Caledonian Bee.
FIRST APPEARANCE OF A VINDICATION IN SCOTLAND
(Wollstonecraft, Mary, contributor). Caledonian Bee. Or, a select collection, of interesting extracts, from modern publications. With elegant copperplates. Perth: Printed by R. Morison Junior, for R. Morison and Son, Booksellers, Perth; and Vernor & Hood, Birchin Lane, London, 1795.
12mo.; contemporary calf over marbled boards; red leather spine label, lettered in gilt; two of the three copperplates missing; lower right corner of p. 277 torn off; boards and extremities heavily rubbed. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
Scarce first edition of this anonymously edited collection of historical articles, poems, arguments, and stories, including 14 pages of highlights from multiple chapters of Wollstonecraft’s foundational text. The unknown editor of this volume assigned his own headings as opposed to using Wollstonecraft’s titles: “Reflections on what is called amiable weakness in woman,” “Fine ladies and notable women,” The virtue of modesty,” “A picture of connubial love,” “Employments of women,” and “Duties of mothers.” This constitutes the first appearance of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in Scotland.
The Caledonian Bee comprises 44 pieces, some original, but most reprinted from other sources such as “Affecting incidents in the Revolutionary prisons of France” from Helen Maria Williams’ book Letters on the Politics of France, and “Account of a Turkish Harem” from Alexander Russell’s The Natural History of Aleppo. This copy is missing two of the three plates – the portraits of the Prince and Princess of Wales are absent. It was fairly common to extract plates from books and keep them as souvenirs, which is perhaps what happened to this copy. Another possibility is that the plates were removed by anti-Royalist Scots.
ESTC locates three copies in North America (at McMaster, UCLA and Wayne State University); OCLC locates three more (at Yale, Iowa, and South Carolina). Not in Windle.
Print Inquire
