Female Guardian, The.
Rare
[Fenn, Ellenor]. (Mrs. Teachwell). The Female Guardian. Designed to Correct Some of the Foibles Incident to Girls, and Supply them with Innocent Amusement for their Hours of Leisure. By a Lady. London: Printed and Sold by John Marshall and Co., 1784.
12mo.; light occasional foxing; frontispiece illustration offset onto title page; rebound in three-quarter marbled boards; brown cloth spine and tips. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
First edition; with frontispiece engraving of a man painting a portrait of a woman reading; and four pages of advertisements in the rear for books available from “Mrs. Teachwell’s Library for her Young Ladies.” OCLC locates only one copy, at Princeton.
Fenn’s “endorsement” of her authorship; the five-page Dedication features the names in the “to” and “from” fields signed with asterisks, and the author has written over the asterisks with the letters of her name – Ellenor Fenn – and her dedicatee – her aunt and namesake Ellenor Frere – in ink. A letter transcribed at the final two pages of the book closes, “Your affectionate aunt,” and is also signed in a series of printed asterisks; again, Fenn has written her name over the asterisks in pencil. In the advertising section at the rear, penciled x’s appear next to various titles; and at the top of the the rear endpaper, three titles of books are listed in pencil: “Fairy spectator,” “Tatler,” and “Select Miscellany.” Fenn is the author of Fairy Spectator (ca. 1780-90s).
According to the Dedication, Fenn was inspired to write the book by her aunt, who had provided her with lessons, as well as “unwearied attention,” and “a thousand instances of…kindness (parental kindness!)” (p. iv) when Fenn was a girl. She confesses that if she’d had more time under her aunt’s tutelage, she’d be better qualified to supply “girls with innocent amusement for their leisure hours” (p. vi), and closes, “Should my books prove acceptable to mothers, I shall not regret that I have devoted a few of my leisure hours to the writing of them; yet I must ever blush to offer such trifles to you” (p. vii).
The letter transcribed at the end of the book is written for her nieces and nephews:
I know that the circumstances of this little book being expressly for you, gives weight and authority to every admonition which it contains; not are you backward to esteem beyond its intrinsic worth whatever you should receive from me who am actuated by the tenderest affection…I have assumed various shapes with a view to amuse your volatile fancies, but retain the same uniform purpose, namely, to convey and enforce virtuous principles, such as may render you worth and amiable. (pp. 127-128)
In thirty-three chapters, written as anecdotes for “worthy or unworthy pupils” who attended Mrs. Teachwell’s private girls school, The Grove; opening with “Family Anecdotes,” and proceeding with, among others “Improving Exercises,” “The Mother,” “Sensibility,” “Parental Watchfulness,” “Erroneous Management,” “Human Deravity,” “Timely Obedience,” “The Negligent Mother,” “Refined Morality,” “Heroic Sentiments,” “Physiognomy,” “The Judicious Choice,” “Hospitality,” and “Reverence,” and concludes with “Heedlessness.”
In these chapters, Fenn includes a number of short moralizing stories to subtly convey her message. Her aim is to improve the minds, morals and behaviors of young girls, through “indirect admonition” (p. 10), which she found to be effective, especially when administered by female guardians, teachers, or mothers. In Chapter II – “Improving Exercises – she elaborates, “among many advantages which the pen has over the voice, this is not the least, that its impressions are permanent” (p. 7). She continues,
My pen is devoted to their service; and though it has nothing to boast, yet I derive much assistance from it. Ever watchful, I catch occasions of remarking upon errors which do not deserve a serious reproof. I have likewise observed that indirec
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