Foolscap quarto (328 × 205 mm). Wire-stitched in the original printed green-blue light card wrappers. 5 maps and plans, 3 of them folding, one of these being a large general regional map ( c. 440 × 540 mm); 7 folding annexures containing detailed parallel timelines for Owerri and Calabar Provinces. Wrappers damped on the front panel, some carry-through to the first couple of leaves, chipping and splitting at the edges, staples corroded with some associated staining, a few leaves coming loose, book block lightly browned and with occasional mild hygroscopic damping to the margins, remains very good. A substantial, highly detailed official account of the Aba Women’s War; the primary source for what is one of the most significant and closely-studied events of the colonial period in Nigeria, the first major challenge to British authority in West Africa during the colonial period . It is a somewhat fragile, and consequently uncom- mon survival; around a dozen locations worldwide on OCLC, no copies recorded at auction. Variously referred to in the official record as the Aba Women’s Riots or the Women’s Market Rebellion, this campaign is probably more fairly called “The Women’s War”—the term used by partici- pants themselves in both the Igbo and Ibibio language accounts of the conflict. Though the causes of the war were long in the mak- ing, it was sparked by the extending of taxes to the operations of the women at market, who, in the Igbo tradition, were tax-exempt. Women in the region had traditionally held significant roles in so- ciety, and their importance in the distribution of produce at market in particular brought with it wider rights within the public domain: participation in the discussion of important issues, representa- tion on decision-making bodies, and the right to own and inherit property. Opposition quickly coalesced, and it expressed itself in a suitably traditional, and as it proved, highly effective manner. Thousands of women congregated in the regional centres of Owerri and Cal- abar and invoked the long-established local method of censure of “sitting on a man”—a kind of Nigerian charivari where an offender against a woman’s rights could be publicly harassed by the women of the village, his offences guyed in song and dance, his house sur- rounded, and his possessions destroyed. At the height of the war over 25,000 women were involved, and an area of over 6,000 square miles affected; a number of warrant chiefs were forced to resign, the women attacked and looted European-owned factories, broke open prisons releasing prisoners, and attacked the colonially run native courts, burning many to the ground. When the Nigeria Po- lice Force, a paramilitary constabulary associated with the native local authorities—and the army fired into the crowds at Calabar and Owerri, some 55 women were killed and another 50 wounded. While they physically suppressed the rising, the colonial authorities were forced to radically adjust their policies to assimilate the wom- en’s grievances. The market tax was not imposed, women were ap- pointed to serve on native courts, in some areas they were allowed to replace male warrant chiefs, and non-elite women gained access to previously barred social action. “Ordinary women themselves had transformed traditional methods for networking and express- ing disapproval against individuals into mechanisms for challeng- ing and profoundly unsettling the local colonial administration” (Geiger, p. 229). Geiger, Susan, “Women and African Nationalism”, Journal of Women’s History , II, 1, 1990, p. 229; Johnson, Cheryl, “Grassroots Organising: Woman in Anticolonial Activity in Southwestern Nigeria”, African Studies Review , XXV, 2–3, 1982. £2,500 [128414]
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165 WOLFF, Charlotte. Studies in Hand-Reading. With a Preface by Aldous Huxley. London: Chatto & Windus, 1936 Octavo. Original pink cloth, titles and pentangle device to spine in gilt, top edge red, bottom edge untrimmed. Portrait frontispiece of the author from a photograph by Man Ray, and 62 other plates of palm-prints, with schema- tised reading diagrams to the text. Spine a little dull, a couple of tiny white dots to front cover, faint offsetting to free endpaper, text lightly toned, over- all a very good copy. first edition. In this richly illustrated work Wolff “attempts to demonstrate an unexpectedly close correlation between the de- tailed configuration of the hand and the outstanding traits form- ing the personality complex of the owner of the hands” (Schultz, p. 479). To do this she analyses the palms of numerous key contem- porary creative figures, including her close friend Aldous Huxley, whom she first met in the artist’s community of Sanary-sur-Mer in 1933. Huxley provides the preface to this work, and it was he and his wife Maria who persuaded a number of those figures includ- ed, such as Virginia Woolf and George Bernard Shaw, to have their hands read. Wolff noted in her autobiography that Maria, “treated my new venture as if it were her own . . . she devoted all her time and energy to introducing me into her and Aldous’s circle” (Wolff, p. 87). A powerful intellectual figure, Wolff continued her study of hand reading in three further works: The Human Hand (1943), A Psy- chology of Gesture (1945) and The Hand in Psychological Diagnosis (1951). Wolff (1897–1986) was born in Riesenburg (now Prabuty, Poland) and studied literature and philosophy at the University of Freiburg before graduating in medicine. She then worked as a physician and psychotherapist in the predominantly underserved working class districts of Berlin. In 1933 she was forced to flee Germany; she first went to Sanary-sur-Mer in Paris, and then onto London in 1936, taking British citizenship in 1947. Wolff is also widely respected for her pioneering works on lesbianism and bisexuality; her work Bi- sexuality: A Study (1977) was the first serious academic study to be published on the subject, and was the result of interviews with 150 self-identified bisexuals. The present work is surprisingly uncom- mon, with just nine copies traced on Copac. Schultz, Adolph H., “Hand Psychology: Review”, The Scientific Monthly , 1943; Wolff, Charlotte, On the Way to Myself: Communications to a Friend , Methuen and Co., 1969. £450 [127487]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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