Results for: Literature-19th Century

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Large 8vo, <xxvi>, 804pp; glossy printed wrappers. Illus. Lower left corner of text block a little bumped as is that of the front cover. Very good. The definitive biography of this influential 19th century author and reformer .

THE FIRST WOMAN IN THE REPUBLIC A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child
[Child, Lydia Maria] Karcher, Carolyn L.
Durham and London: Duke University Press, (1994).
Price: $25.00
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First edition. 8vo, 305pp; + Select Bibliography and Index; purple boards stamped in gold on the spine; printed purple dust jacket. Julia Cartwright, the Victorian writer, wrote novels (published anonymously), biographies, books on Renaissance art and produced 51 "tightly packed diaries and thousands of letters and boxes of memorabilia." Her love of Italy and the Renaissance brought her friendship with Bernard Berenson and Vernon Lee. Fine.

A BRIGHT REMEMBRANCE The Diaries of Julia Cartwright 1851-1924. Edited and With an Introduction by Angela Emanuel. Foreword by Sir John Hale
Cartwright, Julia.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, (1989).
Price: $35.00
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First edition. 8vo, 277pp; orange boards with navy blue cloth spine stamped in orange; pictorial black and white dust jacket. Jacket has a few short edge tears. Near fine. The "blood and thunder" tales which Alcott wrote under the pseudonym "A.M. Barnard". Discovered by Alcott scholar Madeleine Stern, these tales revealed an aspect to the writer unknown and unsuspected.

BEHIND A MASK The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott Edited and with an Introduction by Madeleine Stern
Alcott, Louisa May.
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1975.
Price: $35.00
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LOST IN A LONDON FOG
Alcott, Louisa [May].
Gardiner, Maine: THE GARDINER HOME JOURNAL, Volume XXIV, Number 16, Wednesday March 22, 1876.
Price: $45.00
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First appearance. Collected in THE POT OF GOLD AND OTHER STORIES in 1892. 8vo, [13]-20pp; decorated self-wrappers printed in green and pink. The story is accompanied by two charming illustrations by L.B. Humphrey. Wrapper soiled and torn along fore-edge. The magazine generally sound. About very good. One of Miss Wilkins' children's stories. Other contributors to this issue include Jessie Benton Fremont ("The House That Jack Built"), Margaret Sidney (from FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS FURTHER ON), Oscar Fay Adams and others. As always the context of these stories lends to their effect. In addition to numerous illustrations and lines of verse there are articles such as "Soups and Stews (Cooking in the Public Schools)" which provide a valuable glimpse into daily life. See BAL 6327.

" A Plain Case (A True Story) " in WIDE AWAKE An Illustrated Magazine. Vol. 29, June, 1889. No. 1
[Freeman] Wilkins, Mary E.
Boston: D. Lothrop Company, 1889.
Price: $45.00
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First edition. 8vo, [168]pp; + publisher's advertisement; green wove cloth with elaborate decorated trade binding stamped in silver, orange, blue and green; title and author stamped in gold at the front cover; title, author and publisher in gold at the spine with spiral motif; rear cover repeats the decorated border of the front. T.e.g. Printed on laid paper watermarked with Harper's device; fore-edge and bottom edge untrimmed. Title page printed in orange and black. 12 full-page illustrations in black and white including frontispiece with tissue guard. Ownership signature at front free endpaper; small ex libris at front pastedown. Minor touches of wear to ends; small, mild stains at front cover. Unopened. Generally a very bright, fresh copy. Near fine. "The Wooing of Malkatoon" is a verse narrative and "Commodus" a play originally published in 1877. The design suggests a Roman mosaic and though unsigned is executed with considerable flair. BAL 20825, Binding B (Blanck states Binding A is likely a trial binding, while Binding C is a later issue). Johnson, MODERN FIRST EDITIONS (3rd edition), p. 470.

THE WOOING OF MALKATOON COMMODUS Illustrations by Du Mond & Weguelin
[Decorated Trade Bindings] Wallace, Lew.
New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1898.
Price: $50.00
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First edition. later. Crown 8vo, 405pp; blue linen cloth stamped in gilt front and spine. Ink gift inscription (contemporary) front flyleaf; trace of wear to tips and spinal ends. Near fine. Illustrated by Charles and Marcia Woodbury, well-known Boston artists at the turn-of-the-century who also illustrated the large paper edition of DEEPHAVEN. The writer's last book, an historical novel of the American Revolution. The setting, Hamilton House, stood within a few miles of the Jewett residence in Berwick. BAL 10914.

THE TORY LOVER
Jewett, Sarah Orne.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901.
Price: $65.00
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First edition. 8vo, 74pp; pale gray paper over boards with lavender shelfback. Illustrated with a frontispiece of the author from a drawing by John Elliott. Overall light wear to binding with surface wear, tips and ends a little rubbed and tiny dark spot at foot of spine; over-opened at pp. 66/67; contemporary pencil inscription front flyleaf. Very good . Maud Howe's account of her mother and the final years of her life. An affectionate and warm account of this woman who had such an impact on 19th-century America through her writing and her work on behalf of women's rights and world peace. See BAL Vol. IV.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR IN THE LIFE OF JULIA WARD HOWE
[Howe, Julia Ward] Howe, Maud.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1911.
Price: $65.00
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First separate edition (or possibly a later printing, Blanck does not record this edition). 12mo, 53pp; smooth dark blue cloth, Margaret Armstrong trade design (with her "MA" at the front cover) of stylized irises whose elongated stems intertwine at their ends, the design an oval, with a silver scroll stamped with the title across the irises at the front panel; title, author and publisher in gold gilt at the spine. Mild overall use with the binding a little strained; tips and ends rubbed; gold a little faded at spine. Generally very good and the decorated trade binding design at the front panel attractive. An uncommon Margaret Armstrong trade design.

MARSE CHAN A Tale of Old Virginia Illustrated by W.T. Smedley
[Armstrong, Margaret] Page, Thomas Nelson.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900.
Price: $65.00
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ABANDONING AN ADOPTED FARM
Sanborn, Kate [Katherine Abbott].
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1894.
Price: $65.00
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First edition. 12mo, 505 pp; brown-coated endpapers; smooth green cloth stamped in black and gilt. Gift inscription preliminary leaf; a little wear to tips and along spine. Fine. Not in Wright.

ODD, OR EVEN
Whitney, Mrs. A[deline] D[utton] T[rain].
Boston: Houghton, Osgood, and Company, 1880.
Price: $75.00
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First edition. 12mo, 147pp; pictorial blue cloth stamped in dark blue on the front cover and lettered in gilt on the spine; t.e.g. Some offsetting along gutters; owner's ink inscription dated October, 1895 at front flyleaf. Fine. Illustrated by E.W. Kemble, the illustrator of THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, with a frontispiece and black and white engravings throughout the text. The three stories, "sketches of negro character" according to the Preface, originally appeared in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. Dana had published under the initials "O.A.W." for 'Only a Woman'. Wright III 1386.

OUR PHIL and Other Stories
Dana, Katharine Floyd.
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1889.
Price: $75.00
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First appearance. 8vo, printed orange wrappers. Wrappers worn and dusty with some chipping; front cover loosened. Good to about very good. Mrs. Stowe's essay appears at pp. 529-533 with an illustration of a mother and her kittens. She wrote a number pieces for this Ticknor and Fields juvenile magazine, many of which did not receive book publication. Hildreth, p. 119.

Dogs and Cats, in OUR YOUNG FOLKS Vol. I, No. VIII
(Stowe, Harriet Beecher).
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, August, 1865.
Price: $75.00
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Later printing. 16mo, 274pp; + 2pp publisher's ads; smooth dark blue cloth, stamped in black at front panel and in gold at the spine. Contemporary gift inscription in ink at the front free endpaper. Light wear to spine ends and tips. Very good. Written when Larcom was in her sixties and firmly established as a poet, "she makes her autobiography not only a New England girlhood but also a poet's education". (Rose Norman in LEGACY, Fall 1991). One of the few literary autobiographies written by a woman in the 19th century, Larcom's book is an invaluable source for the period and an important contribution to the genre. See BAL 11381.

A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD Outlined from Memory
Larcom, Lucy.
Boston, New York and Chicago: Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press Cambridge, [ND].
Price: $75.00
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First American edition. 12mo, 255pp; dark blue linen cloth lettered in white at front and spine, at the front cover a medallion of light blue and white depicts a group of evergreens overlooking a mountain valley. T.e.g. An especially crisp, fresh copy. Fine. Kramer notes that the Lakeside Press in Chicago printed THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT SHADOW in Modernized Old Style type on laid paper. Heinemann published an edition in 1900 also; it is unclear whether the American or the English preceded. THE FEMINIST COMPANION described Annie E. Holdsworth as a "novelist, story writer and feminist". Born in Jamaica in 1857 to a Yorkshire Methodist missionary, she had only a scanty education once the family had returned to England. However, she started to write and publish in the 1890s and co-edited THE WOMAN'S SIGNAL. It is possible she published two books under the pseudonym 'Max Beresford'. However, Holdsworth did publish SPINDLE AND OARS in 1893 and the next year her 'new woman' novel JOANNA TRAILL, SPINSTER. She later married poet Eugene Lee-Hamilton and moved to Italy. From there she continued to write and publish up until 1913 "producing novels and collections such as A GARDEN OF SPINSTERS". Kramer 245. THE FEMINIST COMPANION, pp. 530-531. A handsome Stone & Company publication.

THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT SHADOW
Holdsworth, Annie E. (Mrs. Lee-Hamilton).
Chicago & New York: Herbert S. Stone & Company, 1900.
Price: $75.00
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First edition thus. Reprinted from VICTORIAN POETS (1876); 1/1280 copies. 32mo, 96pp; (including "Synopsis of Contents"); terra-cotta cloth, stamped in black at the front and spine; abbreviated title, "MRS. BROWNING" and author stamped in gold at the front cover. Printed endpapers with a list of the "Vest-Pocket Series" at the front and "Works of E.C. Stedman" at the rear. Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; vignette at the title page and other decorative embellishments. Light touch of wear to spine ends and tips. Fine. E.C. Stedman (1833-1908) has become a dim figure to 21st century readers. To contemporaries his poetry, and even more, his critical writing and anthologies cast a wide influence. He recognized the talent of nascent authors and appreciated the work of the mature. This extended essay suggests the epigrammatic style and elevated language for which Victorians prized Stedman's prose. Here, for instance, he describes the poet's early education: "A gifted mind in youth has an unconsciousness of evil, and an affinity for the beautiful and true, which enable it, when given the freedom of a library, to assimilate what is suited to its needs". The "Synopsis" indexes the range of subjects which the essay treats, such as "Her years of unmarried life"; ""Her classical studies"; "Her scholarship liberal, but not pedantic"; "Her classicism distinct from Landor's", etc. The subject, the prose style and the attractive printing of this "Vest-Pocket" volume render this a very nice example. BAL 18728. CBEL III, p. 250.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
[Browning, Elizabeth Barrett] Stedman, Edmund Clarence.
Boston: James R. Osgood, 1877.
Price: $75.00
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First edition. 12mo, 348pp; medium blue silk cloth, stamped with dark red decorative motifs front and spine, with title in gold-gilt at front and spine. Contemporary ownership signature at front free endpaper; mild age-toning to pages; light brown spot pp. 21-26. Wear around spine with tips and ends somewhat rubbed; worn scuff area at front cover. A firm, sound copy. About very good. Maria Louise Pool (1841-1898), novelist and short story writer, was born and raised in Rockland, Massachusetts. As a young woman she established herself as a journalist, first writing for a Philadelphia newspaper and, subsequently, the NEW YORK EVENING POST and the NEW YORK TRIBUNE. In 1888 she published TENTING AT STONY BEACH which drew on her childhood recollections of the Massachusetts seacoast. In the last decade of her life, she produced twelve titles in rapid succession: among them, ROWENY IN BOSTON (1892); MRS. KEATS BRADFORD (1892); KATHERINE NORTH (1893); OUT OF STEP (1894); and IN THE FIRST PERSON (1898). Rowena Tuttle sets out to learn to paint and to experience Boston, encountering oysters, seances, and Christian Scientists among other novelties. Wright III, 4293.

ROWENY IN BOSTON. A Novel
Pool, Maria Louise.
New York: Harper & Brothers Franklin Square, 1892.
Price: $75.00
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First edition thus. Reproduced from the NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE (16:585-609), July, 1894, for the benefit of the Old Berwick Historical Society. 8vo, unpaginated; stapled brown wrappers. Illustrated with half-tones. Faint darkening to front cover (which also has two blank imprints by a pencil or pen). Near fine. Laid in is an attractive card on cream laid paper, printed in brown, with Sarah Wyman Whitman's decorative milkweed from the cover of THE KING OF FOLLY ISLAND and the notation "At the Grave of Sarah Orne Jewett"; within the card, is a poem by Loring Williams to the writer on her birthday. Berwick throughout her life was Jewett's home. Paula Blanchard, in her biography of the author, notes: "...as she ... said, she was made of Berwick dust. Although she sometimes chafed at its confinement, Berwick was always her primary home, the source not only of the subjects of her art but of the deeper emotional springs that fed its creation". The opportunity to celebrate Berwick was an opportunity welcomed and undertaken seriously. She researched the article carefully citing at least twelve sources: old church records, a paper given before the New Hampshire historical society, histories of Maine, Borgland's The Rise of Modern Democracy", among others. As history it is solid enough that writing nearly 100 years later Blanchard largely relies on "The Old Town of Berwick" for her own account of the early days of southern Maine. Yet the history is more than a compilation of fact; Jewett freely interweaves oral history, replete with local myth and story-telling, throughout her narrative. A significant Jewett piece.

"The Old Town of Berwick"
Jewett, Sarah Orne.
South Berwick, Maine: The Old Berwick Historical Society, 1967.
Price: $85.00
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First edition. 8vo, 264pp; soft beige wrappers stamped in red and black. Illustrated with a frontispiece of Henry James. Among those to whom Edel offers thanks in his preface is Edith Wharton whom he had met in June of that year. Edel signed and dated this copy in 1946, noting that only 400 copies had been printed. Considerable browning to pages; back strip quite worn. Good. Unusual.

HENRY JAMES: Les Annees Dramatiques
[James, Henry] Leon Edel.
Paris: Jouve & Cie, 1931.
Price: $100.00
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First edition. 12mo, blue-green cloth with the author and title in gilt on the front panel with two roses, title and author's initials, "H.H." repeated on spine; blue-coated endpapers; all edges stained red. Ink inscription dated Dec. '86 on front flyleaf (the book published Nov. 20, 1886); minor wear to tips. Near fine. Illustrated with steel engraving at title page and at leaf opposite "Contents". BAL 10470. A nice, tight, firm copy.

SONNETS AND LYRICS
Jackson, Helen [Hunt].
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1886.
Price: $100.00
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