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