Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910.
[Howe, Julia Ward]. Richards, Laure E. and Elliot, Maud Howe. Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910. Assisted by Florence Howe Hall. With Portraits and Other Illustrations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1915.
2 vols., thick 8vo.; frontispiece portraits; photographs and facsimiles of documents interleaved throughout; edges rough; brown paper-covered boards; brown cloth spines; leather spine labels, stamped in gilt; bookplates; spines and preliminaries of both volumes lightly worn; else quite a pretty set.
First edition; the large paper issue; one of 400 copies for sale; 450 copies, the entire edition. This deluxe edition of the life and times of Julia Ward Howe by her daughters “contains so much material by Mrs. Howe here first published that it may properly be considered a primary production,” according to the BAL, which lists it as a primary Howe publication (9530). Each of the 400 copies offered for sale was issued with a leaf of an original Howe manuscript tipped in. The numbered leaf (19) tipped into the front of the first volume of this set is especially interesting because in it Howe discusses women’s rights:
...You may deem it right to deprive us of our property on the ground that we do not usually earn it. You know however our scruples about depriving us of our money when we do not earn it. Education and work limit our chances of profitable occupation on the one hand, and on the other take from us the results of such occupation...
Howe’s manuscript, apparently the beginning of a larger essay about women’s economic and intellectual disenfranchisement from society, has never been published in full.
(#4680)
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