Betty Leicester's English Xmas.
Annie Fields’ Copy
Annotated by Jewett
Jewett, Sarah Orne. Betty Leicester’s English Xmas. A New Chapter of an Old Story. Baltimore: Privately Printed for the Bryn Mawr School, Exmas (sic) 1894.
8vo.; t.e.g.; foxed; white cloth; decoratively stamped in gilt; gold cloth dust-jacket; spine faintly browned; edges gently rubbed. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition, with Jewett’s significant annotations on eight pages; privately printed for Bryn Mawr School students, Board of Managers and graduates as a Christmas gift; 150 copies printed, so noted in Jewett’s autograph note on the colophon; the trade edition was not published until 1899, and was then retitled Betty Leicester’s Christmas (see BAL 10905, 10912). BAL makes no mention of the number of copies printed in the Bryn Mawr edition; stamped on the upper cover with the original Bryn Mawr logo. This is the second Betty Leicester book by Jewett; the first was Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls (1890).
An ideal association copy, inscribed: Annie Fields, from Mary E. Garrett. Fields and Jewett – whose friendship is described as “perhaps the classic ‘Boston marriage’” (Blanchard, p. 152) – hosted a salon in Boston that was an epicenter of literary activity in that city; their circle of friends included Garrett, who was part of a “Boston marriage” with M. Carey Thomas – the President of Bryn Mawr for 28 years – whose union Jewett’s biographer describes as being “similar to Sarah’s and Annie’s, drawing support and comfort from loving relationships in which neither partner competed with the other, begrudged her success, or assumed a dominant role” (pp. 221-222). With the bookplate of Boylston Adams Beal, Fields’s nephew.
It is logical to imagine that through this friendship, Garrett solicited Jewett to wield her pen to benefit Bryn Mawr School. Due to the time constraints of the rushed printing, Garrett also asked Jewett’s permission to read the proofs of the book herself. In a letter from Garrett to Jewett dated January 12, 1895, she encloses a letter of thanks to the author from the Bryn Mawr School girls, and asks Jewett to send an invoice for her labors. It is likely that after Garrett sent this inscribed copy to Fields, then Jewett went through it to make her annotations.
Jewett’s annotations appear throughout; on the title page, the verso of the title page, and on eight pages of text: pp. 2, 38, 39, 54, 73, 74, 75, 77. Jewett crossed out the abbreviated spelling “Xmas” on the title page, in favor of “Christmas”; she also changed “Exmas” in the publication date to “Christmas,” and notes on the next page that 150 copies were printed for this edition. She crosses out the phrases, “who was a famous lawyer”; and “turned away and” on pages 38 and 39; changes “politest” to “most anxious” (p. 54); “was soon” to “should be” (p. 73); and “She” to “Betty” (p. 77). On page 74 she deletes an ellipsis, crosses out the word “priceless” and adds the word “even”; and on page 75 omits “shy” and restructures a sentence at the bottom of the page to read: “For the first time in his life he felt a brave happiness in belonging to Danesly and in the thought that Danesly really would belong to him.”
Jewett begins her story in the first person, in the role of the narrator, and writes of Betty as if she were a dear friend. She introduces her character with her Bryn Mawr School audience in mind:
There was once a girl named Betty Leicester, who lived in a small square book bound in scarlet and white. I, who know her better than any one, and who know my own way about Tideshead, the story-book town, as well as she did, and have not only made many a call upon her Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary in their charming old house, but have even seen the house in London where she spent the winter; I, who confess to loving Betty a great deal, wish to write a little more about her in this Christmas book for the girls of the Bryn Mawr school. The truth is that ever since I wro
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