Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1965. Near Fine. FIRST EDITION, GARRETT ANDERSON'S SIGNATURE LAID IN. 8vo, pp. 382 + colour frontis and b/w plates. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt in black panel. Bruising to spine ends and corners, a few spots and occasional marginal staining, else, clean and tight. With Garrett Anderson's undated, clipped signature in blue-black ink laid in: "yours affly,. E G Anderson" (5 x 9.5 cm) pasted on cropped grey card (7.4 x 11.7 cm) attached with transparent corner mounts to white card (13 x 15cm), with information in two different hands, naming and describing "Mrs Garett [sic] Anderson (M.D.)". Glue residue to top edge of original signature background. In the pictorial dust jacket: creased at edges and extremities, a little soiled, tacky residue with attendant wear to front panel. Still, a smart copy of Manton's important biography, rare with Garrett Anderson's signature laid in. Near fine/ very good.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's (1836-1917) life was one of firsts: the first woman to qualify as a physician and surgeon in Britain, the first woman M.D. in France (graduating from the University of Paris), the first female member of the British Medical Association (and its sole woman member for an astonishing 19 years), the first woman elected to a school board, the first founder of a hospital staffed by women, the first woman dean of a medical school and, finally, at 71, Britain's first female Mayor (of Aldeburgh). While Margaret Lane, writing in 1946, (see item ) concluded her account of the physician, by singling Garrett Anderson out as "one of the first women to prove that women could have a successful career and be at the same time an all-round human creature," - Garrett Anderson was married and had children - for Elston, Garrett Anderson's contribution was, "above all, [as] sponsor and mentor to the vast majority of British women who qualified in medicine in Britain in the last quarter of the nineteenth century" (ODNB).