Joan of Arc.
Grimké, Sarah M. Joan of Arc. Translated from the French. Boston: Adams & Co., 1867.
8vo.; frontispiece; endpapers foxed; green cloth stamped in gilt; lightly rubbed; extremities worn; spine chipped at head and heel; front joint partially cracked.
First edition of Grimké’s “free translation, greatly condensed, of Lamartine’s Jeanne d’Arc,” with information derived from Henri Martyn and “other authentic sources.” In the mid 1960s, just prior to this publication, Grimké moved with her sister Angelina and brother-in-law Theodore Weld to a Boston suburb, where all took up teaching; Sarah supplemented her income with newspaper articles and translations, such as this.
In her preface, Grimké, perhaps looking to her father’s French Huguenot heritage, refers to the general neglect of Joan of Arc’s memory as “national ingratitude.” In her closing paragraphs she verges on hagiography of the heroine:
She seems to have been a being by herself, —a woman in all gentleness, tender yearnings, a fortitude sublime; a man in intellect, heroic daring, and loftiest aspiration; a warrior attaining the highest military honors, and wearing them with utmost humility. She towers above all others in the greatness of her achievements, the rounded completeness of her character, and in her superhuman sway alike over the mightiest and the meanest on the realm.
Next to Jesus, she seems to have been the grandest medium of divine communication; a being sent from a higher sphere to allure and buoy us upward. Her inspiration was a summons from God, reverberating through a whole people, and concentrating its power in the exultation and agony of a single soul.
(#3764)
Print Inquire