifetime. An Autobiography. (New York): Warner Books, (1987). Illustrated. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
With her father imprisoned in Buchenwald, the mother of ten year old Karola Ruth Siegel put her aboard a train to Switzerland. Being part of this Jewish "kinder transport" likely saved Ruth's life. From a Swiss orphanage she emigrated to Israel, later moved to Paris and eventually landed in the U.S. Here she has found fame as the pioneer in using the media for sex education purposes. $20.00. #2859
WHARTON, Anne Hollingsworth. Social Life in the Early Republic. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1902. Illustrated with numerous reproductions of portraits, miniatures and residences. Octavo, original red cloth elaborately decorated in gilt, top edge gilt, others uncut, a signed binding. Fine. First edition. Signed by the author.
A gossipy (in the better sense of the word) history, centered around the social life of the nation's capital. With an extensive index.
[DAB]. $90.00. #2861
WHARTON, Edith. Ethan Frome. New York: Scribner's, 1911. Octavo, original gilt-lettered red cloth, top edge gilt, others uncut. Spine a trifle faded, rather minor foxing to endpapers. Near fine. First edition, first state, first binding.
A bleak Massachussetts farm provides the backdrop for this grim domestic tragedy, the laconic unfolding of which takes less than 200 pages. Although not considered representative of her works, Ethan Frome remains one of the most popular, and surely one of the best, of Wharton's novels.
[Browne p.70. DAB. NAW]. $600.00. #2862
Atkins, Zoë. The Old Maid. Dramatized by Zoë Atkins from the Novel by Edith Wharton. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1935. Octavo, original gilt-lettered blue cloth, pictorial dust jacket (very slight chipping at edges). Endpapers and edges a little foxed else about fine. First edition.
This dramatization from a novella by Edith Wharton opened in New York's Empire Theatre on January 7, 1935, with Judith Anderson and Helen Menken in the leading roles. A subsequent film version starred Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins.
Receipt of the award led to a difference of opinion expressed by those who felt that an original play, such as Robert Sherwood's then current The Petrified Forest or Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour was a more deserving choice. The controversy led to the formation of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award the following year. In addition to her work as a playwright Atkins (1886-1958) was also a poet and a screenwriter (Morning Glory, Camille), a craft at which she made - and spent- a lot of money.
[DAB]. $185.00. #19292
[WHITE, KATHARINE S.]. DAVIS, Linda H. Onward and Upward. A Biography of Katharine S. White. New York: Harper & Row, (1987). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Editor and writer Katherine White joined the staff of the fledgling New Yorker magazine in 1925 and stayed for thirty-five years. She shepherded any number of the great magazine's noted writers with, it has been said, "a velvet hand in an iron glove". With notes, selected bibliography and an index.
[Sweeney 1325]. $20.00. #2273
[WhiTe, Pearl]. Weltman, Manuel and LEE, Raymond. Pearl White. The Peerless Fearless Girl. South Brunswick: Barnes, (1969). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (closed tear at top edge of rear panel, a little dust soiled). Fine. First edition.
Pearl White became filmdom's first heroine when she starred in The Perils of Pauline, the most famous of all motion picture serials. Each chapter ended with her struggling at death's door, each subsequent installment showed a miraculous escape from the predicament. It was a cinematic sensation.
The usually reliable Sweeney and this writer part company here, not being on the same page, chapter or, seemingly, book. "This is a candid biography that is basically unsympathetic to White. It covers all of her career and adult romances, from her first acting job until her death" -Sweeney. "From start to finish every page is constructed of imagined dialogue. It makes for an unilluminating, unreadable biographic gallimaufry. Partial redemption comes from the nearly 300 photographs." -Randall. With an appendix listing all the films in which Pearl White appeared.
[DAB. NAW. Sweeney 1327, listing the publication date as 1970 in error]. $30.00. #19222
[WHITMAN, Christie]. McClure, Sandy. Christie Whitman. For the People. A Political Biography. Amherst: Prometheus Books, (1996). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, boards, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
The first woman governor of New Jersey, the liberal Republican went from her second term of office to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a position she has recently resigned for valid ecological reasons. With an index of names. $20.00. #2867
WIGGIN, Kate Douglas. The Story of Patsy. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1889. Small octavo, original pictorial boards, cloth spine. Light cover wear, else near fine.
The rare 1883 edition of this book was published to raise money for the Silver Street Kindergarten in San Francisco. This had been established by the author and was San Francisco's first kindergarten, in fact the first free kindergarten west of the Rockies. "This is the first formally published edition and is considerably expanded".
[BAL 22588, printing B (no sequence established). DAB. NAW]. $50.00. #2868
WIGGIN, Kate Douglas. Susanna and Sue. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1909. Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens and N.C. Wyeth. Octavo, original gray cloth decoratively stamped in green, orange and blue, pictorial label, top edge gilt, pictorial dust jacket (extreme edgewear and chipping, some soiling). Fine. First edition, scarce in jacket.
The publishers commissioned Wyeth to do the pen and ink chapter headings for this book and another Brandywine school artist, Alice Barber Stephens, painted the full page color illustrations. While not a particularly uncommon book, it is quite uncommon in the elaborate dust jacket.
[BAL 22652. Allen p. 223. Dykes Wyeth 358. DAB. NAW]. $125.00. #2871
WIGGIN, Kate Douglas. Bluebeard. A Musical Fantasy. New York: Harper, 1914. Illustrated. 12mo, original blue cloth pictorially stamped in gilt. Endpapers a bit browned, tissue guard foxed. Near fine. First edition. Inscribed by the self critical author "I am an impassioned Wagnerite notwithstanding the insinuations in this nonsensical book".
The title page further reads: "Herein Lies the Story of the Miraculous Discovery in a Hat Box of an Unpublished Opera by the Late Richard Wagner, Dealing in the Most Unique and Climacteric Manner with Feminism, Trial Marriage, Bigamy and Polygamy; Its Libretto and Leit-motive Have Been Studied with Passion and are Now Revealed with Religious Zeal". It is an operatic spoof of which on occasion Wiggin gave a private performance "calculated to reduce an amateur to nervous prostration as I sang, played the piano, and gave the lecture, thereby using the resources of three arts in which I had received no training".
[BAL 22669, state B (no sequence established). DAB. NAW]. $100.00. #2872
WIGGIN, Kate Douglas. Smith, Nora Archibald. Kate Douglas Wiggin as Her Sister Knew Her. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1925. Illustrated. Octavo, original green cloth stamped in gold. Lightly water stained throughout confined to outer edges, else very good.
Wiggins and her younger sister were close siblings, collaborating upon or jointly editing fifteen books.
[BAL 22701. DAB. NAW. Sweeney 1333]. $20.00. #2875
WILLARD, Frances . Livermore, Mary A. editor. A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton, 1893. Profusely illustrated with portraits. Quarto, publisher's pebbled morocco, gilt lettered, inner gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Joints and spine ends rubbed, else very good. First edition.
"Among all cyclopaedias and books about famous women, this is intended to be unique and to supply a vacant niche in the reference library. The nineteenth century is woman's century. Since time began, no other era has witnessed so many and so great changes in the development of her character and gifts and in the multiplication of opportunities for their application. Even to those best informed on this subject, we believe that a glance at these pages will bring astonishment at the vast array of woman's achievements here chronicled, in hundreds of new vocations and avocations. Few eminent names and faces will hee be missed, while many worthy names, which can not be found elsewhere, are strung upon this rosary of ninteenth-century achievement. Every department f life and work is here represented. This book is not alone a book of record of famous names, but one which aims to show what women have done in the humbler as in the higher walks of life. It is a record of American women offered, at the close of four centuries of life in the New World, to the consideration of those who would know what the nineteenth century of Christian civilization has here brought forth, and what are the vast outlooks and the marvelous promise of the twentieth century." -from the author's preface.
A highly useful vast compendium prepared by two noted feminists. This first edition is rare in the marketplace. As as aside: fittingly, it was the final item to be added to this collection.
DAB. NAW]. $850.00. #22998
WILLARD, Frances E. Glimpses of Fifty Years. The Autobiography of An American Woman. Chicago: H.J. Smith, (1889). Illustrated with numerous pen and ink sketches, two colored lithographs and a fold-out facsimile of a hand-written composition on blue paper. Thick octavo, original black-stamped pictorial green cloth, gilt and silver-decorated. Slight cover wear, end papers cracked at hinges, else fine. A very nice copy of a book difficult to find thus. First edition.
Willard was one of nineteenth century America's most influential women, best known for her powerful leadership of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, at that time the nation's largest organized body of women. She used the WCTU as a pulpit to further reforms in prisons, schools and labor, campaigning for an eight hour day and equal pay for equal work, the latter a still ongoing struggle.
[Browne p. 38. Davis & Joyce 4793. Krichmar 5151. DAB. NAW]. $65.00. #2879
[WILLARD, Frances E]. Earhart, Mary. Frances Willard from Prayers to Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (1944). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth. Spine a bit faded, minute date stamp to rear pastedown. About fine. First edition.
A biography of the temperance activist and suffrage leader. Willard also had the distinction of being the first female college president (Evanston College for Ladies, 1871-1873) and the first president of the National Council of Women (1888-1890).
With notes, bibliography and an index.
[DAB. NAW. Sweeney 1342]. $20.00. #2880
WILLS, Helen. Fifteen-Thirty. The Story of a Tennis Player. New York: Scribner's, 1937. Illustrated with photographs and examples of her considerable talent as an artist. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (minute wear). Fine. First edition, rare in jacket.
Wills, dubbed "little Miss Poker Face" by the press, was one of the most famous women tennis players in history, winning the Wimbledon singles title in 1935 and numerous other championships in the decades of the 1920's-1930's. $350.00. #2881
[WILSON, Ellen]. McAdoo, Eleanor Wilson, Editor. The Priceless Gift. The Love Letters of Woodrow Wilson and Ellen Axson Wilson. New York: McGraw-Hill, (1962). Illustrated. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition. Inscribed by the editor.
A culling of the 1,400 letters exchanged by the Wilsons, edited by their youngest daughter. "Wilsons love letters are among the most eloquent in American presidential history" -DAB. With an index.
[NAW]. $40.00. #2882
WILSON, Helen Van Pelt, Editor. The Joy of Flower Arranging. New York: M. Barrows, (1951). With 105 illustrations, four in color. Octavo, pictorial boards, pictorial dust jacket (a little chipped and rubbed at edges). Fine. First edition.
The twelve chapters are presented by month and locale, from Januray jonquils in California through December greenery in Massachusetts, each arrangement the work of a gifted American woman. With notes and interpretations. $30.00. #3251
[WINDSOR, Duchess of]. Martin, Ralph G. The Woman He Loved. New York: Simon & Schuster, (1974). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Repaired at top of spine, spine a little wrinkled, else fine. First edition.
Wallace Warfield Simpson, a.k.a. the Duchess of Windsor, leading lady in the most famous love story of the twentieth century.
[Sweeney 1361]. $20.00. #2883
[Winslow, Mrs. Harriet Wadsworth]. Winslow, Miron. A Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Wadsworth Winslow, Combining A Sketch of the Ceylon Mission. New York: Leavitt, Lord, 1835. Frontispiece portrait of Mrs. Winslow, engraved title page. Octavo, original green cloth, stamped in blind and lettered in gilt on spine. Rubbed, lower right cover and first 147 pages with brown stain, some foxing throughout. This first edition is rare. Reprints: Glasgow, 1838, American Tract Society 1840 and later.
Born at Norwich, Connecticut in 1796. Died at Oodooville, Ceylon, 1833. The biography of this missionary by her widower contains much of Harriet's own writing. A particularly poignant passage extends a variety of reasons to show that children of those thus called cannot be kept with their parents, but must return home "to enjoy their birth-right as Americans (of which the voluntary exile of their parents ought not to deprive them)". Other reasons cited are the lack of proper educational facilities, endangerment to their moral and religious character, need for attentive parental support, lack of opportunities for forming suitable connections in marriage and meager employment prospects. In sum, "Southern Asia is no place for northern people to colonize. They dwindle away under a tropical sun. Besides, there is no room for them; the country is already full of inhabitants, to whom they cannot assimilate". $135.00. #9453
WINSOR, Kathleen. Forever Amber. New York: Macmillan, 1944. Illustrated with endpaper map of London under Charles II. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (rear cover faintly soiled and spine ends a bit worn). Fine. First edition of the author's first book, in pleasing collector's condition.
Winsor had become fascinated with the Restoration Period after randomly picking up a history book on the subject. Her resulting historical novel fared badly with critics but profitably with readers, becoming an enormous best-seller. Risqué in its day, though the Hays censorship office saw to it that the film version was discreet enough. $175.00. #2886
[WITCHCRAFT], Taylor, John M. The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut, 1647-1697. New York: Grafton Press, 1908. With a frontispiece. Octavo, original green cloth, top edge gilt, others uncut. Fine. First edition.
While the modern world associates witchcraft with the Salem trials, it is less well remembered that the hysteria in the American colonies was not confined to Massachusetts. In neighboring Connecticut on May 26, 1647 Alse Young was hanged as a witch. It was the first known execution for the crime in New England. The book contains a list of cases, bibliographical notes and an index. $85.00. #2888
Walker, Alice. Anything We Love Can Be Saved. A Writer's Activism. New York: Random House, (1997). Illustrated. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Essays on public and private issues by this civil rights activist, renowned writer and wise woman. $20.00. #22611
WOOD, Beatrice. Playing Chess with the Heart. Beatrice Wood at 100. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, (1994). Illustrated with photographs by Marlene Wallace. Small quarto, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Bookplate on front free endpaper. Fine. First edition.
Photographs of, and reflective commentary by, the centenarian artist. $30.00. #2890
WOODWARD, Helen. The Lady Persuaders. New York: Ivan Obolensky, (1960). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (small tear in upper edge of front panel). Fine. First edition.
The influence of women's magazines upon American life as informally traced from Sarah Josepha Hale's Ladies Magazine and Louis Antoine Godey's Lady's Book to the Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Women's Home Companion and Vogue. $20.00. #7012
WASHINGTON, Martha and George. Medallion silhouette portraits in profile of George and Martha Washington. Original reverse painting on glass, ca. 1810?. 12" x 16" image, 17" x 23" overall with frame. Fine.
Exquisitely executed and handsomely framed in gilt-lined birds-eye maple. The only reference we have found to anything similar is in Shades of Our Ancestors by Alice Van Leer Carrick, p. 19: "As William S. Baker, the great authority on Washington portraits, wrote, ÔWe doubt if any man were ever painted, engraved, or lithographed as often as our Washington was during that period [the last of the 18th century] and the following decade. Artists were eager to copy his august features.' Moreover, somewhere I found, though where I forget, another foreign tribute: ÔBrought to this port a few likenesses of Washington, executed on glass, in a superb and masterly style, by an eminent Chinese artist.' Whether they were in profile I do not know, but they go to prove the enormous popularity of George Washington." We can reassure Carrick that a profile on glass does exist, but cannot confirm the national origin of this portrait.
[NAW]. $3000.00. #9375
[WOOLLEY, Mary Emma]. Marks, Jeanette. Life and Letters of Mary Emma Woolley. Washington, D.C: Public Affairs Press, (1955). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (chipped). Near fine. First edition.
An informal biography of Dr. Woolley, one of America's most notable educators. She spent 37 years as President of Mount Holyoke College and was appointed by President Hoover as a delegate to the Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1932. With notes and references and an index.
[DAB. NAW. Sweeney 1375]. $25.00. #2889
[WORLD WAR I], Schneider, Dorothy and Carl J. Into the Breach. American Women Overseas in World War I. (New York): Viking, (1991). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket . Fine. First edition.
One of the husband and wife team's several books on aspects of American womanhood. This one concerns the estimated 25,000 who served across the Atlantic during that war. With two appendices, notes, bibliography and an index. $20.00. #7419
[WRIGHT, Fanny]. eckhardt, Celia Morris. Fanny Wright. Rebel in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition. Inscribed by the author on front endpaper.
Francis Wright, a native of Dundee, Scotland, lived a free thinking kaleidoscopic fifty-seven years. Close friendships ranged from Lafayette to Robert Dale Owen. She championed such avant-garde reforms as free education for children and the gradual emancipation of slaves and, in the latter case, put her money where her mouth and pen were.
With a list of abbreviations, notes, and an index.
[DAB. NAW]. $25.00. #7037
WRIGHT, Richardson. Forgotten Ladies. Nine Portraits from the American Family Album. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1928. With 32 illustrations. Octavo, original pictorial lavender cloth printed in red and green, top edge gilt. Fine. First edition.
Nine mortal muses, selected from footlights' afterglow and given a genial curtain call by the author. With a bibliography and notes. $30.00. #2892
[LINCOLN, Mary Todd]. Neely, Mark E. and MCMURTRY, R. Gerald. The Insanity File. The Case of Mary Todd Lincoln. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, (1986). Illustrated with photographs. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket (a trifle worn). Fine. First edition.
A re-examination of the case by a pair of Lincoln scholars aided by newly discovered manuscript materials. Their conclusion includes an even handed historical analysis of the controversy.
With an appendix, notes and an index. $30.00. #22546
YOUNG, Philip. Revolutionary Ladies. New York: Knopf, 1977. Octavo, boards, cloth spine, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
An examination of the Loyalist women of the American Revolution. While modern history books take little note that many colonists opposed the venture, this study provides a bit of insight into some of the largely forgotten females who did, and the consequences. With a list of resources and an index. $20.00. #2272
ZAHARIAS, Babe Didrikson. This Life I've Led. My Autobiography. New York: Barnes, (1955). Illustrated. Octavo, cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Fine. First edition.
Born Mildred Ella Didrikson in Port Arthur, Texas in 1911, the sixth of seven children of Norwegian immigrant parents. An athletic sensation, she excelled at track and field, starred at basketball, did a bit of boxing, played tennis and a mean game of billiards, could throw a baseball over 300 feet ... yet probably Didrikson's best sport was golf. All this, thought the glory of her time was brief: cancer claimed her at forty-two. As the inevitable and endless polls that ushered out the twentieth century were all tabulated, one foregone conclusion was acknowledgement of this Babe as its nonpareil all-around female athlete and, by extension, up to this date in the history of the world.
[DAB. NAWM]. $250.00. #2896
BENTON, Thomas Hart and Elizabeth. ADs. 5 November, 1835. Approximately 9-3/4" x 7-3/4", one page. Quite fragile: separating at folds, a little chipped and browning at outer edges.
Act of emancipation, signed by the famous statesman Thomas Hart Benton and his wife Elizabeth, emancipating their 41-year old slave Sarah after approximately 14 years of "long and faithful services".
"We, Thomas H. Benton & Elizabeth Benton, in consideration of long & faithful services, did, upwards of a year ago, set free the bearer, Sarah, a black woman, aged about forty one years, and our slave at that time; in confirmation of which we do now deliver this act of emancipation. The said Sarah was born in Virginia, in the family of Col.. James McDowell, and came with us to the State of Missouri, in the year 1821, as our slave; she is an honest, sober and industrious woman, always a house servant, and is a good seamstress, washer & ironer. She was married some years ago to Daniel, formerly the slave of Mrs. Ann Benton, now belonging to W. Charles Cabanne, and is now his wife. Given under our hands & seals at St. Louis, this 5th day of November in the year 1835. Thomas H. Benton (Seal). Elizabeth Benton (Seal).
Also signed, sealed & in presence of three witnesses A. Rutland, Arthur L. Magenis, J. (Joshua).B. Brant. On verso signed by the Clerk, Archibald Gamble. Docketed "Filed 11 November, 1835" with the embossed "St. Louis Country Circuit Court Seal".
Thomas Hart Benton is one of the most famous citizens in the history of Missouri. At the time of this document Benton had been in Congress for 14 years. His wife, Elizabeth, was from a prominent Virginia family. There is a very interesting circular sidelight to this manumission. Sarah, the ex-slave referred to in this document was, from birth, the property of Elizabeth Benton's father, Colonel James McDowell. Sarah's husband, the slave named Daniel in the above document, had been the property of Mrs. Ann Benton, Thomas Hart Benton's mother.
According to the Dictionary of American Biography Benton's "views on slavery ... materially changed. While in 1820 he had opposed all slavery restriction in Missouri by 1828 he had come to favour gradual abolition". During the battle to retain or repeal the prohibition of slavery contained in the Missouri Compromise, Benton led the fight to oppose repeal. $5,000.00. #8324
[slavery], ADs. County of St. Louis: 6 June , 1835. Approximately 13" x 8", one page. Separated at folds, browned.
Deed of emancipation for "Maria a negro woman aged about 45 years" from "Henry Taylor (a colored man) ... after my death and not before". The document is signed with an "X", "his mark" and by two witnesses. $1000.00. #8325
[Slavery], ADs. County of St. Louis: 29 April, 1834. Approximately 6-1/2" x 8", one page. Some slight chipping in fold and lower corner, else fine.
A most unusual deed of emancipation in which Priscilla Cooner emancipated "my mother and slave, Lydia Robinson whom I purchased of Dermot Robinson of Madison County, Missouri...". Signed with Priscilla's mark and also signed by a witness. $450.00. #8337
[Slavery], ADs. City of St. Louis: 10 April, 1838. Approximately 6-3/4" x 7-3/4", one page. Separated at folds, worn at edges.
Bill of sale of a Negro woman named Jinny, about 35 years old, warranted as sound healthy and a "slave for life" to John Simmonds, Jr., for $500.00. Verso, John Simmonds Jr. sold the same woman to a Mr. Benjamin Ellenwood for $20.00, "but it is expressly understood that I give no warranty as to health or soundness", June 26, 1840. Benjamin Ellenwood then sold her to Jinny Cahonnie for $20.00, "without any warranty whatever" on September 24, 1840. $275.00. #8330
[Slavery], ADs. 23 December, 1856. Approximately 12" x 7-3/4", one page. Browned at outer folds, else fine.
Deed of emancipation. Griffin Brander, "out of consideration of love and affection .... and in consideration of the sum of one dollar" emancipated his daughter Mary Ellen Brander, "who is of copper color" from her state of slavery. Again signed with an "X". Signed by the two witnesses to the previous document. $250.00. #8327