Holiness; or, the Legend of St. George.
ROSE'S COPY OF HER AUNT'S BOOK
[Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer). Holiness; or, The Legend of St. George: A Tale from Spencer's Faerie Queene, by a mother. Boston: Published by E.R. Broaders, 1836. 12mo.; foxed; brown cloth; dampstained; printed label to spine; chipped.
First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed on the front endpaper: Rose Hawthorne / from Aunt E.P.P./ June 28th / 1860 / Welcome home / my darling!
The inscription date marks the return home of the Hawthornes from several years abroad. Aunt Elizabeth has added an Erratum at the close of the preface: Sansjoy should be read instead of Sansloy in the IVth chapter, and indeed, she has made this correction throughout chapter four.
One of only two prose works by Peabody, Holiness is her attempt to make the stories in Spencer's Faerie Queene accessible for young readers. The Transcendentalist and educational reformer clearly believed that the message and values behind The Faerie Queene were vital for children to understand as part of their Christian education. In her preface, Peabody writes of the "profound philosophy of moral life" and "exhaustless mine of thought" which pervade Spencer's text (vi). Following in the successful tradition of Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare and James Cowden Clarke's Tales of Chaucer, Peabody retells the chivalric legend of St. George in simplified prose, including a few of her own footnotes to make the allegory more clear.
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