Search Results: Authors starting with E from Whitmore Rare Books

London: S. W. Fores, 1800. First edition. Illustrated hand-colored broadside measuring 270 x 400mm and printed to verso only. Faint offsetting to recto and faint traces of mounting to corners. In all, a Fine example of this visual satire commenting on the phenomenon of younger men seeking marriage with elderly widows for their own financial gain -- and the cultural anxiety surrounding the marital sexuality of such brides. Unrecorded in ESTC and OCLC, we have located two examples of the present work at the British Museum and Yale. The present broadside draws together a wide matrix of debates and social anxieties surrounding the economic and sexual status of widows, and the financial motivations for marriage among second sons and men of the middle class. Though women were more frequently forced into experiencing marriage as a form of 'honorable prostitution' in which their physical desirability served as their key for accessing wealth and stability under coverture, it was increasingly acknowledged… Read More

London: R. Hunter, 1816. First edition. Contemporary roan over marbled boards with remnants of the original paper label. All edges speckled blue. Measuring 135 x 85 mm and collating complete: xxviii, 213, [11, publisher's adverts]. A square, solid copy with boards and spine generally rubbed and worn. Internally pleasing, with contemporary ownership signature of A. D. King to front pastedown and annotation in the same hand to the rear endpaper verso; minor spotting to outer margin of preliminaries and short closed tear to outer margin of second advert leaf, with all text legible. In all a pleasing copy of a scarce book, which has only sold twice at auction since 1972. The present is the only example on the market. While the daughter-father duo responsible for this work consider the poetic educations of both sexes, Maria was largely responsible for the book's lessons and shaped it as a resource for mothers and daughters who hadn't the privilege of a literary education (Slade). Her mark can be seen in… Read More

London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1798. First edition. Near Fine. Two volumes bound in quarter sheep over cloth with gilt to spines. Some gentle rubbing to extremities. Previous owner's signature to front endpaper of Volume I. Scattered foxing to preliminaries of both copies; pencil marginal note and offsetting from inserted newsclip on Edgeworth to pages 2-3. Collates [x], [2], 385, [1, blank]; 387-775, [20]: complete, containing both titles and half titles as well as the three plates (of which two are folding). An overall pleasing copy of this cornerstone work on education. A contemporary and correspondent of such luminaries as Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Jane Marcet, Maria Edgeworth made her name as an advocate for women's education. Beginning with Letters for Literary Ladies three years earlier, Edgeworth began to write about the need to train girls into a lifelong love of learning. But it was in Practical Education, a collaboration with her father, that her views on methods of education were most… Read More

London and Manchester: John Haywood, 1903. First edition. Near Fine. Original pictorial boards with cloth to spine. 76 pages. Faint toning to edges of covers but surprisingly clean overall. Early ownership signature of "Sarah Askworth...1906" to the verso of the front cover and overlaid with tape. Lightly toned throughout, but otherwise unmarked without the signs of kitchen use common in such books. Scarce in trade, OCLC reports no copies of the present work at institutions. "Around the year 1900 there was a concern about the physical state of the people of Britain. Even though there had been tremendous efforts in the late 19th century to provide better public health, housing, and education, many children were still no more healthy than they had been back in the 1840s. The new Liberal government elected in 1906 passed various measures to try to deal with this problem....and they gave permission for schools to offer meals to their pupils" (National Archives). Efforts to consider the link between… Read More

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1907. First Thus. Fine. Large Paper Edition limited to 750 of which this is 183. Finely bound in half crushed morocco over marbled boards with gilt to spines. Top edges brightly gilt. Remaining edges deckled. In all a beautiful and pleasing illustrated set of George Eliot's works, which helped define the novel as a genre and brought women's experiences and inner lives into public dialogue. "No writer, not even Milton, is so dense and ample in his range of intellectual reference as George Eliot" (Myers). Defying gender expectations, Mary Ann Evans, writing under the pseudonym George Eliot, became famous for being a prolific writer who shaped the modern novel. Works like The Mill on the Floss, Daniel Deronda, and Middlemarch not only proved Eliot's intellectual dexterity by weaving together cultural references from religion, art, politics, and economics to comment on communities in flux; they also placed in context the rich interior lives of women, and the often agonizing… Read More

London: John Wilkie, 1762. First edition. With title page of volume II erroneously dated MDCCXII as called for by ESTC. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, measuring 168 x 100mm and collating complete: [20], 338; [12], 324. A square copy with joints professionally renewed; some chipping to spine labels and gentle shelfwear to boards. Faint dampstaining to lower corner of contents in volume I and paper loss to upper corner of pages 203-204 affecting 9 lines each. Volume II overall clean, with long archivally reinforced tear to pages 131-132 and paper loss to lower corner of pages 171-172 with no text loss in either case. An exceptionally scarce fantastical travel narrative with erotic content, published by notorious Grub Street writer and demi-monde ally Samuel Derrick. ESTC locates only three copies at institutions (BL, Columbia, and UCLA) and of the three copies to appear in the modern auction record, the most recent was in 1941. The present is the only example on the market. In a 1763… Read More

London: Printed for E. Curll in Fleet Street, 1717. First thus. Contemporary full calf with gilt label to spine. All edges speckled red. Measuring 155 x 90mm and collating complete including frontis and terminal advertisement: [4], 394, [2]. Shelfwear to extremities and slight bowing to boards. Contemporary annotations to front pastedown and front and rear endpapers with portions of rear endpapers excised; rear pastedown neatly removed. Internally a clean copy with a long closed tear to pages 213-214 professionally repaired with no loss to text, and brief examples of pencil marginalia to pages 237-38. A pleasing copy of a scarce erotic book which last appeared at auction over three decades ago and which ESTC lists at only 12 U.S. libraries. Drawn from a 17th century Spanish picaresque novel following the intrigues of the female rake Rufina, Alonso de Castillo's La Garduna de Sevilla (1642) first appeared in English in 1665 as a romantic adventure translated by John Davies as La Picara, or The… Read More

London: Richard Bentley, 1864. First English language edition. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards with morocco label to spine. All edges marbled. Marbled endpapers. Measuring 179 x 119mm and collating complete including photographic frontis: x, 374. A square, tight copy with some loss to upper spine label and gentle rubbing to boards. Amorial bookplate to front pastedown. Light scattered foxing largely confined to preliminary and terminal leaves; pages 161-162 partially detached but holding. A female-authored memoir that participates in both anti-Catholicism and convent-fetish eroticism, it is somewhat scarce institutionally but is a rarity in trade with its most recent appearance at auction occurring a century ago. The present is the only example currently on the market. Frank in her delivery, Henrietta Caracciolo recounts how her rise to young womanhood under the jealous eye of her mother -- combined with the untimely death of a sympathetic father -- led to her unwilling confinement in a… Read More

London: R. Burleigh [false imprint for E. Curll], 1716. First edition. Bound to style in quarter calf over marbled boards with gilt to spine. All edges marbled. Measuring 185 x 112mm and collating complete including half title: [4], iii, [1, blank], 39, [1, blank]. With catchword 'behold' on page 27 and floral ornament above 'Finis' on page 39 as called for. A Fine example, unmarked and fresh. A scarce piece of erotic satire, ESTC records copies at 11 U.S. institutions. It last sold at auction in 1929, and the present is the only first edition on the market. "Begin my Muse and sing in Epick train The Petticoat; Nor shall thou sing in vain, The Petticoat will sure reward thy pain!" So opens a satire composed under the pseudonym Mr. Gay (used by several of those hacks in Edmund Curll's employ), which traces how the amorous adventures of Thyrsis and Chloe were made possible by the latter's fashionable hooped skirt. Finding both humor and seriousness in women's fashion, The Petticoat points out how some… Read More

London: B.M. for G. Bedel and T. Collins, 1659. First edition. Twelvemo measuring 90 x 140mm (pages). Collates complete: [48], 90, [6]. Internally a pleasing copy, trimmed a bit close along the header but always retaining the page number and running titles. Small closed tear to lower margin of A6; some light marginal soiling on occasion, not affecting text. Several examples of contemporary ink marginalia and manicules. Finely bound in full red morocco with gilt to spine and boards; all edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Bookplates of John Lawson and Anthony Fair to front pastedown. A scarce and early work on the social education, the present is the only copy on the market. ESTC records 12 copies, with only five of those in North America. Grieving over the loss of his eldest son, famed diarist and social commentator John Evelyn turned to translation and study for consolation. The result of his efforts was The Golden Book, a tract encouraging parents to take a strong hand in their children's educations… Read More

New York: John Day Co, 1929. First English language edition. Near Fine/Very Good +. Near Fine book retaining its bright topstain and insignia to front board; front hinge a bit tender. Some minor toning internally. In a VG+ price-clipped dust jacket, overall age toned with chipping and loss to extremities; amateur tape repairs and evidence of tape removal to verso. The twisted tale of the woman Alraune, conceived by artificial insemination and carrying a seed of darkness in her as she grows into maturity. Seductive and magnetic, Alraune spreads a poisonous influence upon those around her. Blending ancient lore with modern social concerns about reproductive and medical technology, the work is made even more macabre by the stark black and white illustrations of the erotic artist Mahlon Blaine. The stuff of nightmares. Near Fine in Very Good + dust jacket.