Forerunner, The, Vols. I-VII, complete [CPG Family Archive].
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Forerunner (Vols. I-VII, complete) [CPG Family Archive]. New York: The Charlton Company, 1909-1916.
8vo; pictorial brick cloth black stamped with image of a man and women seated on either side of a globe balancing a young child who stands upon it.
First edition.
Vol. I. [November, 1909-December, 1910] Bookplate of Katharine Beecher Stetson at front pastedown. This design inspired the front cover of The Forerunner with a few interesting differences. The couple, for instance, are nude rather than clothed (as on the front cover of The Forerunner). The child here stands free of either of his parents; the woman has a more passive posture, leaning back with both arms down as opposed to leaning against the globe (or world) and supporting it in the same manner as her companion. A pastoral setting is sketched out in the bookplate with grass, a small lake and a bright setting (or rising) sun sending out its rays over the three figures. At front blank is an extended inscription: C.P. Gilman/380 Washington St./Norwich Town, Conn./This was begun in Nov. as a concession to/ advertisements. As I wrote my own, and /would only advertise what I knew to be / good — personally — the possible list was / small. I was an utter failure at soliciting./ no professional one could afford to/ work for the little we could pay, and / the advertiser, used to counting on large/ circulation, could not see any prospect/ in the thousand devotees — so to speak. / Hence, no advertising. / Thereafter I began in January, as a/ magazine should, but this has / fourteen numbers, and the covers. / My daughter made the design. The inscription, in fact, quotes from Gilman’s account of the magazine in her autobiography, The Living Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Likely Gilman wrote out the inscription as an explanation for the longer length of the first volume and to mention, pointedly, her daughter’s role in the magazine’s design.
Volume I differs, as the writer indicates, in including 14 issues of The Forerunner and their original covers (later volumes of The Forerunner did not). Laid in are five onion-skin typing sheets, 6-1/4 x 9-3/16,” on which is typed an Index for the first volume (all later volumes have a “Contents” provided at the end) with occasional ink corrections in (what appears to be) the writer’s hand. Also laid in is a copy of her poem, “Up and Down,” cut sheets numbered 478/479 (likely from its original appearance in the October, 1898 issue of Arena with her then name, “Charlotte Perkins Stetson” cited ) [Scharnhorst 53]. Gilman reprinted this poem in the January, 1912 issue of The Forerunner. Water damage around the spine with black stamping at the spine partially obliterated (effecting title and author). Archival at both hinges; some rust marks from paper clip at top and bottom of “Index” sheets, likely the cause of the touches of rust to the front pastedown; scrape to rear pastedown. Interior clean and fresh with the covers nice.
Vol. II. [January-December, 1911]. Interior clean; touch of dampstaining to covers (most noticeably along lower edge) with silver fishing at spine and to fore-edges; book as a whole a little bowed.
Vol. III. [January-December, 1912]. Dampstaining to covers (again, most noticeably along lower edge); touch of silver fishing to spine; rear hinge a bit cracked.
Vol. IV. [January-December, 1913]. Mild offsetting to endpapers, possibly from a paper wrapper; touch of silverfish damage to binding; lower tips a trifle bumped.
Vol. V. [January-December, 1914]. Inscribed at the front flyleaf: C.P. Gilman / 380 Washington St.. / Norwich Town, Conn, with a flourish underneath. Dampstaining to upper margins of front endpapers and lower margins of rear endpapers; splitting along rear hinge at gutter (interior and exterior); binding rubbed and worn with speckling, particularly to rear cover; good.
Vol. VI. [January-December, 1915]. Inscribed at the front flyleaf by the writ
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