Louder Than Words

LOUDER THAN WORDS WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD

Peter Harrington l o n d o n

subject index Abolition 69, 70 Abortion & contraception 27, 41, 63, 81 ASIA & Asian writers

Peter Harrington l o n d o n

2, 6, 16, 43, 45–6, 52, 82, 84–5, 87, 111, 132, 138

Astronomy 108, 119 Autobiography

catalogue 191

6, 55, 74, 85, 89, 92, 98, 139

Black writers

3, 27, 34, 44, 56, 110, 147 Booksellers & printers 12, 21, 59 Botany 48, 84 Dedication copies 8, 31, 44, 94, 126 Economics 17, 66–7, 71, 99, 139, 143 Education 2, 5, 32, 40, 47, 74–5, 131 Exploration

LOUDER THAN WORDS WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD

Actions are said to speak louder than words, but the right words published at the right time themselves inspire action. We celebrate the legacy of trailblazing writers, thinkers, activists, scientists, and travellers through exceptional first editions, special copies and objects, and significant archival material. Early voices include Yolande Bonhomme, the 16th-century Parisian printer (21), Anna Maria van Schurman, one of the most learned women of early modern Europe (131), and Juliana Berners, the first published female author in English (15). Fray Martín advocates, in 1542, for women’s ability to govern (104), and John Thorley’s Melisse⁻logia confirms the ruler of the hive as a queen (141). Not all power is freely or equally given, however. Flora Tristan’s cry, “workers of the world unite!”, precedes the Communist Manifesto by five years (143). Equal pay is demanded, in 1792 by Deborah Sampson, who served in the American Revolutionary War (127), in the 1860s by striking laundresses (145), and in the 1950s by the cross-party EPCC (60). The Sisters Grimké petition for the abolition of slavery in 1837 (69 & 70) and, nearly two centuries later, Reni Eddo-Lodge reflects on the impact of her chart-topping work on race relations (56). For many marginalized voices seeking power, the penalties were severe. Supporters of the fight for women’s suffrage (see index) and the “Dangerous Ladies” of the Irish Civil War speak from behind bars (83). Moments of defiance are balanced by humour and joy, obscurity by recognition. Delight in exploration is clear in the famous narratives of Isabella Bird and Alexandra David-Néel (16, 45, & 46), as well as lesser-known accounts by travelling friends (18, 82). Trailblazing scientists Antonia Maury, Mary Proctor, and Mary Somerville were honoured in outer space, with lunar craters named after them (108, 119, & 137). Diversity of gender and sexuality brings a fresh and important perspective to the selection. The life of 19th-century army surgeon Dr James Barry fascinated his contemporaries (10); the frank and colourful diaries of Anne Lister (“Gentleman Jack”) stand as “the Dead Sea Scrolls of lesbian history” (98); journalist Jan Morris, one of the first high-profile people to transition, gives her sensitive impressions of apartheid South Africa in the 1950s (109); and Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore write cheerful postcards from Left Bank Paris and from exile in war-torn Jersey (36). It is a pleasure simply to sit back and observe these writers talk among themselves. Evelyn Page, one of Sylvia Plath’s teachers, gives writing advice to the young prodigy at Smith College (117); Djuna Barnes, Katherine Burdekin, Nancy Cunard, Vernon Lee, and Vita Sackville-West offer dedication copies to lovers and friends (8, 31, 44, 94, & 126); Alice Rahon gifts her poetry to Peggy Guggenheim (121); Anne Dacier and Renée Vivien translate Sappho (128 & 129); and Rebecca Torr passes a manuscript recipe book to her daughter (142). Leaving words aside, Mary Gartside’s experiments in colour theory (64) and Helena Bocho ř áková-Dittrichová’s graphic novel (20) reimagine the visual arts. It is a privilege to share these conversations with you. r

13, 14, 16, 18, 22, 45–6, 50, 55, 57, 72, 80, 82, 109, 122–3, 132

Feminism

39, 63, 77, 136, 143 Film & photography

22, 30, 63, 72, 101, 112, 108, 156

Illustrations

2, 20, 43, 49, 64, 87, 92–3, 111, 121, 138

Imprisonment

54, 73, 83, 89–91, 136, 139, 152

Labour protests 60, 143, 145 LGBTQIA+

8–10, 25, 32, 36, 76, 94, 97–8, 109, 126, 128–9, 140, 146, 148

Marriage & divorce 38, 58, 71, 81, 149 Medicine

10, 17, 37, 58, 113, 156

Music

3, 28, 44, 101 Mythology & folklore 35, 83, 102, 111, 135 Ownership, female

7, 17, 24, 29, 32, 37, 42, 85, 95, 105, 108, 118, 142, 155 7, 13, 24, 26–7, 29, 88, 97, 102, 106, 114–5, 117, 121, 128–9, 134–5, 140, 144

Poetry

Pulitzer Prize-winning 27, 114, 140 Science & technology

all items from this catalogue are on display at dover street chelsea

11, 53, 62, 64, 79, 100, 108, 137

Suffrage

4, 54, 65, 71, 73, 89, 91, 107, 125, 150–3

mayfair 43 Dover Street London w1s 4ff

Translation

100 Fulham Road London sw3 6hs

6, 13, 29, 115, 128–9

Wartime

10, 50, 58, 68, 80, 83, 111, 113, 127, 130, 156

uk 020 7591 0220

eu 00 44 20 7591 0220

usa 011 44 20 7591 0220

Theodora Robinson : theodora@peterharrington.co.uk Emma Walshe : emmawalshe@peterharrington.co.uk Front cover photograph from the 1952 Equal Pay Campaign, item 60; image opposite from a travel journal, item 18. Design: Nigel Bents & Abbie Ingleby. Photography: Ruth Segarra & Jue Shuen Soh. Staff portraits: Sophia Vrahimi.

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1 ACKER, Kathy. The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula. [San Diego, California: Community Congress Press,] June – September 1973 “i have become a murderess by repeating in words the lives of other murderesses” A rare complete set of Acker’s first novel, self-published in parts and mailed to whomever she thought might take notice. It successfully enshrined her reputation in the art and avant- garde literary worlds. We have located only seven instances of the complete run in institutional holdings, all in the US. The Childlike Life juxtaposes fictionalized and fragmented autobiographical scenes with plagiarized literary excerpts, creating “a completely new type of narrative which still, years later, feels mind-blowingly experimental” (Fedorova). Although essentially plotless, it consists of several fantasies based on books Acker had read, ostensibly written by The Black Tarantula, Acker’s pseudonym. An American punk poet who lived most of her life in London, Acker never felt entirely at home on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The popularity of her image – the iconic bleach blonde crop and muscular, tattooed back – has often obscured her cult-writer status, and her own deliberate fictionalizations of her life, repeating and reinventing her histories, have made Acker a myth that biographers have struggled to approach. Six volumes, octavo. Original wire-stitched white and light brown wrappers, front wrapper of No. 3 lettered in black, No. 6 printed in blue. Lightly pencilled titles to front wrappers of Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 5. A little toned at edges with a few marks to wrappers, No. 1 lightly

creased; a near-fine set. ¶ Anastasiia Fedorova, “The Power of Cult Feminist Writer Kathy Acker”, ID Magazine , 24 August 2017. £4,000 [148879] 2 AI DAO WOMEN’S BIBLE SCHOOL. Legends of Ancient China. Chefoo [Yantai]: Self-help Department, Women’s Bible School, Presbyterian Mission, [c.1930] A pretty album, retaining the frequently discarded explanatory sheet, handmade by Chinese students at the Ai Dao Women’s Bible School attached to the American Presbyterian Mission in Chefoo. Throughout the 1930s, the school produced various themed papercut collections to raise funds, all of which are now uncommon; we have traced no copies of this collection in UK institutions. The education of women became a priority for social reformers in the wake of the May Fourth Movement, and schools like Ai Dao were at the forefront of this revolution in education. Landscape octavo (183 × 230 mm), ff. [8]. Original decorative silk brocade, black thread xianzhuang stitching, edges untrimmed. Explanatory sheet loosely inserted as issued. Papercut showing rural Chinese scene mounted on title page, 7 similar papercuts with captioned glassine guards. Brocade bright, internally clean, a little creasing to glassine guards and explanatory sheet. A fine copy. £750 [155035]

3 ANDERSON, Marian – ALPHA KAPPA ALPHA. Autograph album presented to Marian Anderson. Philadelphia: 4 June 1938 “phyllis wheatley, harriet tubman and sojourner truth hoped . . . but you dear marian carry on” An album amicorum gifted to celebrated contralto Marian Anderson by her sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Greek- letter organization established by African American women and one of the major backers of Anderson’s Easter Sunday concert in 1939. It was compiled on the occasion of an AKA dinner given in Anderson’s honour, and at which she sang, on 4 June 1938.

The 47 entries inscribed to “Soror Anderson” are full of warmth and admiration, celebrating her influence and achievements in both opera and the fight for racial equality. The longest entries are by Ida L. Byrd and Mamie E. Davis. The former writes: “It is given to few people to become legends while they live, but you dear Soror have accomplished even this because your Sorors and all the Negro people to-day hold you in their hearts as a legend to be loved and cherished. Your triumphs are their triumphs, and your laurels are their laurels; your grace and simplicity are for your whole people an unmatched diadem. Phyllis Wheatley, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth hoped and profesied [ sic ] for their race, but you dear Marian carry on; you achieve for your people! Sisterly yours”. Davis closes out the album by saying, “every time I hear you I feel I have participated in a ‘High Occasion’, every time I read words of praise for you, I see the racial barriers broken down one by one. Excellence will do more to make us all one race, you are doing your share”. Oblong duodecimo (114 × 150 mm). Contemporary tan skiver commercial autograph album, smooth unlettered spine, front cover lettered and blocked in gilt, cream moire silk endpapers, green silk Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) crest clipped and pasted onto front free endpaper, pale yellow, green, blue, and pink paper stock, of which 48 pp. inscribed in ink in different hands (mostly to rectos, some versos). With 4 illustrative clippings pasted in: a brief history of the sorority on front free endpaper verso; a captioned printed photograph of Ethel Hedgeman Lyle opposite her entry; a signed original photograph of Ida L. Byrd opposite her entry; and lyrics to “The Ivy” on both final blanks; verso of the clippings printing the AKA Directorate. Thin paper-backed skiver covers sometime cleanly separated from boards, front preserved and expertly tipped-on, rear since lost; contents bright and clean. Internally very good, the binding itself fragile. £2,500 [161178]

All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

The question of women’s suffrage, and its particular relevance within the structures of the University of Oxford, had been a topic of frequent discussion in Oxford prior to the formal debate on the subject at the Oxford Union on 19 February 1880. The work of societies like the Oxford Women’s Liberal Association (OWLA) and the Women’s Emancipation Union, together with the activism of Florence Davenport Hill, a founding member of the Bristol Women’s Suffrage society in 1868 who had since moved to Headington, paved the way for the existence of groups like the AEW (and, later, the Oxford Women’s Suffrage Society). Founded in 1878, the AEW sought “to establish a system of lectures to be conducted with general reference to the Oxford examination of women over 18 years of age which had been introduced in November 1875 . . . The council and officers of the AEW laid down general rules for the conduct of students and their attendance at lectures, and made itself responsible for arrangements with tutors and payment of fees, and for the negotiations by which University Examinations were gradually opened to women” (Salter & Lobel). The organization’s work led to the founding of four women’s colleges: Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville opened in 1879, followed by St Hugh’s in 1886 and St Hilda’s in 1893. St Anne’s also originated as part of the AEW, catering for female students who lived with private families in Oxford while attending courses run by the society. The AEW counted the activist Eleanor Smith (1823–1896) among its founding members and Annie Rogers (1856–1937), Oxford’s first woman don, as a secretary. The AEW continued its activities until November 1920, when it dissolved itself as the University, by admitting women to membership, had made itself responsible for them.

Twenty-three issues, octavo: comprising a total of 616 pages, the issues c .20–30 pp. in length. Original printed paper wrappers, sewn and wire-stitched as issued. Housed in a former library’s dark purple cloth flat-back box with metal latch closure, paper spine label reading “Australian Council for Educational Research”. Each issue complete, with stamps, shelf marks, and labels of the Education Department Library, latterly the Board of Education Library. Overall a scarce survival in very good condition. Shelf wear and creasing to wrappers, those for the earliest issue detached; rear wrapper for the 1909–10 issue torn but no loss. ¶ “The University of Oxford”, in H. E. Salter & Mary D. Lobel, eds, A History of the County of Oxford , vol. 3, 1954. £3,000 [124133] 6 BABUR; Annette Susannah Beveridge (trans.) The Bābur-nāma in English (“Memoirs of Bābur”). London: Luzac & Co., 1922 First edition in book form of this landmark version of the Bāburnāma , the earliest example of autobiographical writing in world literature, the diary of Zahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and descendant of Timur, translated into English directly from the original Chagatai Turkish, the spoken language of the Andijan- Timurids; complete sets are extremely uncommon. After study at the Unitarian-led Bedford College, the independently-minded Annette Beveridge ( née Akroyd, 1842–1949) went to India to start a school for Hindu girls. Her version of the Bāburnāma “consumed nearly twenty years of her life because of the research required on fundamental matters, such as establishing the authentic text and knowledge of a language then little known in the West . . the hallmarks of her work – the most complete of indices, and scrupulous footnotes and appendices on matters of fact – have made it invaluable for later scholars” ( ODNB ). Two volumes, octavo (208 × 137 mm). Contemporary moderate brown cloth, red leather labels. 5 half-tone plates and 2 plans (of Chanderi and Gwalior). Labels a little dry and slightly flaked, a touch of foxing to endpapers. A very good set, with a number of scholarly annotations between pp. 10 and 26 in vol. I, suggestive of someone proficient in Persian. £1,950 [141930]

4 ANTHONY, Susan B. The Status of Woman, Past, Present, and Future. [Boston: Arena Publishing Co.,] 1897 “The right protective of all other rights – the ballot” Original offprint, inscribed by the author at the head: “with a happy New Year Susan B. Anthony Rochester N.J. Jan. 1. 1898”. The Arena was a liberal journal founded in Boston in 1889, openly advocating for birth control, trust-busting, and the single-tax, and featuring articles on social problems including slums, child labour, and poverty. Anthony was requested by the journal, in the run up to the 50th anniversary of the Seneca Falls convention, “to state what really has come out of our half-century of agitation, and what is sure to come in the near future”. Anthony outlines the status of women at the time of the convention, and the positive changes since then, including far more professions open to women. Political changes to effect this had mostly occurred at the state level. She writes that their efforts must remain focused on a 16th amendment to the constitution to grant women the vote. Anthony is recorded as returning to her Rochester home in late 1897 after an extensive lecture tour through the West. Octavo, 4 leaves paginated 901–908, stapled. Housed in custom green cloth solander box, green morocco label to front. With 3.5 cm closed tear at head throughout, affecting inscription and lettering without loss; generally browned with some chipping and tears at extremities. Still, a sound copy of a fragile publication. £5,500 [162019] 5 ASSOCIATION FOR PROMOTING THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN OXFORD. A run of 23 issues of its Report. Oxford: printed for the Association by the Printers to the University [6 issues with the imprint of Horace Hart; the last 5 with that of Frederick Hall], 1894–1919 the state of women’s education in oxford at the height of the suffragette agitation

A set of important reports published by the pioneering Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women (AEW), containing a mass of historical information relating to the state of women’s education in Oxford. The earliest is dated 1894–95, the latest 1918–19; each spans from October of one year to the same month of the next; just two issues are absent from the run (1900–01 and 1910–11). The reports are scarce in any sequence. WorldCat and Library Hub trace runs at the London School of Economics and the British Library, and the society’s papers and publications are held in the Bodleian, deposited in the Library in 1975.

the foot of leaf F7 and the catchword cunningly concealed. The supplied leaf [F8] carries the verse entitled “In laudem Sagittatiorum”. The British Library holds several books on archery with notes in her hand; it also holds two copies of Archerie Reviv’d , so the present volume may have escaped from Dorothea’s bequest as being a duplicate. Archerie Reviv’d is certainly not a common book: ESTC locates copies in seven British and seven North American institutions, and auction records show a mere seven copies being presented since 1920 (in 1950 Maggs offered Charles II’s copy in contemporary morocco). The present binding matches that of the Folger Library copy, their catalogue identifying it as the work of the “Tulip Spine Binder”, active in England in the 1670s when the tulip was a popular form of decoration. Regrettably, at some point the spine of our copy was lost before the original binder could be identified. Octavo (177 × 111 mm). Contemporary English black morocco neatly rebacked to style, sides with gilt double panel incorporating tulip and sunflower tools, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, remnants of green fabric ties. Initial blank present, terminal leaf supplied (see note) and somewhat shorter with paper flaw grazing one letter. Light wear at tips else binding in bright condition, some surface loss and patching to endpapers (where perhaps once pasted together), contents lightly browned, scattered foxing. A very good copy. ¶ESTC R5622; Grolier, Wither to Prior , 801; Wing S3647. R. K. Eaglen, “Sarah Sophia Banks and her English Hammered Coins”, The British Numismatic Journal , Volume 78, 2008; Antonia Fraser, King Charles II , 1993; H. J. Jackson, Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books , 2001; Lawrence V. Ryan, “Roger Ascham’s Toxophilus in Heroic Verse”, The Huntington Library Quarterly , Vol. 22, February 1959, p. 119. £3,000 [150462] 8 BARNES, Djuna. Ryder. New York: Horace Liverlight, 1928 a time-capsule of barnes’s most destructive and passionate relationship First edition, first printing, the dedication copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to the love of her life, Thelma Wood: “Maybe my Bobolenck Simon would like this – Djuna, August 1928 Paris”. Wood has preserved, inserted in this copy, keepsakes of their stormy relationship, including a leaf of a powerful unpublished love letter from Barnes dated March 1922, the year after they met. “Simon” was a well-known nickname for Wood; “Bobolenck” is more obscure. Barnes may mean “Bobolink”, a small type of blackbird. The bird is the subject of a poem published by their mutual friend Edna St Vincent Millay the same year: “Only the bobolink on the rainy rhubarb blossom knows my heart . . . Bobolink, you and I, an airy fool and an earthy chuckling under rain!”. If Barnes intended it as a term of endearment, it is in inauspicious one, as Millay was another of Wood’s lovers. Barnes ended their relationship just months after inscribing this book. Besides her inscription, she has hand- coloured her illustrations in her distinctive bright pink ink and annotated the work in five places. The couple were both American expatriates living in Paris. Wood was well- regarded as a silverpoint artist, and Barnes was a journalist and budding author. Their cohabitation was characterized by

heavy drinking, partying, arguing, and infidelity. The fragment of a love letter Woods kept with this book dates from one of Barnes’s earliest visits back to America. It is a distraught and melodramatic passage that illustrates the jealousy and passion that defined their relationship: “I can’t tell you anything now – excepting that it has all been for nothing – I think of you Thelma & it is my only happiness. For God’s sake remain aloof & love no one too much . . . I love you & I suffer”. For Barnes and Wood, 1928 was “one of the dark years” (Field, p. 119). Barnes wanted a monogamous relationship (despite her own infidelities), and Thelma’s spiralling alcoholism and refusal to stop seeing other people strained their love past breaking point. In the same month as this inscription, Barnes wrote to Robert McAlmon claiming her life was a hell, and to Emily Coleman she suggested that Thelma wanted to kill her. Barnes ended the relationship over Wood’s infatuation with Henriette McCrea Metcalf, whom she skewered as Jenny Petherbridge in her masterpiece Nightwood (1936), a work that Wood claimed ruined her life. As well as the love-letter, the other items kept by Wood offer a tender time-capsule: a newspaper clipping of Barnes’s most famous headshot; a full-length photograph of her on a beach; two copies of a striking personally printed postcard

showing Wood alongside the lover who introduced her to Barnes, Berenice Abbott, and two individuals who remain unknown; Wood’s signed business card; a photograph of a rosebush; a photo-developer envelope dated 14 March 1946; a shop slip with Wood’s name and “£100” written in manuscript; an invitation to an exhibition of Wood’s artwork at Quatre Chemins in Paris (with the pencilled addresses of Ernest Brown of Leicester Galleries and Lady Una Troubridge on verso); and an advertisement card for a shop and bar in Monterrey, Mexico. Ryder is Barnes’s first attempt at a family history, describing her early life on the Huntington farm, comic anecdotes about their unusual living arrangements, and tales from the London literary scene, of which her grandmother Zadel was a fixture. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in red, top edge red, others uncut. Frontispiece and 8 illustrations by the author, 7 of which are hand-coloured by her. This copy has a duplicate of the plate at p. 302 loosely inserted, also hand-coloured. Spine faded, minor rubbing to board edges, touch of wear to tips, a very good copy. ¶ Carley Moore, “Taking Responsibility: An Interview with Sarah Schulman”, Los Angeles Review of Books , 14 October 2018; Andrew Field, Djuna, the Life and Times of Djuna Barnes, 1983. £15,000 [161973]

7 BANKS, Sarah Sophia – SHOTTEREL, Robert, & Thomas D’Urfey. Archerie Reviv’d; or, The Bow-Man’s Excellence. London: Printed by Thomas Roycroft, 1676 “In laudem Sagittatiorum”: from the library of an expert archer and great collector First edition of this decidedly uncommon work, an entertaining poetical treatment in heroic couplets of Roger Ascham’s Toxophilus (1545), presented here in contemporary morocco by the “Tulip Spine Binder” and with a distinguished provenance, being from the library of Sarah Sophia Banks (1744–1818), an exceptional and assiduous collector of antiquarian items and herself a keen archer. Sarah Sophia, the sister of Sir Joseph Banks, “created a collection like no other, documenting the time she lived in. Going to the theatre, to see friends or shopping, Banks saw the value in even the smallest witness to these transactions and interactions, a record of daily life in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her collection was initially bequeathed to her sister-in-law, Dorothea, who immediately donated it to the British Museum” (British Museum online). This copy of Archerie Reviv’d has her discreet and carefully penned ownership inscription at the head of leaf B1, “S: S: Banks 1792”, and a note in her hand on a slip tipped to the initial blank which reveals her astute eye and the care and attention that she displays in her approach to the “antique”: “Observe in page 78 Finis is pasted on, and the catch word is covered with a piece of blank paper to hide the defficiency [ sic ]. Have since procured the wanting leaf”. Sure enough, the word “Finis” has been clipped from another copy and pasted at

All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

LOUDER THAN WORDS

10 BARRY, James. Two contemporary manuscript accounts. 1865 “the most hardened creature i ever met”

Two contemporary manuscript accounts of the “strange but true story” of the distinguished army physician Dr James Barry, including reports by his acquaintances. Barry, the first British surgeon to perform a C-section in which both the mother and baby survived, was born Margaret Ann Bulkley, but his story was not publicly known until a month after his death in 1865. Dr James Barry ( c .1789–1865) studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (1809–12) and went on to a career as a highly respected and skilled army surgeon, with postings in Canada, the Caribbean, Cape Town, Corfu, St Helena, and Malta. Though on many occasions suspected of being born a woman, Barry’s medical expertise and a group of distinguished benefactors and friends proved a powerful protection, and he ended his career as inspector general of military hospitals (a rank equivalent to that of major general). Upon Barry’s death in London on 25 July 1865, the layer-out noticed he bore the marks of having given birth to a child when very young. The story first broke publicly in Ireland on 14 August and five days later appeared in the London Morning Post under the title “A Strange Story”, quickly spreading abroad. Of the two present accounts, one is from the Scottish peer Thomas Fraser, 12th Lord Lovat (1802–1875) to Thomas Bamford Lang (1820–1868), the controller of the Edinburgh post office, while the other is anonymous. Fraser’s account opens with a report on Barry transcribed as “A Strange Story Abridgment from the Ladies Journal Aug 26”. He expresses surprise at the “curious story” and the fact that none of Barry’s “relations or friends” have disputed it and notes that “it is in some measure corroborated by the evidence of Officers who knew this individual and who are known to me”, followed by several anecdotes: “First, Major Gordon who knew Barry intimately describes his or her physical characteristics to be correctly described in the above account”. Barry met Major Gordon in Crimea after obtaining leave from his posting in Corfu to go to the front in October 1855. On Barry’s journey to Sevastopol he encountered Florence Nightingale, who later recalled: “I never had such a blackguard rating in all my life – I who have had more than any woman – than from this Barry sitting on his horse, while I was crossing the Hospital Square with only my cap on in the sun. He kept me standing in the midst of quite a crowd of soldiers, Commissariat, servants, camp followers, etc., etc., every one of whom behaved like a gentleman during the scolding I received while he behaved like a brute . . . After he was dead, I was told that (Barry) was a woman . . . I should say that (Barry) was the most hardened creature I ever met.” The other account, in a different hand, is an anonymous account of Barry’s career, opening with the same paraphrased report from 26 August 1865 as in Fraser’s account, followed by a quotation from a letter by Dr R. T. McCowan of Paisley which was published in the Whitehaven News on 7 September: “He lay at the point of death one time, and gave strict injunctions to my friend, Dr. O’Connor, who attended him, not to allow his body to be inspected or disturbed in the event of his decease, but to be buried immediately with his clothes on”. In Trinidad

9 BARNEY, Natalie Clifford. The One Who Is Legion, or A.D.’s After-Life. London: Privately Subscribed by Eric Partridge Ltd, 1930 “for spirits, when they please, can either sex assume, or both” – paradise lost First edition, first impression, one of 525 trade copies, scarce in the jacket. This meditation on the essential androgyny of the soul is the second book in English and the only novel of the American expatriate “Amazon of Paris”, one of the most influential lesbian and feminist writers of the period and an inspiration for Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness . The Paris salon of Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1872) at 20 rue Jacob was for 60 years the crucible of Left Bank culture. Barney promoted women’s writing and formed an Académie des femmes in response to the all-male Académie française, while also supporting and inspiring male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote. She had numerous female lovers, including the illustrator of this book; see item 129. Octavo. Original green buckram, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, top edge gilt. With dust jacket. Frontispiece and plate by Brooks. Spine ends gently bumped, a little cockling on front cover, endpapers toned, faint marks on title page, nick at head of pp. 117–28. A near-fine copy in a very good jacket indeed, toned and slightly rubbed, front panel soiled with creases at head, a few short closed tears and tiny chips at edges, not price-clipped. £2,000 [162083]

in 1842 Barry briefly succumbed to a serious illness, most likely malaria. Dr O’Connor called in on Barry, and, ignoring Barry’s instructions, began examining the doctor, who was in a feverish sleep; Barry later swore him to silence. The anonymous account concludes with a further anecdote: “He used to say that when in the West Indies he was put into his Coffin, and a Black ‘Nurse’ was washing him, as he was to be buried the next day. In the night he jumped up, got out of the Coffin, and lived for 20 years at least afterwards”, confirmed by an annotation in a second hand: “I knew Dr Barry well, he has often told that Story – HB”.

Bifolium. 1) On letterhead with crest of the Fraser family (motto: “Je suis prest”). Written in a close hand in black ink. In fair condition, closed tear at top of fold. 2) Dated 26 August 1865; no place. Closely and neatly written in black ink. Folded twice, in good condition, long closed tear along fold. ¶ Michael du Preez & Jeremy Dronfield, Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time , 2016. We use the pronouns he/his for Barry, following the practice of both contemporary accounts and the identity under which Barry chose to conduct his career. £1,750 [136328]

All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

LOUDER THAN WORDS

three dated between 1792 and 1795, and two undated . . . she also printed 104 chapbooks (including two ghosts) of which thirty-three carry dates between 1789 and 1808. In 1792 she presumably sought to increase the range of services offered at her shop when she purchased ‘a new copper plate press from the most eminent maker in the city of York’, and in 1795 advertised for the services of a journeyman printer . . . On the title of her chapbook A Letter From a Sailor Ann Bell stated that ‘travelling stationers may be served at the shortest notice’. This claim is supported by her large output of chapbooks” (McKay, pp. 73–6). It appears that she retired from “active productive participation in the book trade between 1809 and 1811, when she appears listed in Jollie’s Cumberland Guide Directory of 1811 as the librarian of the subscription library in Penrith Market Place. She was buried, described as a widow of Boroughgate, on 8 December 1823” (ibid., p. 73). Small octavo, pp. 24. Original drab wrappers, stitched. Woodcut title page and five woodcuts to text. Closed tear at foot of front wrapper, some soiling, but a well-preserved copy of this fragile publication. ¶ Barry McKay, “Three Cumbrian Chapbook Printers: The Dunns of Whitehaven, Ann Bell & Anthony Soulby of Penrith”, in Images & Texts: Their Production and Distribution in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century , 1997. £525 [152352] 13 BELL, Gertrude Lowthian (trans.); HAFIZ, Shams al- Din Muhammad. Poems from the Divan. London: William Heinemann, 1897 First edition of Bell’s celebrated translation of Hafiz, the 14th- century Sufi poet whose work is considered to represent “the

of the Institute for Sciences in Bologna. “Her career marked not only the entry of women of the middling sort into the upper ranks of academia, but also the advent of a new model of feminine learning – the professional scientist rather than the clever dilettante” (Knott & Taylor, p. 261). The Grolier Club chose Bassi as one of the two most important women in 18th-century physics, alongside Émilie du Châtelet (see item 53). Highly regarded by her contemporaries, Bassi corresponded and collaborated with many notable figures in science, including Jean-Antoine Nollet, Alessandro Volta (who sent her copies of his earliest publications for approval), Giovanni Battista Beccaria, and Francisco Algarotti. She was especially influential in the lives of the biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani – her cousin – and the physician Luigi Galvani. By contrast to Volta, “[Bassi] has been almost totally ignored by historians of electricity, which is quite unjust considering that she presented no less than seven dissertations on electricity to the Academy, a number surpassed only by her husband’s” (Cavazza, p. 118). Bassi gave a great many lectures and frequently presented her research, both at the university and at the scientific salon which she held at her home. However, she published only a small portion of her output and very few of her manuscripts have survived. Bassi’s few published works are commercially uncommon, especially in a well-preserved contemporary binding as here. Quarto (291 × 214 mm). Contemporary vellum, red spine label, raised bands. Engraved title page vignette showing the Bologna Academy of Sciences, initials. Vellum very well preserved, contents crisp and clean, with a few minor scattered marks, small worm track on front pastedown and facing endpaper, evidence of bookplate to former sometime carefully removed. A handsome copy, notably fresh and with wide margins. ¶ Marta Cavazza, “Laura Bassi and Giuseppe Veratti: an electric couple during the Enlightenment”, Contributions to Science , 5/1, 2009, pp. 115–28; Paula Findlen, “Laura Bassi and the city of learning”, Physics World , 29 August 2013; Grolier, Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine , pp. 37–41; Sarah Knott & Barbara Taylor, eds, Women, Gender, and Enlightenment , 2005; Gabriella Berti Logan, “The Desire to Contribute: An Eighteenth-Century Italian Woman of Science”, The American Heritage Historical Review , 99/3, 1994; Ogilvie & Harvey, Dictionary of Women in Science I , pp. 88–9. £6,500 [153086] 12 BELL, Ann (printer). History of the Babes in the Wood. Penrith: A. Bell, 1805 a female printer in the cumbrian chapbook industry Scarce provincial chapbook from the press of Ann Bell, one of two Penrith printers, “who between them were responsible for over forty per cent of the known Cumbrian chapbooks”. Library Hub locates one copy of the 1796 edition at the Bodleian; no copies listed in WorldCat. The town of Penrith had a bookseller in the 17th century, but the earliest known reference to a printer there appears in the record of the marriage of Ann Richardson to “printer and bachelor” John Bell at St Andrew’s Church on 3 July 1781. “It seems certain that his wife, Ann Bell, was running the business in her own name by 1789 when she issued a chapbook edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs . . . Bell printed five books,

11 BASSI, Laura. “ De aeris compressione.” In: De bononiensi scientiarum et artium instituto atque academia commentarii. Bologna: Laelii a Vulpe, 1745 the first woman with a science doctorate First edition of the paper which records Bassi’s “most important contribution to physics” (Logan), a summary of her research on deviations from Boyle’s law: a beautiful, wide- margined copy in contemporary vellum. It was published the same year that she became a member of the Benedettini, an elite group of 25 scientists at the Bologna Academy of Sciences recognized by Benedict XIV for outstanding contributions to their respective fields. The celebrated Italian experimental physicist, anatomist, and natural philosopher Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (1711– 1778), “the emblematic female scientist of her generation” (Findlen), was the first woman to achieve a doctorate in science and the second to graduate from university. She spent over forty-five years teaching at the University of Bologna but conducted most of her experiments and teaching at home, to circumvent the restrictions placed on women at universities. By the end of her life she held two other professorships: an appointment to teach philosophy at the Collegio Montalto and a prestigious professorship in experimental physics at the Academy

zenith of Persian lyric poetry” ( Encyc. Iran. ). This was Bell’s second published work, and the first to appear under her own name. It is uncommon on the market, and was not reprinted in her lifetime, a second edition appearing only in 1928. In 1892 Bell (1868–1926) set out on what proved to be a formative journey to Tehran, where her uncle Sir Frank Lascelles was British minister. “Having studied Persian with the oriental scholar Sandford Arthur Strong during the winter prior to her journey, she embarked on a verse translation of the mystical poet Hafiz . . . to which she brought an insightful interpretation of the East’s cultural depth and of the underlying ambiguities of Hafiz’s poems. Her translation received a favourable critical reception on its publication and was long regarded as the best free-verse translation into English” ( ODNB ). Bell’s travel account, Safar Nameh: Persian Pictures , was published anonymously in 1894. Octavo. Original olive-green buckram, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. Complete with the 16-page publisher’s advertisements dated 1897 at end. Contemporary pencil annotations on pp. 80 and 118. Bookseller’s ticket to front pastedown. Spine and board edges browned and slightly rubbed, touch of wear to very tips, boards faintly marked, light offsetting to endpapers, margins a little browned; a very good copy. £1,500 [154861]

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affecting text) at foot of O2, colouring to woodcuts offset. A very good copy. ¶ ESTC S103621. £15,000 [154014] 16 BIRD, Isabella. Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan. London: John Murray, 1891 “travel was prescribed – and she became addicted” First edition of one of the most important English accounts of Persia in the 19th century by the most notable woman traveller of her time. A desirable set, rarely found in such collectible condition. After the death of her husband, the doctor John Bishop, Bird “planned to ride across little known parts of Turkey and Persia, to visit Christian outposts and the ancient communities of the Armenians and Nestorians in Kurdistan. She fell in with Major Herbert Sawyer of the Indian army. Her reputation as a traveller must have preceded her, for the tough officer of 38 agreed to set off with the widow of 60 (said to be in poor health)” ( ODNB ). The year after publication, Bird (1831- 1904) became among the first women elected to the Royal Geographical Society. Two volumes, octavo. Original light blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, front covers decoratively stamped in blue with lettering and concentric frames gilt, patterned endpapers. Portrait frontispiece of the author in vol. I, 12 engraved plates including the frontispiece in vol. II, 22 illustrations in text, 2 folding coloured maps (“The Bakhtiari Country” at end of vol. I, general map at end of vol. II, both showing the author’s routes). With the publisher’s 2 pp. advertisements at end of vol. I. Occasional neat marginal annotations in blue pencil. Cloth lightly sunned with scattered faint browning, vol. II with small stain on rear cover and neat repairs to front inner hinge, touch of fraying at extremities, occasional foxing (mostly to endpapers), cover decoration bright and sharp. A very good set indeed. ¶ Robinson, pp. 82–3; Wilson, p. 23. £2,000 [160885]

14 BELL, Gertrude Lowthian. Spelter bust, c.1926? a remarkable depiction of the extraordinary explorer

The work was expanded in 1496 with a chapter on fishing, and reprinted, in whole or in part, several times in the 16th century, all of which are rare. A further edition followed in 1596, and then, aside from an abridgement of 1600, no further edition was published until the 19th century. Gervase Markham (1568–1637) was a prolific author in a variety of subjects. He partly modernized the language for this edition, but did not revise the subject matter, and gave it the new title of The Gentlemans Academie . His edition was never reprinted. Small quarto (181 × 128 mm). Early 19th-century half russia, spine lettered in gilt with compartments blocked in blind. Housed in a custom brown quarter morocco solander box. With woodcut coats of arms in text, most with contemporary hand colouring. Catalogue clipping of the book (apparently this copy) on front free endpaper, from John and George Todd’s General Catalogue of an Extensive Collections of Books , 1817, number 9962; pencilled Quaritch collation note on rear pastedown; minor early annotations in margins. With the bookplate of Hercules George Robert Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead (1824–1897), 5th Governor of Hong Kong, 14th Governor of New South Wales, first Governor of Fiji, and 8th Governor of New Zealand. Slight splits along joints and wear at extremities, holding firm, front free endpaper loosening a little, title leaf cut and laid down, bound without A1 (blank save for signature mark) and blanks Ll3–4 and Dd4, slight loss at head of M2 affecting headline, some very light staining and soiling to contents, a little closely cropped at head occasionally shaving pagination and headings, small chip repaired (not

to foot of plinth in typescript reading “Gertrude Bell (1868– 1926). Traveller, archaeologist, and government servant. Died Bagdad [ sic ] & buried there”. Signed by the artist at the back “E W Steele”; we have been unable to trace the identity of the sculptor. In fine condition. £3,000 [135639] 15 BERNERS, Juliana (attrib.) The Gentlemans Academie. Or, The Booke of S. Albans . London: Printed for Humfrey Lownes, and are to be sold at his shop, 1595 the earliest english printed book with a female author First edition under the editorship of Gervase Markham. The Book of Saint Albans marked numerous “firsts” upon its first publication in 1486: the first printed English armorial, the first printed book on field sports and heraldry, the first book with engravings printed in colours, the first printed book containing English popular rhymes, and, if the speculative but generally accepted attribution to Juliana Berners is correct, the earliest English printed book with a female author. Though much of Dame Juliana Berners’s life is a mystery, she is considered to be the Prioress of Sopwell Abbey in Hertfordshire, a cell of St Albans Abbey founded under the Benedictine Order in 1140.

A striking bust, depicting Bell as a mature and imposing woman dressed in a shawl suitable for life in the Middle East. This is an apparently unique depiction of Bell, as portraits rarely depict her in Arab dress or without her signature pearl necklace. “Bell’s adult life divided into three phases. In the first, during the 1890s, contemporaries saw her as ‘an accomplished young lady of good family and brilliant intellectual gifts.’ But dissatisfied with the conventional role of domesticity and philanthropy assigned to well-to-do, unmarried women, she turned to independent travel, first in the Alps, then in the Middle East, with the intellectual dimensions of archaeological discovery and political observation. The latter enabled her to assume a public role as the First World War and the end of Ottoman rule in Arab lands created an official outlet for her expertise. At her death she was commemorated as a brilliant public servant, who helped to shape the post-war settlement in the Middle East and in particular the creation of the kingdom of Iraq” ( ODNB ). Spelter bust on contemporary wooden plinth (290 × 176 mm at tallest and widest points; wooden plinth 138 mm in diameter, 98 mm in height). Label

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on economics, this book gave its author an international reputation as prophet and reformer” and was a major catalyst of the Progressive Era (Grolier). George became the nucleus of many organisations, including the Home Colonization Society, founded by Blackwell. She and Barry attended a “Henry George meeting” at St James Hall in London on 9 January 1884. The following day Barry wrote in her diary: “The meeting was enthusiastic with just enough dissent to make it spicy. I had the front middle seat and heard every word of all the speeches. Cheer upon cheer greeted George before and after the speech” (quoted in Boyd, p. 243). This copy is a testament to Blackwell’s sustained critical study of Progress and Poverty . There are approximately 500 individual marginal markers and annotations, ranging from simple lines and crosses, question and exclamation marks, and underlining, to textual corrections, brief notes, and lengthier commentary, such as Blackwell’s reflection on land ownership on page 311. Her marginalia are heaviest in the chapters on the laws of interest, on wages, and on population. Blackwell’s brother George was especially critical of the economic basis of her ideas, so it is particularly interesting to see her engaging with the technical aspects. Blackwell’s admiration for the author is evident throughout, though she does not hesitate to point out the flaws, as she sees them, in his arguments. She rebukes him for non sequiturs, exaggerations, and for not giving “sufficient weight” to alternative causes of poverty such as taxation (p. 253). Her comments are frequently blunt, and her final act is to sternly cross out the religious meditation from Plutarch with which George concludes the work. Blackwell and Barry received this copy, a later edition, in the year of publication from Zoe Dana Underhill (1847–1934), a family friend and writer who was the same age as Barry, and confidant to both. Her father, Charles Anderson Dana (1819– 1897), began his journalism career working for publications devoted to social reform; he was a trustee of Blackwell’s New York Dispensary and a member of its executive committee. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, sides panelled in blind, floral-patterned endpapers. Publisher’s ads bound at front and rear. Couple of faint marks to slightly rubbed binding, spine darkened, ends bumped and a little frayed, tiny crease at lower outer corners of pp. 169–90, annotated throughout in pencil (see note). A very good copy. ¶ Grolier American 100, 81; see Mattioli 1418; not in Einaudi. Julia Boyd, The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician , 2005; Columbia University Libraries, “Elizabeth Blackwell Letters, 1850–1884” finding aid, accessible online; Henry William Spiegel, The Growth of Economic Thought , 1991. £25,000 [161016]

17 BLACKWELL, Elizabeth (her copy) – GEORGE, Henry. Progress and Poverty. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1882 engaging with one of her formative influences Blackwell’s extensively annotated copy, offering unique insight into her engagement with this landmark socio-economic text during her most committed period of reform activity. This copy was presented to Blackwell and her adopted daughter by their close friend Zoe Dana Underhill, and is inscribed in Blackwell’s hand on the half-title: “Dr E. Blackwell. Rock House. Hastings”. Blackwell and her adopted daughter Katharine “Kitty” Barry had settled there permanently in 1879; their joint bookplate is on the front pastedown. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) overcame considerable adversity to become the first woman to earn a medical degree in the US; her graduation in January 1849 garnered international press coverage. She received additional training in Europe before returning to America where she, her sister Emily, and Marie Zakrzewska founded the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children (later the New York Infirmary for Women). In 1854 Blackwell adopted Kitty Barry (1848–1936), an Irish orphan who became her lifelong companion and secretary. They moved to England in 1869, where Blackwell established a private practice in London and cofounded the London School of Medicine for Women with Sophia Jex-Blake. Blackwell’s medical career was rooted in her indignation over gender and social inequalities. For her, “medicine was not an end in itself but a tool for fighting social injustice. By making medicine a more acceptable profession for women, emphasizing the importance of personal hygiene, crusading for moral reform, and attempting to combat Victorian inequities, Blackwell assumed an important place in social history” (Ogilvie & Harvey). It is entirely fitting, then, that “another strong influence [on Blackwell] at this time was Henry George, whose P rogress and Poverty had appeared in 1879” (Sahli, p. 378). “The most influential of American works

18 BLACKWOOD, Hermione & Victoria; Nelly Wyndham; Miss Sutcliffe. Typescript journal of a mountaineering holiday in Switzerland. Switzerland, August–September 1893 an early female foray into mountaineering A wonderfully engaging travelogue of a two-month mountaineering journey in the Swiss Alps by four spirited women, enriched by humorous sketches and attractive photographs of alpine landscapes. The quartet of travellers consists of Lady Hermione Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, her sister Victoria, Nelly Wyndham, and Miss Sutcliffe. The writing appears to have been shared between the four women as each of them is mentioned in the journal; the same applies to the splendid drawings, executed in different hands. They were guided by the Wilson brothers, both local clergymen. It quickly became apparent that the women’s attire was entirely inadequate, and the Wilsons took it upon themselves to apply nails to the women’s boots. “‘Just fit to cross a London street with’! was the verdict ultimately pronounced by the vicar” (p. 13). On an outing to the village of Belalp the women met the physicist and mountaineer, John Tyndall (1820–1893), “a most delightful old man, who said he had only one injunction to give the young ladies on the expedition, and that was to drink a bottle of champagne on the top of the mountain” (p. 22). The Blackwood sisters went on to be great forces for the betterment of women’s health. Lady Hermione Hamilton- Temple-Blackwood (1869–1960) trained as a Queen Victoria’s

nurse in London, worked as a district nurse in Ireland, and was a qualified midwife and president of the Ulster branch of the Irish Nurses’ Association. She served in France during the First World War and was awarded the Medaille de Reconnaissance Française for her services. Her sister, Lady Victoria Hamilton- Temple-Blackwood, later Lady Plunket (1873–1968), married William Plunket in 1894. Shortly thereafter the couple moved to New Zealand, where Victoria “promoted the theories and methodologies around infant and maternal public health measures of the New Zealand medical doctor Truby King, who in May 1907 had established his Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children” (ibid.). Nelly Wyndham and Miss Sutcliffe remain stubbornly elusive. In the mid-19th century, the taste for mountaineering rapidly developed as a great stimulus was given to it by the foundation of the various Alpine clubs. The world’s first mountaineering society, The Alpine Club, was founded in London in 1857, but it was only in 1907 that The Ladies’ Alpine Club was founded in London, as the first mountaineering club for women. Quarto (250 × 195 mm). Contemporary red half sheep, spine lettered in gilt, raised bands, marbled boards, top edge gilt, 58 typewritten leaves, rectos only, numbered. With 4 mounted photographs of alpine landscapes including the Matterhorn and Zermatt (2 attributed on the mount to one “Mr. Duncan”), mounted print of Rieder Furka, and 15 pen sketches throughout, some hand coloured. Minor wear to extremities, occasional staining or offsetting, blank leaf at centre with slight loss. A very good copy. £2,250 [161746]

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