129 SAPPHO – VIVIEN, Renée (trans.) Sapho [and] seven other works. Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1903–09 Each volume is lovingly inscribed by the author to her childhood friend Marie Charneau; four are in first edition, including the first explicitly lesbian translation of Sappho’s poetry. Works inscribed using her given name are exceedingly uncommon. A cohesive set of Vivien's works, presented to the same recipient, is notably scarce, with no other such sets traced. On the occasions that Vivien did inscribe copies, she usually did so with her chosen name of Renée, making this set highly desirable. Vivien (1877–1909), born Pauline Mary Tarn, was a British- born exegete and high-profile lesbian expatriated to Paris in the Belle Époque. Vivien was sent to school in Paris, where she met Marie Charneau (1878–1962). The two became fast friends, and Vivien threw herself into French life: she disliked her parents, and the chance of adopting a foreign culture was a welcome rejection of them. This brief period of happiness was cut short when her father died in 1886, and she had to return to England. His death left Vivien the sole inheritor of his fortune at the age of nine: her mother purportedly tried to declare her legally insane, but the plot failed, and Vivien was left as a ward of the court for the remainder of her adolescence. In 1886, when she turned 21, Vivien fled to Paris with her inheritance, changed her name, and reached out to her old friend. Vivien refused to write in any language other than French, and quickly gained notoriety in bohemian society, wearing lavish suits, and living openly as a lesbian. She began a relationship with another childhood friend, Violet Shillito, who introduced her to her next lover, the Amazon of Paris, Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972; see item 9). She earned the nickname “Sappho 1900”, and her keen interest in the classical world motivated her to move
to Lesbos with Barney in 1904 to establish a women’s school of poetry in imitation of Sappho. Vivien and Charneau remained correspondents and close friends throughout Vivien’s emotional and physical decline. After years marked by suicide attempts, anorexia, alcoholism, and drug abuse, she died in 1909 at the age of 32. Charneau donated their correspondence to the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1950. It includes examples of Vivien’s juvenilia, mostly poetry and youthful attempts at translating Dante. Charneau likely had these volumes bound to match at the time of publication. They comprise: Etudes et préludes, 1904; Les Kitharèdes , 1904; Une femme m’apparut , 1905; Poèmes en prose , 1908; Flambeaux éteints , 1908; Sillages , 1908; Poèmes , 1909. Eight volumes: 5 octavo (180 × 123 mm), 3 quarto (123 × 144 mm; 237 × 158 mm; 250 × 162 mm). Bound to match in contemporary green half morocco by Creuzevault, green marbled sides and endpapers, top edges gilt, green silk page markers. Spines a little sunned, occasional spots of shelf wear, scattered foxing, a near-fine set. ¶ Marie-Ange Bartholomot Bessou, L’imgainaire du féminin dans l’oeuvre de Renée Vivien , 2004; Rommel Mendès-Leite, Gay Studies from the French Cultures , 1993. £13,500 [161902] 130 SCHINDLER, Oskar – GROSSMAN, Kurt R. (ed.) Die unbesungenen Helden. Menschen in Deutschlands dunklen Tagen (“The Unsung Heroes. People in Germany’s Darkest Days”). Berlin: Arani, 1957 inscribed by schindler to emilie, “mother courage”: the published testimony of their wartime work First edition, first printing, of the only autobiographical account of Oskar Schindler’s wartime work to be published, this copy an extraordinarily poignant association, inscribed to his wife: “Meiner lieben Mily in Erinnerung Ihrer mutigen Zeit. Weihnachten 1957 Frankfurt/Main” (“To my dear Mily in remembrance of her courageous time. Christmas 1957, Frankfurt am Main”). At the time of Schindler’s death in 1974, their wartime exploits were not widely known. On the eve of publication of this book, a compilation of the stories of German gentiles who risked their lives to assist Jews during the Holocaust, Schindler arrived in Frankfurt practically destitute, and having left behind his wife Emilie in Argentina, where they had settled after the war. His inscription, some six months later, presenting this copy to Emilie as a Christmas gift, is both poignant – he never returned to Argentina, and the couple never met again – and notable for his full acknowledgement of her invaluable work and courage. Schindler’s narrative here is, on the whole, dispassionate, almost forensic, particularly when the nature of narrative is considered. However, when recounting Emilie’s involvement, his language becomes more emotionally persuasive. Paying tribute to her tireless work and commitment he explains that she “took on the sole task of looking after the factory. Her working day had sixteen hours . . . It was a gigantic task to feed twelve hundred hungry people, at a time when the monthly allotment was one week’s groceries, and the missing amounts had to be procured from the black market . . . [she] took over the supervision of the factory hospital . . . protected threatened prisoners and was able to avert misery and suffering with
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fearless, quick decisions. Her contempt for everything to do with the SS and the Gestapo was as great as mine, and I often became anxious when she courageously gave the highest SS leaders short shrift in concentration camp manner” (p. 39). Despite her pivotal role alongside Oskar in saving hundreds of Jews, Emilie has been progressively written out of the story. Just six years after the present work was published, an article appeared in Argentinisches Tageblatt , Buenos Aires’ major German newspaper, telling of Emilie’s wartime work and subsequent destitution, the title asking “Vater Courage bleibt unvergessen – aber wie steht es mit Mutter Courage” (“Father Courage has not been forgotten – but what about Mother Courage?”). Following the success of Thomas Keneally’s Booker Prize-winning novel Schindler’s Ark in 1983 and Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning adaptation in 1993, Emilie found herself further in the shadow of Oskar’s posthumous fame, as her involvement was minimized in the interests of plot efficiency. “Oskar is the hero”, she reflected in 1999, “and what about me? I saved many Jews, too”. Octavo. Original cream cloth, spine and front cover lettered in brown. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom blue half calf flat-back folding box with marbled sides. Cloth lightly stained at edges, some abrasion to foot of spine, a few blemishes and finger marks to a few pages, edges lightly foxed; in the very good jacket, spine panel and head of front panel sunned, else bright and presentable. £30,000 [135953] 131 SCHURMAN, Anna Maria van. Opuscula. Leiden: Elzevir Press, 1650 “the star of utrecht”: one of the most learned women of early modern europe Second and expanded edition of the most famous work by the Dutch polymath and proto-feminist Anna Maria van Schurman, first published in 1648. Comprising over 70 letters in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and French, a striking self- portrait, and a reprint of her treatise on the rights of women to education, Opuscula definitively affirmed Schurman’s authoritative standing in the Republic of Letters. Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678) was “regarded throughout the 17th century as the most learned woman not
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only of the Netherlands but also of Europe. She was ‘the Star of Utrecht’, ‘the Tenth Muse’, ‘a miracle of her sex’. The first woman to attend, non-officially, a university, she was also the first to advocate, boldly, that women should be admitted into universities. A brilliant linguist, she mastered at least 14 languages and was the first Dutch woman to seek publication of her correspondence. Her letters in several languages to the intellectual men and women of her time reveal the breadth of her interests in theology, philosophy, medicine, education, literature, painting, sculpture, embroidery, and instrumental music” (Larsen). Appearing at the height of Schurman’s fame, Opuscula was instrumental in structuring her positive identity in the male- dominated sphere of artists and authors. It also established her reputation as a humanist polyglot, proficient in classical and modern languages including Arabic and Syriac. In 1658 and 1678, Opuscula was included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum , for reasons today unknown. Scholars suggest that the ban might have helped the book’s popularity even more (see Beek, p. 272). Small octavo (155 × 94 mm). Contemporary vellum, yapp edges, edges sprinkled blue. Title page printed in red and black, with woodcut printer’s device, engraved self-portrait, woodcut floriated initials and headpieces. With the manuscript ownership inscription dated 1655 of Johan Van Sÿpesteÿn on the title page verso: possibly the soldier Jan Van Sÿpesteÿn (1633–1669), a member of the noble Sÿpesteÿn family of Amsterdam; later in the library of the Leigh family of West Hall, with its 18th-century armorial bookplate engraved by Bickham the Younger ( c .1706–1771) to the front pastedown (possibly Egerton Leigh [1702–1760], Anglican clergyman, landowner, and antiquary); and latterly in the collection of Robert J. Hayhurst (1929–2016), noted Lancashire bibliophile and chemist. Vellum soiled and gently rubbed, faint toning to head of title page, contents generally clean and fresh. A very good, crisp copy. ¶ Pieta van Beek, “Alpha Virginum, Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678)”, in Women Writing Latin: Early Modern Women Writing Latin , 2013; Bo Karen Lee & Anne Larsen, “Anna Maria van Schurman”, in Oxford Bibliographies: Renaissance and Reformation . £1,750 [161092]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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