women

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  • Keywords = women
  • sur l’imperfection des femmes. by ECOUTEZ LA VÉRITÉ ECOUTEZ LA VÉRITÉ ~ sur l’imperfection des femmes. [n.p., n.d., France or Low Countries, c. 1760-70s]
    A broadside catalogue of misogyny — with familiar and unfamiliar citations from Genesis, Augustine, Jonas, John Chrysostom, Gregory, Origen, Cato, Jerome, Tertullian, Plato and Pythagoras.… (more)

    A broadside catalogue of misogyny — with familiar and unfamiliar citations from Genesis, Augustine, Jonas, John Chrysostom, Gregory, Origen, Cato, Jerome, Tertullian, Plato and Pythagoras. Evidently intended as a satire it is known in more than one imprint, from France and from Ghent, but with only a small handful recorded in library collections. The Bibliothèque nationale holds two, one of which is digitised (having a woodcut, rather than typographical, headpiece).

    The sheet apparently already had a central horizontal crease when placed under the press, resulting in a blank horizontal line across the centre, portions of the affected letters arranged (without loss) above and below.

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  • Quand j’étais homme.  Cahiers d’une femme … by LEMMONNIER, Camille. LEMMONNIER, Camille. ~ Quand j’étais homme.  Cahiers d’une femme … Paris: Louis-Michaud, [1907].
    First edition of a confessional novel by Lemonnier (1845–1913), the Belgian writer and art critic who ‘shared the aims of the French symbolists and stimulated… (more)

    First edition of a confessional novel by Lemonnier (1845–1913), the Belgian writer and art critic who ‘shared the aims of the French symbolists and stimulated a revival of Belgian letters’ (Oxford Companion to French Literature), in which the female narrator writes against a male-dominated society which leaves no room for the possibility of female emancipation such that she is driven to dress as a man. 
    This copy belonged to the ‘high priest of fin-de-siècle bibliophilia’ (Silverman, The New Bibliopolis, p. 14), Octave Uzanne (1851–1931).  One of only ten numbered copies printed on vergé de Hollande, it includes a unique printed presentation leaf, ‘Cet exemplaire a été imprimé spécialement pour M. Octave Uzanne’, tipped in as pp. 1–2 and inscribed ‘En fidèle souvenir mon cher Uzanne, le double homage de l’éditeur et de l’auteur.  Camille Lemonnier’. 
    ‘There is no more original Belgian artist than Camille Lemonnier.  A powerful and fertile writer, he represents Belgian literary activity for more than forty years, until his death in 1913, and even if he reflect the various tendencies of the French mind, and adapt himself to his surroundings, he is Flemish to the backbone in his mystico-sensual leanings, in his pious materialism, … in his Rubens-like fertility and love of colour, dash and force.  It is true that he reminds the reader of Zola, and even of Dickens; but it is above all of Rubens and Jordaens that he makes us think, because, like them, he paints his imagination in the form of ever sensitive emotions’ (Gladys Turquet-Milnes, Some modern Belgian Writers, 1916, p. 87).

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  • Monsieur Vénus. Roman matérialiste. by RACHILDE [and] ‘Francis TALMAN’. RACHILDE [and] ‘Francis TALMAN’. ~ Monsieur Vénus. Roman matérialiste. Brussels: Auguste Brancart, 1884.
    First edition, first issue, complete with all subsequently censored text, including the final scene in which the heroine makes love to a partially animated transgender… (more)

    First edition, first issue, complete with all subsequently censored text, including the final scene in which the heroine makes love to a partially animated transgender mannequin. Rachilde, who was to style herself as a ‘man of letters’ on her calling cards was just 24 when Monsieur Vénus, her second novel was published in Brussels. The book caused an immediate scandal and was vigorously suppressed by the Belgian and French authorities. Subsequent editions were shorn of the novel’s more shocking passages, which were conveniently attributed to Rachilde’s (probably-fictitiou)s co-author ‘Francis Talman’, whose name appeared on the title page. Some critics refused to believe that a work which frankly recounted the pursuit of sexual pleasure by a noblewoman, Raoule de Vénérande, could possibly be the work of a young woman. It remains an unsettling work, describing Raoule’s treatment of her young male lover, Silvert, who she persistently feminizes and humiliates. Silvert ultimately dies at the hands of one of Raoule’s suitor’s in a duel, and is replaced by her with a mannequin (with real hair, teeth and fingernails) who can be alternately dressed in male and female clothes.

    The Belgian authorities sought to destroy as many copies of the first edition as possible, and it is accordingly a noted rarity. We can locate the following copies: BnF, Bibliothèque Jaques Doucet, Institut de France in France and Library of Congress, University of Houston, Vanderbilt University in North America, British Library and Cambridge in the UK and Kb in the Netherlands.

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  • Melaia; and other Poems. by COOK, Eliza. COOK, Eliza. ~ Melaia; and other Poems. London: [Cunningham and Salmon for] R. J. Wood, Dispatch Office, 1838.
    First edition of the second collection by this south London working class poet. ‘The sentiments expressed in Cook's poetry and prose reflect her efforts to… (more)

    First edition of the second collection by this south London working class poet. ‘The sentiments expressed in Cook's poetry and prose reflect her efforts to break free from the societal limitations imposed on her class and gender. A woman who prided herself on her tiny hands and feet, Cook dressed in unconventionally masculine attire and wore her hair short. J. Leach notes that Cook's dress 'proclaimed a determination to be herself' and relates how an 1851 story in the New York Times describes her as 'Tilting back in her chair, planting both feet on the fender', and 'bluffly order[ing] a glass of beer' (Leach, 157). Cook was also most probably a lesbian. She never married, and from 1845 to 1849 she was closely linked with the American actress Charlotte Cushman (1816–1876), to whom she wrote passionate poetic tributes ('To Charlotte Cushman')’ (Solveig C. Robinson in Oxford DNB).

    The frontispiece depicting ‘The Old Water Mill’ bears Baxter imprint and states ‘printed in oil colours’ while the title-page vignette (depicting an English ship at sea) is similarly printed. These examples date from the first decade of George Baxter’s patent for his colour prints in which an intaglio plate, usually aquatint, was printed first, and then colours added with up multiple woodblocks. In both prints the darker colours have a characteristic depth and sheen. Melaia was reprinted in 1840, but the first edition with Baxter prints is exceptionally scarce. Worldcat lists a single copy (UC Davis, Kohler collection), JISC lists UK copies at BL, Birmingham and Cambridge.

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  • Tales of Fashionable Life. by EDGEWORTH, Maria. EDGEWORTH, Maria. ~ Tales of Fashionable Life. London: [S. Hamilton, Weybridge, vol 1; Wood and Innes, vol. 2; W. Pople, vol. 3] for J. Johnson, 1809.
    First collected edition of the first series of Tales of Fashionable Life, Edgeworth’s most ambitious literary project. containing Ennui, Almeria, Madame de Fleury, The Dun,… (more)

    First collected edition of the first series of Tales of Fashionable Life, Edgeworth’s most ambitious literary project. containing Ennui, Almeria, Madame de Fleury, The Dun, Manoeuvring. In his preface, Richard Lovell Edgeworth notes his daughter's aim ‘to promote, by all her writings, the progress of education, from the cradle to the grave’, and that the present and envisaged volumes of the series were ‘intended to point out some of those errors, to which the higher classes of society are disposed’. A second series appeared in 1812, for which she received £1050 making her the most commercially successful novelist of her age.

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  • Selected Letters... adapted for the use of Learners by A. J. Lastdrager. by MONTAGUE, Lady Mary Wortley. MONTAGUE, Lady Mary Wortley. ~ Selected Letters... adapted for the use of Learners by A. J. Lastdrager. The Hague and Amsterdam: Van Cleef brothers, 1827.
    First edition of this Dutch-printed schoolbook, reproducing the English text of selected Montague letters with a foreword and extensive footnotes in Dutch, edited by educationalist… (more)

    First edition of this Dutch-printed schoolbook, reproducing the English text of selected Montague letters with a foreword and extensive footnotes in Dutch, edited by educationalist Abraham Johannes Lastdrager (1788-1855) who had founded a successful academy for young ladies in Amsterdam around 1820. The advert leaf lists a further thirteen educational titles in Dutch and French. No US or UK copies located in Worldcat or JISC.

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  • Les Ecosseuses: ou Les Oeufs de Pasques. by VADÉ, Jean-Joseph; Anne-Claude-Philippe comte de CAYLUS; Jeanne Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, comtesse de VERRUE. VADÉ, Jean-Joseph; Anne-Claude-Philippe comte de CAYLUS; Jeanne Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, comtesse de VERRUE. ~ Les Ecosseuses: ou Les Oeufs de Pasques. ‘Troyes’ [but Paris]: chez la Veuve Oudoy, 1745.
    First edition with the delightful woodcut frontispiece of two pea shellers, evidently cut by the comte de Caylus himself after a drawing and engraving by… (more)

    First edition with the delightful woodcut frontispiece of two pea shellers, evidently cut by the comte de Caylus himself after a drawing and engraving by Edme Bouchardon. The imprint of widow Oudoy at Troyes is considered false, and the book was probably printed in Paris. The combination of frontispiece and imprint serves to give the work a popular character (Troyes being a well-known centre of chapbook production), appropriate for a collection composed in the genre poissard reproducing contemporary street language — a collection of tales and anecdotes purporting to be told by six women (’commeres’) in a butcher’s shop. The authorship is composite, with contributions from populist Vadé and the comte de Caylus and comtesse de Verrue, members of a Parisian salon, the ‘Société du Bout-du-Banc,around the hostess Jeanne-Françoise Quinault. An edition had previously appeared in 1739, with a different pagination and without the woodcut and extra title.

    The woodcut reproduces one of Bouchardon’s wonderful series of Cris de Paris series of drawings, immortalising the ordinary people of Paris in age where so many illustrations were purely aristocratic. It is signed with initials ‘B’ and ‘C’ on either side, for Bouchardon and Caylus respectively. Barbier, 1, 359, 4695; cf. Gay II. p. 182 (Etrennes de la Saint-Jean, the collection in which it was also included).

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  • Ourika. by DURAS, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de. DURAS, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de. ~ Ourika. Paris: [J. Pinard for] Ladvocat, 1824.
    First trade edition of a novel which had first appeared in a small edition (between 25 and 40 copies) privately circulated in December 1823. Ourika,… (more)

    First trade edition of a novel which had first appeared in a small edition (between 25 and 40 copies) privately circulated in December 1823. Ourika, based on fact, and influenced by Rousseau and Chateaubriand, is the complex story of a black African child raised in aristocratic circles in Revolutionary France. It is the first fully developed attempt to portray a black heroine in Europe and the first French novel with a black female narrator. This edition bears the statement on the verso of the half-title ‘Publié au profit d’un établissement de charité, and has no edition statement on the title-page, which bears a quotation from Byron (as called for). A true best-seller, at least four editions appeared in 1824, together with four plays and two poems based on the novel.

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  • (LYDIS, Mariette). Henry de MONTHERLANT. ~ Mariette Lydis. Paris: Édition des artistes d’aujourd’hui, 1938.
    First edition, one of 1000 copies, complete with the additional lithograph (’Madina’) and etching (’Petite Tzigane à Epsom’). An appreciation of the work of the… (more)

    First edition, one of 1000 copies, complete with the additional lithograph (’Madina’) and etching (’Petite Tzigane à Epsom’). An appreciation of the work of the artist which includes a listing of her works in public collections and a valuable bibliography of her illustrated books. It is an important retrospective of Lydis’s European works before she left for England and ultimately Argentina.

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  • LYDIS, Mariette, illustrator. Erik-Ernst SCHWABACH. ~ Miniaturen in Liebesbillete gesetzt von Erik-Ernst Schwabach. [Die verliebten Billete des Prinzen Salamud]. Potsdam: Müller & Co, [ 1924].
    First edition. A striking early Lydis production. Each plate is accompanied by an exotic love lyric by Schwabach (publisher, author and patron of Expressionism) ‘Die… (more)

    First edition. A striking early Lydis production. Each plate is accompanied by an exotic love lyric by Schwabach (publisher, author and patron of Expressionism) ‘Die verliebten Billete des Prinzen Salamu’. The 18 plates reproduce Lydis’ orientalist miniatures in collotype and lithograph with gold and silver. The Müller firm had been established at Potsdam 1919 by Irmgard Kiepenheuer and Hans Müller. Kiepenhauer was an important figure in the artistic world of Weimar Berlin, hosting a cultural salon in Potsdam and being in personal contact with the most important contemporary artists — including many from the Bauhaus in Weimar. The firm issued several influential portfolios showcasing artists such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Pechstein, Christian Rohlfs, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. One of 1100 copies (of which 100 were signed).

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  • Étudiants et Lorettes. Almanach du Quartier Latin (5e année). by (PUBLISHER’S ADVERT). (PUBLISHER’S ADVERT). ~ Étudiants et Lorettes. Almanach du Quartier Latin (5e année). Paris: E. de Soye et compagnie, [1850 or 51].
    A rare publisher’s advert for a short-lived satirical almanac devoted to the comic lowlife of the Parisian Latin Quarter, with its famously hedonistic students and… (more)

    A rare publisher’s advert for a short-lived satirical almanac devoted to the comic lowlife of the Parisian Latin Quarter, with its famously hedonistic students and lorettes courtesans or sex workers). The lorette emerged both in reality and in the popular imagination during the July Monarchy (1830-48), named after the Right Bank church of Notre Dame de Lorette where they were thought to reside and the almanac promises a range of playful gender inverting fun based on the ‘Vésuviennes’ (popular heroines of the 1848 revolution who donned uniform and took to the barricades) including the confessions of a Vésuvienne and their ‘Charte-Constitution’.
    During the February Revolution of 1848, French women briefly hoped for political rights and an improvement in their social situation. Such hopes were short-lived and popular reaction was expressed in satires like this. The complex image of the Vésuvienne woman warrior, both pleasantly seductive and scandalously rebellious. She appeared in all the major newspapers, while real women in the streets claimed this title by parading under a Vesuvian banner. Their morality was often called into question and it is no surprise to see lorettes and Vésuviennes share a billing here. In Belhomme’s lithograph, three lorettes step out of basket (one thumbing her nose); a reflection of a popular contemporary song ‘Le Panier aux lorettes’.

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  • Arrêt suprême des dieux de l’Olympe en faveur de Mme. la Duchesse de Berry et de son fils. L’Ombre du Prince de Bourbon Condé (Louis-Henri-Joseph), à son filleul le duc d’Aumale d’Orléans (Henri Eugène-Philippe-Louis). Révélations, etc. by LE NORMAND, Marie-Anne Adélaïde. LE NORMAND, Marie-Anne Adélaïde. ~ Arrêt suprême des dieux de l’Olympe en faveur de Mme. la Duchesse de Berry et de son fils. L’Ombre du Prince de Bourbon Condé (Louis-Henri-Joseph), à son filleul le duc d’Aumale d’Orléans (Henri Eugène-Philippe-Louis). Révélations, etc. Paris: [Dondey-Dupré for] Mlle Le Normand, 28 February, 1833.
    First edition of the last book by a prolific French clairvoyant — in the form of a decree from the gods of Mount Olympus, this… (more)

    First edition of the last book by a prolific French clairvoyant — in the form of a decree from the gods of Mount Olympus, this is a spirited plea in favour of the Duchesse de Berry then imprisoned for leading a rebellion against Charles X after the July Revolution. Like Le Normand’s other works it is couched in terms of dreams, predictions and angelic interventions. It bears her signature on the back of the half-title as a measure against piracy and the frontispiece shows her taking the Duchesse’s hand in prison, as an angel swoops down to crown her.

    Marie-Anne Le Normand (1772–1843) was a celebrated (or notorious) clairvoyant, publisher, booskeller and self-publicist Famed throughout Europe for her exclusive clientele, she popularised cartomancy and spawned an enormous wave of imitators. At the height of her career she claimed to have advised the likes of Robespierre, Talleyrand, Metternich, the Empress Josephine and Emperor Alexander himself; others argued that the whole thing was a sham, and she was frequently arrested, spending several weeks in prison.

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  • Fragoletta, Naples et Paris en 1799. by [LATOUCHE, Henri de]. [LATOUCHE, Henri de]. ~ Fragoletta, Naples et Paris en 1799. Paris: [A. Barbier for] Levavasseur and Urbain Canel, 1829.
    First edition. Fragoletta, in which a woman disguises herself as a man and seduces another woman, was a major point of reference for early nineteenth-century… (more)

    First edition. Fragoletta, in which a woman disguises herself as a man and seduces another woman, was a major point of reference for early nineteenth-century literature, notably inspiring Balzac’s Séraphîta and Théophile Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin with its fascination with the androgynous or doubly-sexed body. It clearly took inspiration from Bernini’s statue of the sleeping hermaphrodite and is one of the first nineteenth century novels to feature a hermaphrodite protagonist. It’s most obvious echo in English literature is in Swinburne, whose 1866 Poems and Ballads contained the poem ‘Fragoletta’ — an ode to androgyny in which the boy/girl (’a double-rose’) is rendered more desirable by their double sexuality.

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  • Rainbows. by CUSTANCE, Olive. CUSTANCE, Olive. ~ Rainbows. London and New York: [Richard Folkard & Son in London for] Bodley Head, 1902.
    First edition of Olive Custance’s second collection (after Opals of 1897), published in the year of her elopement and marriage to Lord Alfred Douglas and… (more)

    First edition of Olive Custance’s second collection (after Opals of 1897), published in the year of her elopement and marriage to Lord Alfred Douglas and containing the suite written for him, ‘The Fairy Prince’. Custance’s marriage, frowned upon by her parents, had come only a year after her supposed affair with Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris, and the Rainbows contains poems of desire from various points in the spectrum, notably ‘A Dancing Girl’ and ‘The White Witch’. Barney recounted that Custance had written the lines ‘Her face is like the faces the Dreamer sometimes meets, A face that Leonardo would have followed through the streets’ on seeing a version of Barney’s portrait [which] later appeared in ‘The White Witch’ (Pulham, ‘Tinted and Tainted Love: The Sculptural Body in Olive Custance’s Poetry’, Yearbook of English Studies, 37, 1, p. 164).
    The elaborate contemporary binding is signed ‘E. Dreyfous’, the Grosvenor Square dealer in antiques, Edouard Henry Dreyfous who counted the Royal Family among his customers.

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  • Broderies de Marie Monnier Préface de Paul Valéry. by MONNIER, Marie. MONNIER, Marie. ~ Broderies de Marie Monnier Préface de Paul Valéry. Paris: Galerie E. Druet, 1924.
    Sole edition of the small catalogue issued to accompany Monnier’s needlework exhibition at the Galerie Druet at 20, rue Royale, ‘Du lundi 5 mai au… (more)

    Sole edition of the small catalogue issued to accompany Monnier’s needlework exhibition at the Galerie Druet at 20, rue Royale, ‘Du lundi 5 mai au vendredi 30 mai 1924’. Copy number 13 of 15 on Japon (before 25 on Hollande and 100 on ordinary paper, total edition 140 copies).

    It lists just 14 pieces (1918-1923) including some of her most celebrated pieces including a set of four tarot images, l’Abeille and Palme (illustrating Valéry) and Féerie, after Léon-Paul Fargue. Valéry wrote in his preface: ‘Mais considérez ces panneaux merveilleusement colorés. Leur éclat les apparente aux plus merveilleuses productions de la vie, aux élytres, aux plumes d’oiseau, aux coquillages, aux pétales. Nulle peinture ne peut atteindre à ces forces ni à ces délicatesses que les brins de soie savamment associés font paraître’.

    Marie Monnier was the wife of the artist Paul-Émile Bécat and sister of bookseller-publisher Adrienne Monnier (Sylvia Beach’s partner). Marie exhibited both in her sister’s bookshop and at the Galerie Druet. She also created a large embroidery inspired by Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and painted one of the famous signboards for Shakespeare and Company (now at Princeton). Worldcat lists US copies at Harvard and Princeton (three copies in the Sylvia Beach collection).

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  • Le Livre de Marco Polo gentilhomme venitien 1271-1295. by LYDIS, Mariette, illustrator. LYDIS, Mariette, illustrator. ~ Le Livre de Marco Polo gentilhomme venitien 1271-1295. [Paris: Taneur and Darantière for] Les Cent Une, 1932.
    Copy number 5 of 111 copies only printed for Les Cent Une, Société de femmes bibliophiles, with two original pencil drawings and a suite of… (more)

    Copy number 5 of 111 copies only printed for Les Cent Une, Société de femmes bibliophiles, with two original pencil drawings and a suite of proof plates. All copies were printed on paper watermarked ‘Les Cent Une’ and this is a tirage de tête copy printed for member, Celeste Pigasse. The text is after the 1556 French edition by André Jaulme (complete with authentic contractions) while the superb visual interpretations by Mariette Lydis include two of her characteristic decorated maps (both are signed). This is one of the early publications for the women’s book collecting club founded in Paris by the Princesse Schakhowskoy in 1926 as a direct riposte to ‘Les Cent’ — a bibliophile circle which then included no women among its members. Les Cent Une issued editions limited to the 101 members only and a handful of collaborators, usually no more than once a year, and the club is still in existence. Celeste Pigasse (née Crouzat) was a founder member and served as the club’s general secretary in its formative years (her husband founded the publishing house Librairie des Champs-Élysées ‘LCE’ whose Le Masque imprint published popular crime and detective fiction, including the French editions of Agatha Christie). Carteret IV, 322.

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  • Ourika... troisième édition. by [DURAS, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de]. [DURAS, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de]. ~ Ourika... troisième édition. Paris: [J. Tastu for] Ladvocat, 1824.
    First edition to contain the engraved frontispiece and title. Marked ‘troisième édition’ on the title-page, this edition, is actually the fourth — following the edition… (more)

    First edition to contain the engraved frontispiece and title. Marked ‘troisième édition’ on the title-page, this edition, is actually the fourth — following the edition printed privately (in just 25-40 copies) in 1823 and the first two trade editions of 1824. The illustrated edition is considerably rarer (at least in commerce) than the preceding two trade editions (and the true first virtually unobtainable). The plate shows Ourika at the moment of realisation of her isolation and her fate in white European society. Ourika, based on fact, and influenced by Rousseau and Chateaubriand, is the complex story of a black African child, bought (some said rescued) from the slave trade and raised in aristocratic circles in Revolutionary France. It is the first fully developed attempt to portray a black heroine in Europe and the first French novel with a black female narrator. It proved controversial from the start and remains so. On the one hand it has been interpreted as a compassionate account of both racial and female alienation (Duras certainly projects her own experience onto that of her heroine) while on the other it has been described as a sustained act of appropriation and even as an apology for slavery. Whatever is the case, it caused a sensation with the first trade edition of 1824 becoming a bestseller and later editions very widely read in France and further afield (with early translations into English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Danish).

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  • Helen Keller’s Journals. by KELLER, Helen. KELLER, Helen. ~ Helen Keller’s Journals. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company Inc, 1938.
    First edition, inscribed by Keller to artist and illustrator W. Graham Robertson: ‘To Mr Graham Robertson I send this book, hoping that it may convince… (more)

    First edition, inscribed by Keller to artist and illustrator W. Graham Robertson: ‘To Mr Graham Robertson I send this book, hoping that it may convince him of the reality of my cordial admiration. Helen Keller. September 24th 1938’ and loosely inserted is an envelope containing a telegram from Alexander Woollcott to Graham Robertson at Sandhills, his Surrey home saying, ‘Helen Keller and I send our love to you at Christmas’. Keller’s inscription is reproduced in Robertson’s Letters. In a letter of 29 December 1938 he recorded receiving ‘to my inordinate pride, an affectionate message from that eighth wonder of the world, Helen Keller. What have I ever done that she should think of me’. Several days later he outlined the background of their connection. ‘Helen Keller began some time ago to send me little messages through a mutual friend who had spoken to her of Time Was. I felt compelled to tell her (very gently and tactfully, I hope) that I was quite unable to believe her existence, and that she and her impossible career were quite obviously a beautiful fairy tale invented for the encouragement and comfort of the world. She then sent me one of her books, inscribed (of course she can write―that is quite a minor miracle) … And then she got Time Was in Braille and seemed to like it. And that’s how it happened that am privileged to call myself a friend of Helen Keller’s’.

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  • The Story of My Life. by TERRY, Ellen. TERRY, Ellen. ~ The Story of My Life. London: [Hazell, Watson and Viney for] Hutchinson, 1908.
    First edition, deluxe issue, inscribed to ‘To my dear Graham [Robertson] Sep 1908 ET Nelleanora’ on half-title, with a small collection of associated and autograph… (more)

    First edition, deluxe issue, inscribed to ‘To my dear Graham [Robertson] Sep 1908 ET Nelleanora’ on half-title, with a small collection of associated and autograph material. The book was limited to 1000 copies for sale of which the first 250 copies are signed copies this being 122. With the book is an envelope containing a small collection marked ‘Items linked to Ellen Terry’s Story of my Life’, which includes four Terry autograph fragments (two on an envelope, one on a photo postcard with a family group), several photographs (early copies) of Terry, items concerning the G.F. Watts portrait, newspaper cuttings, an autograph letter from Sir John Gielgud, letters from Terry’s daughter Edith Craig (‘Edy’, to whom Terry dedicates the book) and her grandson, Edward Craig.
    Ellen Terry was pre-eminent among the figures who defined the artist and illustrator W. Graham Robertson’s early life, dubbed by him ‘Our Lady of the Lyceum’ (Time Was) and his reminiscences of his time with her are among the most satisfying of his memoirs. He drew her several times, and The Story of my Life contains one of his portraits.

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  • Le Jugement par Jury, ou la Vengeance d’une Femme... by [DUBERGIER]. [DUBERGIER]. ~ Le Jugement par Jury, ou la Vengeance d’une Femme... Paris: Dondey-Dupré père et fils, 1824.
    First edition. A novel illustrating the contemporary vogue for fiction based on the records of the French law courts. A contemporary reviewer in the Revue… (more)

    First edition. A novel illustrating the contemporary vogue for fiction based on the records of the French law courts. A contemporary reviewer in the Revue encyclopèdique savaged the novel itself but evidently found the 38-page introduction interesting - being a commentary on the merits of the relatively recent development of trial by jury in France. The book found several other reviews in the same year and evidently divided opinion. The Revue bibliographique du Royaume des Pays-bas simply noted ‘Cet ouvrage a été saisi par la police’.

    Dubergier, who did not put his name on the title, was prolific both as a translator from English and as a novelist in his own right — usually favouring popular literature of the Walter Scott variety, sometime with Scottish or Irish settings. Querard, 11, p. 115. Worldcat lists the Bn and Princeton copies only.

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