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87 (LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN.) SOUTHEY, Robert. Joan of Arc. Bristol: printed by Bulgin and Rosser for Joseph Cottle, Cadell and Davies, and G. G. and J. Robinson, 1796 Quarto (270 × 212 mm). Contemporary tree calf, titles to red sheep label to spine, decorated gilt in compartments, frames gilt to covers, edges speck- led black, marbled endpapers. Later ownership inscription of the writer and publisher Roger Senhouse (co-founder of Secker & Warburg). Rebacked pre- serving original red morocco spine label, wear to extremities, slight scratch- ing to boards, light foxing to prelims and endpapers; a very good copy. first edition, important association copy presented by the ladies of llangollen and inscribed by them on the title page: “Anna Seward. The gift of the Right Honorable Lady Elea- nor Butler and Miss Ponsonby. Jan. 1797”. Lady Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831), known together as the Ladies of Llangollen, were a lesbian couple who lived in seclu- sion in the Vale of Llangollen in Northern Wales. They dressed in men’s clothing, furnished their home, Plas Newydd, in the Gothic style, and devoted their days to gardening, reading and study. Their unconventional life attracted the attention of outsiders, and many writers—including Southey, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Scott—came to visit the Ladies. The recipient, Midlands poet Anna Seward (1742–1809), first visited the Ladies in 1795, beginning an important friendship and correspondence. In 1796, Seward pub- lished “Llangollen Vale”, a poem celebrating her friendship with the Ladies. Seward mentioned her reading of Joan of Arc in a letter to Miss Ponsonby (“My progress through Joan of Arc is very slow, and slow I always make it over a composition of real genius”) and responded at length to the epic in a letter of 23 January 1797 to Lady Butler (“Its poetic beauties are so numberless, so intrinsic, that its poetic defects, however conspicuous, are as dust in the balance”). Seward’s “Lines written after reading Southey’s Joan of Arc ” was pub- lished in the European Magazine , August 1797. Letters of Anna Seward , vol. IV, printed by George Ramsay & Company, 1811, pp. 293–307. £3,250 [111618] 88 LAGERLÖF, Selma. Gösta Berlings saga. Stockholm: Frithiof Hellbergs förlag, 1891 2 volumes, octavo. Recased in the original black wrappers printed in orange, new endpapers. Extremities lightly rubbed and chipped, wrappers lightly scuffed and creased, book blocks strained in a couple of places but firm, margins lightly toned. A very good set. first edition, presentation copy of lagerlöf’s first novel, inscribed by the author to her Danish translator Ida Fal- be-Hansen (1849–1922) and her partner Elisabeth Grundvig (1856– 1945) on the front flyleaf of volume I, with their pencil marginalia throughout: “Frkr Falbe Hansen och Grundtvig med taeksamhet
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86 KELLY, Howard Atwood. Distinguished Women of the Nineteenth Century. [Liverpool:] bound for Kelly by Henry Young and Sons, 1927 Oblong small folio (255 × 345 mm). Original red crushed morocco, titles to front cover in gilt, spine in compartments, turn-ins rolled in gilt, edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Housed in a custom brown cloth solander box. With 104 engravings, photogravures, photographs or prints representing 92 women, with typewritten captions mounted beneath. The original receipt from Hen- ry Young and Sons, Liverpool, to Howard Atwood Kelly, dated 30 June 1927, sent to Kelly at his address in Baltimore, Maryland loosely inserted. Album paper slightly brittle, split to gutter of 14 leaves, professionally restored, 3 leaves professionally reattached, occasional light offsetting. Spine of box cracked but holding. A remarkably bright example. A uniquely compiled and handsomely bound photobook, contain- ing short illustrated biographies of 92 prominent women of the 19th century, including Helen Keller, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Fry, and Edith Cavell , among numerous impressive others. The work was produced by and bound for Dr Howard Atwood Kelly (1858–1943), an innovative gynaecologist, medical biographer, and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Mar- yland. Kelly was known throughout his life as a women’s rights ad- vocate, playing an active role in debates around a number of issues relating to women’s health in the US. The women collected here reflect Kelly’s own interests: devoutly Christian, the advancement of medicine, and active charity work, and reflect an expansive interest in literature, the majority of the women included being authors. Loosely inserted into this work is a letter from Walter D. Lantz to television and film producer Ms Mary Feldhaus-Weber, dated 16 De- cember 1974. In the letter Lantz offers Feldhaus-Weber the work, ref- erencing an attached newspaper clipping which prompted the offer (an advertisement published in the Parade Magazine supplement to The Philadelphia Bulletin of 8 December 1974 for the television series, “Great American Women You Ought to Know”). Informally termed the Stan- ton Project, it was to be a series of biographical television programmes on key women in American history produced for the 1976 Bicentennial celebrations; it was unfortunately never completed. This is a remarkable collection of ephemeral images of influen- tial women, many of whom have been under-served historically, and which demonstrates contemporary interest in recording and memorializing these women’s lives. £2,250 [117865]
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