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43 (COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor, & Sara.) KLEIST, Franz von. Sappho. Ein dramatisches Gedicht. Berlin: In der Vossischen Buchhandlung, 1793 Small octavo (149 × 92 mm). Nineteenth-century half vellum, green and red spine labels, spine richly gilt, marbled sides and edges. Housed in a green cloth folding case, black leather spine labels. Engraved frontispiece, en- graved title incorporating vignette portrait, 2 engraved vignettes in the text; printed on pale blue stock. A very good copy. First edition, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s copy, with his ownership inscription at the head of the title, presented by him to his daugh- ter Sara Coleridge , inscribed on the blank recto of the frontispiece, “Sara Coleridge, from her affectionate Father, S. T. Coleridge”, and on a slip mounted on the preceding blank, “N.B. I never read this poem, but I have heard it praised. S.T.C.” A richly suggestive asso- ciation copy: Sappho had a profound influence on the Romantic idea of the poet as a creature of feeling, and the Romantic period abounded with translations and treatments of her work, not least Robert Southey’s Sappho: A Monodrama , also published in 1893. Rob- ert Southey and his wife Edith raised Sara Coleridge (1802–1852), Coleridge’s third child and only daughter, and Southey suggested Sara’s first published work, a translation of Dobrizhoffer’s book on Paraguay, Historia de Abiponibus (1784), her version of which was published by John Murray in 1822. In January 1823 Sara used the proceeds of that publication to visit her father in Highgate, meet- ing him for the first time as an adult. The presentation presumably dates from after that encounter. There is a particular aptness to the gift, the poet giving his high- ly intelligent, newly-published daughter a German work in honour of the most famous female poet of antiquity. Coleridge had known and greatly admired Mary “Perdita” Robinson, author of Sappho and Phaon (1796), who in 1800 published a poem “To the Poet Coler- idge” in the Morning Post using the nom-de-plume “Sappho”, in reply to which Coleridge published a poem of Wordsworth’s to which he gave the title “Alcaeus to Sappho”. In his youth Coleridge had spent fruitful time in Germany in 1798–9, though his wholehearted assimilation of German litera- ture and philosophy would lead, especially after publication of his Biographia Literaria (1819), to charges of plagiarism and pretence to knowledge. The small note perhaps reflects sensitivity to the latter charge. (For Sappho, see item 131.) £9,750 [130036]
41 CIXOUS, Hélène. Le Prénom de dieu. Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1967 Octavo. Original white wrappers printed in black and brown. Housed in a red cloth solander box. Text in French. Spine very lightly sunned, faint soil- ing to covers; else a near-fine copy in the solander box with shelf mark stick- er to front panel. first trade edition, presentation copy of cixous’s first published work, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Pour Raymond Federman avec amitîé Hélène Cixous”. The recipient was the French-American novelist, essayist, and Beckett critic and bib- liographer Raymond Federman (1928–2009), who edited a number of Cixous’s critical essays on Beckett. At the time of the inscription the pair were part of the same active French literary circle, Cixous having been appointed maître de conférence at Paris Nanterre Universi- ty in that year. This work predates the publication of Cixous’s doc- toral thesis in 1968. £650 [61763] 42 COBBOLD, Lady Evelyn. Pilgrimage to Mecca. London: John Murray, 1934 Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece, 12 plates and full-page map. Spine faintly browned, foxing to edges, endpapers, and occasionally to margins; else a near-fine copy in the scarce, lightly foxed jacket with browned spine, slight nicks to extremities. first edition, in the scarce dust jacket. In 1933, at the age of 65, Lady Cobbold became the first British Muslim woman to make the hajj. The work is “a valuable record of the hajj: for once, a wom- an’s view from the inside out . . . the picture she gives of the expe- rience is unelaborate and revealing, and detailed enough to serve as a guidebook as well as a travel account” (Robinson, p. 41). An uncommon work; Copac lists copies in 11 British institutions. Cobbold spent winters in Algeria and Egypt during her child- hood, where “she learnt to speak Arabic and delighted in escap- ing her governess to visit local mosques with her Algerian friends” ( ODNB ). She converted to Islam in around 1914, having continued to travel and study in the region. Robinson, Jane, Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers , Oxford University Press, 1990. £1,500 [130639]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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