Women's History Month
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 1 EXCEPTIONAL AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED BY SUSAN B. ANTHONY 1. ANTHONY, Susan B. Autograph letter signed. WITH: Envelope stamped, postmarked “Mar 4,1894,” autograph return address. WITH: The National Bulletin, January, 1894, autograph marginalia. Rochester, NY; Washington, D.C. 1894. Three items. ALS, card (2-7/8 by 5-3/8 inches); rnvelope (3 by 5-1/2 inches); National Bulletin, (6 by 8-1/2; pp. 4). Housed in a custom clamshell box. $9000 Rare 1894 collection of autograph materials signed by Susan B. Anthony, featuring a fascinating one-page March 4, 1894 autograph letter signed by her, a stamped envelope containing an 1894 postmark with her signed name and the return address of her Rochester home, along with a January 4, 1894 issue of the National Bulletin containing her autograph marginalia—together presenting a vital record of Anthony’s dedicated spirit and resolve in the long struggle for suffrage. In the final years of the 19th century, Susan B. Anthony and other leaders in the fight for suffrage again marshaled their efforts, this time in anticipation of an upcoming NY State Constitutional Convention. “To get the word ‘male’ in effect out of the [US] Constitution cost the women of the country 52 years of pauseless campaign… they were forced to conduct 56 campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses” (Catt & Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics). In this rare collection of autograph materials the focus is an upcoming 1894 NY State Constitutional Convention that had already “drawn attention from as early as 1887, when voters approved the need to revise the state constitution.” “The NY Woman Suffrage Association members organized a campaign, holding mass meetings in every NY county and securing 600,000 signatures out of a state population of roughly 2,500,000… In May 1894 the president of the NY State Constitutional Convention appointed a committee in charge of suffrage amendments. Anthony and Jean Brooks Greenleaf... spoke to that committee on May 24, 1894. Despite the suffragists’ efforts, the petitions and committee hearings failed to bring about a suffrage amendment to the 1894 constitution” (Tarlton Law Library). Prominent is a March 4, 1894 autograph letter on ivory card stock, which reads: "We now have two genuine republican Commonwealths—Wyoming & Colorado—and I trust, Nov. 6, 1894—will bring us two more—New York & Kansas— so that our Woman Suffrage flag may have four stars on its field of blue—where we now have only two!! Rochester NY, March 4, 1894, [signed] Susan B. Anthony, Rochester NY." It is accompanied by a January 4, 1894 four-page issue of the National Bulletin with Anthony’s autograph marginalia. The envelope, with its cancelled "Two-Cent" stamp, is postmarked "New York, NY, Mar 4 10 PM." It is addressed to: "Remington Ward, Newport, R.I.." A very rare, exceptional near-fine collection of Susan B. Anthony autograph materials.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 2 VERY SCARCE 1833 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF AUSTEN’S FIRST NOVEL, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY 2. AUSTEN, Jane. Sense and Sensibility: A Novel. Philadelphia, 1833. Two volumes bound in one. 12mo, periodstyle full red morocco gilt. $18,000 First American edition—an edition of only 1250 copies—of Jane Austen’s first novel, on “the twin themes of prudence and benevolence, reason and passion, head and heart, or sense and sensibility,” sumptuously bound. Sense and Sensibility “does brightly respond to an interesting religious and ethical debate over the philosophy of sentiment… [The popular view held that morality] depends on the ‘heart’ and not on the ‘head… Rational moralists opposed the tendency, and a debate was in full swing by the 1790s when novel after novel took up the twin themes of prudence and benevolence, reason and passion, head and heart, or sense and sensibility” (Honan, Jane Austen, 275-77). Only Emma (1816) was published in the United States in Austen’s lifetime, an extremely rare edition that she makes no reference to in her letters. “The first English editions of Austen’s novels may be supposed to have been available in the United States at an early date… Chief Justice John Marshall in a letter of 1826 mentioned that he had just finished reading Austen’s novels… It has been shown too that James Fenimore Cooper’s first novel Precaution was an imitation of Persuasion (of which no American edition was published before 1832). It may be, therefore, that the availability of London editions in North America satisfied early local demand for Austen’s novels, but, whether or not that is so, no other American edition is known before the issue of all six titles, each in two volumes, by Carey & Lea of Philadelphia in 1832-33. The survival (and publication) of the publisher’s records for the years in question has provided details of publication costs, size of editions, etc., and the novels were also regularly advertised in the local press; but… little contemporary critical opinion has been traced. Relatively few copies of the 1832-33 Philadelphia editions are known to survive” (Gilson, 97-98). “The most striking feature of the first American editions is the amount of textual variation.” In addition to many minor differences of spelling and punctuation, “there is also what can only be described as a bowdlerizing tendency, seen chiefly in the omission of the name of the Deity from the exclamations of the vulgar, or from those of the major characters in moments of stress” (Gilson, 98). Bound without publisher’s ads. Gilson B6. Keynes 14. Some light foxing to text; title page of Volume I toned. Beautifully bound.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 3 “THE MOST FAMOUS ACTRESS THE WORLD HAS SEEN”: SARAH BERNHARDT’S MEMOIRS, ONE OF ONLY 250 COPIES SIGNED BY HER 3. BERNHARDT, Sarah. Memories of My Life. New York, 1907. Thick octavo, original white cloth gilt. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $3800 Limited first American edition of Bernhardt’s Memories of My Life, number 153 of only 250 in the limited “autograph edition” signed by her, with frontispiece and over 25 full-page illustrations. “Sarah Bernhardt was not simply the most famous actress the world has seen; she was among the most gifted… Working within the Romantic tradition, she created exciting entertainment out of wild emotion, yet never quite lost her ability to touch the heights and depths of tragic understanding… audiences found it hard to resist making connections between her roles and her lifestyle” (ODNB). This intimate account of her life is “intensely readable… central to our knowledge of her life up to and through her first American tour of 1880-1881” (Gottlieb, Sarah Bernhardt). In her conclusion Bernhardt observes: “My life, which I thought at first to be so short, seemed now to be very, very long, and that gave me a great mischievous delight whenever I thought of the infernal displeasures of my enemies.” With frontispiece portrait and over 25 full-page illustrations. Issued the same year as the first American and English trade edition (the latter as My Double Life), no priority established. With six pages of publisher’s advertisements at rear. Without scarce and fragile original acetate dust wrapper. Dramatic Bibliography, 66. Ink stamps to front endpapers. Interior clean, neat repair to front inner paper hinge. Light soiling to cloth, toning to spine, mild rubbing to corners. An exceptionally good signed copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 4 INSCRIBED BY MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, FIRST EDITION OF HALFWAY TO FREEDOM, WITH OVER 110 PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS 4. BOURKE-WHITE, Margaret. Halfway to Freedom. New York, 1949. Octavo, original half black cloth, dust jacket. $1300 First edition of Bourke-White’s coverage of India’s passage to independence, inscribed on the colophon page, “For Gloria Maguire with all the best, Cordially Margaret Bourke-White,” featuring over 110 photographic images, including her famous photograph of Gandhi seated at his spinning wheel. Called “one of the world’s great artists” by Alfred Stieglitz in 1932, Margaret Bourke-White “epitomized the dynamic spirit of her age… She was generally the ‘first woman photographer’ at whatever it was she was covering, and she covered the most important events of the mid-century” (McDarrah, 52-53). A photographer at Fortune and Time for decades, she was also a staff photographer at Life and “one of the most successful women in America” (Parr & Badger I:140).. Highlighting Bourke-White’s major achievements “was her coverage of India’s emergence as an independent nation” (ANB). Book with very minor rubbing to extremities, price-clipped dust jacket with a bit of shallow chipping. A near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 5 RARE SECOND EDITION OF JANE EYRE, “THE MOST FAMOUS SECOND EDITION IN THE CHRONICLE OF VICTORIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY”, WITH THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BRONTE’S FAMOUS DEDICATION TO THACKERAY 5. [BRONTE, Charlotte] BELL, Currer. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. London, 1848. Three volumes. Octavo, recent full crushed brown morocco gilt; original cloth bound in. $12,500 Important second edition of Jane Eyre (printed only three months after the first edition), containing the first appearance of Bronte’s famous dedication to Thackeray, which contributed greatly to the success of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. When Charlotte Bronte, after having earlier manuscripts rejected by publishers, submitted Jane Eyre to Smith & Elder in 1847 under the pseudonym “Currer Bell,” the firm “recognised its great power. It was immediately accepted and published in [October] 1847. Jane Eyre achieved at once a surprising success. Charlotte… had learnt to combine extraordinary power of expressing passion with an equally surprising power of giving reality to her pictures which transfigures the commonest scenes and events in the light of genius… The second edition, dedicated to Thackeray, appeared in January 1848.” (DNB). The novel’s earliest critics were “somewhat lacking in cordiality, but Mr. Bell believed, quite accurately, that ‘a brisk sale would be effectual support under the hauteur of lofty critics’… The ‘effectual support sought by Mr. Bell was not lacking; in January, 1848, a second edition of Jane Eyre appeared—the most famous second edition in the chronicle of Victorian bibliography, and a collector’s item in its own right. For this second edition contained the dedication to Thackeray which proved an ‘effectual support’ to Vanity Fair” (Winterich, 23 Books and the Stories Behind Them, 62). This dedication to Thackeray was also scandalous, as he had a wife who was certified insane, and some felt the novel to have been inspired by his situation. Likewise, “an absurd story to the effect that Miss Brontë was represented by Becky Sharp and Thackeray by Mr. Rochester became current” (DNB). Published just three months after the first edition. Bound without advertisements, with original cloth covers bound in (without original cloth spine of volume III). Smith, 24. CBEL III: 461. BMC 4: 241. Bookplate of George Mason La Monte, the American businessman, philanthropist, and New Jersey Democratic politician. Volume III with expert cleaning to text, a very good copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 6 “IN A HUNDRED DIFFERENT WAYS WOMEN HAVE HELPED TO SHAPE OUR COUNTRY’S COURSE…” 6. MELTZER, Milton, editor. Women of America Series. New York, 1969-78. Eighteen volumes. Octavo, original cloth, dust jackets. $4800 First editions, first printings of 18 (of 22) titles from the Women of America series (1969 to 1978), including two review copies and three titles inscribed by the author. Series editor Milton Meltzer was a respected popular historian who authored books for both children and adults, often with a focus on social justice. The series also included books on Mary Elizabeth Lease, Margaret Chase Smith, Lydia Maria Child and Abbey Kelley Foster. Listed alphabetically by subject: (BUCK, Pearl) BLOCK, Irvin. The Lives of Pearl Buck. 1973. Novelist; the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature. (CARSON, Rachel) STERLING, Philip. Sea and Earth. 1970. Scientist, writer, and inadvertent founder of the modern environmental movement. Inscribed by the author. (CASSATT, Mary) McKOWN, Robin. The World of Mary Cassatt. 1972. A portrait of the bold 19th century expatriate impressionist. (GOLDMAN, Emma) SHULMAN, Alix. To the Barricades. 1971. Activist, agitator, and anarchist. (GRAHAM, Martha) TERRY, Walter. Frontiers of Dance. 1975. Legendary founder of the modern dance movement. (JACKSON, Mahalia) JACKSON, Jesse. Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord! 1974. The “Queen of Gospel.” Inscribed by the author. (MOTHER JONES) WERSTEIN, Irving. Labor’s Defiant Lady. 1969. Union organizer and champion for the causes of workers in the fields of coal, steel, textiles, railroads, and an advocate against child labor. (KEMBLE, Fanny) SCOTT, John Anthony. Fanny Kemble’s America. 1973. Actress and author of the anti-slavery book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839. With review slip laid in. (RINCON de GAUTIER, Felisa) GRUBER, Ruth. Felisa Rincon de Gautier. 1972. The first woman mayor of San Juan. Inscribed by the author in 1973. (RUBINSTEIN, Helena) FABE, Maxene. Beauty Millionaire. 1972. Portrait of the Polish-America entrepreneur and philanthropist. (SABIN, Florence) PHELAN, Mary Kay. Probing the Unknown. 1969. Medical scientist and public health advocate. (SANGER, Margaret) LADER, Lawrence and MELTZER, Milton. Margaret Sanger. 1969. Early and influential champion of birth control. (SMITH, Bessie) MOORE, Carman. Somebody’s Angel Child. 1969. “Empress of the Blues.” (STEIN, Gertrude) ROGERS, W.G. Gertrude Stein is Gertrude Stein is Gertrude Stein. 1973. American expatriate modernist writer. With review slip laid in. (STOWE, Harriet Beecher) SCOTT, John Anthony. Woman Against Slavery. 1978. American abolitionist and author. (TARBELL, Ida) FLEMING, Alice. Ida Tarbell. 1971. Pioneer of investigative journalism. (WALD, Lillian) BLOCK, Irvin. Neighbor to the World. 1969. Nurse and public health advocate. (WRIGHT, Frances) STILLER, Richard. Commune on the Frontier. 1972. Scottish-American social reformer.Books generally near-fine to fine, dust jackets very good to fine. Most copies of these titles went to libraries, with little exposure in the retail book trade: few copies survive in collectible condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 7 A “TESTAMENT… TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT”: FIRST EDITION OF OCTAVIA BUTLER’S NEBULA AWARDWINNING NOVEL, PARABLE OF THE TALENTS, BOLDLY SIGNED BY HER 7. BUTLER, Octavia E. Parable of the Talents. New York / Toronto, 1998. Octavo, original black paper boards, dust jacket. $1800 First edition of one of Butler’s final novels, the concluding work in her Parable Series—a “masterpiece” (New York Times)—boldly signed on the title page by her. “By writing Black female protagonists into science fiction, and bringing her acute appraisal of real-world power structures to bear on the imaginary worlds,” Butler became a prominent early voice of Afrofuturism (New Yorker). Her Parable series, begun with Parable of the Sower (1993), was continued by her series’ final work, Parable of the Talents (1998). Awarded the 1999 Nebula Award for Best Novel, it was quickly heralded as a “masterpiece” (New York Times). The novel, which evokes a dystopian world in which “indentured servitude and slavery are common” (New Yorker), nevertheless stands “as a testament to the author’s enormous talent, and to the human spirit” (Publishers Weekly). To Butler, the book “was not intended as an augur. ‘This was not a book about prophecy,’ she said… ‘this was a cautionary tale’” (New Yorker). In addition to her two Nebula Awards—for Parable of the Talents and for Bloodchild (1985) as “Best Novelette”—Butler won two Hugo Awards: one for Bloodchild and another for her 1984 short story Speech Sounds. Following her sudden death in 2006, Butler was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010. Her body of work “pushes the genre to speak to our deepest, culturally burdened horrors as well as to our transcendent hopes” (Kilgore & Samantraim, Memorial, 353). Interior fine with scant foxing to fore-edge; mere trace of soiling to bright dust jacket. A handsome about-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 8 “A WORLD IN WHICH BOTH ARTISTRY AND FEMALE IDENTIFICATION ARE POSSIBLE”: WILLA CATHER’S O PIONEERS!, FIRST EDITION 8. CATHER, Willa. O Pioneers! Boston and New York, 1913. Octavo, original ribbed tan cloth. $1200 First edition, first printing, of the work Cather considered her first novel, one of only 2000 copies published. “Taking its title from Whitman’s epic vision of subduing the land, [O Pioneers!] is dedicated to Sarah Orne Jewett, whose Country of the Pointed Firs offers a pastoral vision of female power and of female community. In O Pioneers! Cather was finally able to envision a world in which both artistry and female identification are possible, and in this respect O Pioneers! may very well be, as she believed, her first novel” (Modern American Women Writers, 41). First printing, with Crane binding “a” in the ribbed cloth and period after “Co” on the spine touching the “o.” Without very rare dust jacket. Crane A6a. Bookplate. Interior clean, very mild soiling to cloth, a bit of rubbing and toning to spine. A very nice copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 9 RARE FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF CATHERINE THE GREAT’S “INNOVATIVE AND INFLUENTIAL” NAKAZ, 1768 9. CATHERINE THE GREAT. The Grand Instructions to the Commissioners Appointed to Frame a New Code of Laws for the Russian Empire: Composed by Her Imperial Majesty Catherine II. Empress of All the Russias. To which is prefixed, A Description of the Manner of opening the Commission, with the Order and Rules for Electing the Commissioners. London, 1768. Quarto, contemporary marbled boards rebacked in period-style calfgilt, red morocco spine label, raised bands; pp. (i-v), vi-xxiii, (1), 3-258. $7200 First edition in English of the celebrated Nakaz of Catherine the Great, drawing extensively on Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws, heralded by Voltaire and Diderot, initially issued in Russia in 1767 —”the single piece of Russian legislative material best known abroad”—aligned with the later American constitution for its “shared characteristics and techniques,” highly elusive in contemporary boards. “Born into a family of obscure German aristocrats, delivered to St. Petersburg at the age of 14, and married in great pomp to the feckless heir to the Russian throne, Catherine found herself” in a loveless marriage and without political support (Smithsonian). In 1765, after Peter’s death and several years into her reign, Catherine began crafting the Nakaz, working on its almost daily for nearly two years. “Fundamentally, the Nakaz, which Voltaire is said to have called the finest monument of the century, is a legal and a political document. It represents Catherine’s ambition, early in her reign, to remodel Russia’s laws in accordance with new principles expounded in Western Europe. The Nakaz treats the historical development of Russia and monarchial absolutism; the nature and forms of laws; crime and punishment; social structure and religious freedom.” (Dmytryshyn, Economic Content, 1-2). “While she worked alongside a secretary, it was Catherine herself who selected and organized the material, and wrote out the finished version.” In creating the Nakaz, she chose her texts carefully. Nearly 300 “owe something to Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1748),” with about 100 clauses traced to Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments (1764), and many from Voltaire’s Encyclopédie.” Catherine was “not out to create a constitutional monarchy,” yet her Nakaz “was innovative and influential… the Legislative Commission that met in Moscow in August 1767 to discuss the Nakaz differed from later, seminal constitution-making assemblies but… it also anticipated and even exceeded them. Like the convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787, this Russian Commission assembled delegates from across the empire... Women, too, received some recognition in this Moscow commission, something that did not happen in revolutionary America” (Colley, 73-77). The Nakaz was never enacted, yet it is “the single piece of Russian legislative material best known abroad. It secured for Catherine the encomium ‘the Great’” (Yale Law School). First edition in English. Catherine’s manuscript was written in French, from which she produced a Russian translation, First editions were published in Moscow on August 10, 1767: a first German edition appeared in 1769. Translated by Mikhail Tatischeff. Engraved ornamental initials and headpieces. Mispaginated as issued without loss of text. With trace of bookplate removal; later blank free endpapers. Bookseller ticket. Text fresh and fine, light edge-wear, rubbing to contemporary marbled boards. A handsome wide-margined, near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 10 “THE FIRST AMERICAN BOOK TO CALL FOR IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION, AN END TO ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION” 10. (SLAVERY) CHILD, Mrs. [Lydia Maria]. An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans. Boston, 1833. Small octavo ( 4-3/4 by 7-1/2 inches), original pebbled green cloth rebacked with original spine preserved, later spine label, chemise and slipcase. $4000 First edition of “a central document of the abolitionist movement,” the revolutionary 1833 work that made Lydia Maria Child “one of the first Americans to speak out against the institution of slavery,” complete with three steel engravings, including the iconic frontispiece of an enslaved woman, full-page engraving of slave manacles and torture devices, and full-page engraving of Mungo Park with an African woman, a handsome copy in original cloth, housed in a custom chemise and half morocco slipcase. By the 1830s Child was already a popular novelist, essayist and magazine writer, and the founder of America’s first children’s magazine, Juvenile Miscellany. When her Appeal appeared in 1833, however, public outrage threatened both her career and her safety. A meeting with William Lloyd Garrison in 1830 had propelled Child toward the massive research she undertook for this pioneering work, which made her the “acknowledged leader of the abolitionist movement… [yet] it was dangerous to be an abolitionist in the 1830s. Two months after Child published her Appeal, mob violence against abolitionists broke out across the country… Unlike many abolitionists, she believed that racial prejudice in the North was almost as bad as slavery in the South. Racial discrimination of any form, she constantly insisted, should have no place in a republic based on the ideals of equality, freedom and opportunity” (Kenschaft, 6-8). Senator Charles Sumner, one of “the most important of those who influenced Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation” (ANB), always credited Child’s “Appeal with awakening him to the injustice of slavery. Frederick Douglass also paid tribute to the white abolitionist, saying her Appeal, “issued, as it was, at an early stage in the antislavery conflict, was one of the most effective agencies in arousing attention to the cruelty and injustice of slavery” (Life and Times, 470-41). Complete with the famed engraved frontispiece of a kneeling enslaved woman from an 1827 painting by Henry Thomson, along with the full-page engraving of devices used in the Middle Passage and later to torture and restrain Africans, including handcuffs, leg irons, a thumbscrew and a speculum oris that was used to force open a slave’s mouth to compel feeding, with image of slaves packed in below the decks of a slave ship. Together with the full-page engraving that depicts Mongo Park and an African woman who came to his aid when in Bambarra. Found in bluegreen cloth (this copy), russet cloth, and brown cloth; no priority established. With tipped-in errata slip. Sabin 12711. Work, 299. BAL 3116. See Blockson 9186. Small numerical notation to rear pastedown. Interior generally fresh with frontis, tissue guards and title page skillfully washed and with expert paper repairs, otherwise lightest scattered foxing; bright original pebbled cloth boards. A highly desirable near-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 11 “TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR AMERICA” 11. CLINTON, Hillary Rodham. Living History. New York, 2003. Octavo, original half black paper boards, dust jacket. $1000 First trade edition of Clinton’s “chart of her own course through unexplored terrain… [becoming] an emblem for some and a lightning rod for others,” boldly inscribed in blue felt pen by her on the title page: “To D— J— C—— with best wishes—Hillary Rodham Clinton.” “Enough information and personality to appeal to people on both sides of the political fence” (Publishers Weekly). With 16 pages of black-and-white photographic illustrations. Preceded by the signed limited edition of 1500 copies. A fine inscribed copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 12 THE FIRST SYNTHESIZED ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE: ORIGINAL U.S. PATENT OFFICE PRINTING OF PATENT #2,744,122 12. DJERASSI, Carl; MIRAMONTES, Luis and ROSENKRANZ, George. United States Patent Office 2,744,122. Patented May 1, 1956. Delta4-19-NOR-17alpha-ETHINYLANDROSTEN-17beta-OL-3-ONE and Process. [Washington, DC: United States Patent Office, 1956]. Quarto (7-1/2 by 11 inches), single leaf of wove paper printed on recto and verso for two pages; custom card portfolio. $12,500 Rare original United States Patent Office printing of patent number 2,744,122, the patent for norethisterone, the first synthesized oral contraceptive, developed from Mexican yams by a team of chemists led by Carl Djerassi in 1951, and one of three synthesized oral contraceptives used by Gregory Pincus—with whom Djerassi shares the title of “the father of birth control pill”—in early clinical trials. Djerassi started working at the small pharmaceutical company Syntex in Mexico City in 1949. There he established how to synthesize cortisone from a natural product derived from the Mexican yam. He then found that the same starting compound could yield norethisterone, a mimic of progesterone, which controls the female menstrual cycle. Norethisterone was the first highly active oral progestogen to be synthesized, followed soon after by noretynodrel (1952) and norethandrolone (1953), which were synthesized by Frank B. Colton at Searle in Skokie, Illinois. In early 1951, reproductive physiologist Gregory Pincus obtained a small grant with the help of Abraham Stone (medical director of Planned Parenthood) and Margaret Sanger (founder of the American birth control movement) to begin hormonal contraceptive research. Unbeknownst to Pincus, Sanger and Stone, the actual chemistry of the Pill had already been invented, but Djerassi had not yet tested the orally effective form of synthetic progesterone as a contraceptive. Pincus’ research started on April 25, 1951, with reproductive physiologist Min Chueh Chang continuing the 1937 experiments of Makepeace, et al. which showed that injections of progesterone suppressed ovulation in rabbits. Progesterone was abandoned as an oral ovulation inhibitor following these clinical studies in favor of synthetic chemical compounds with progestogenic activity. Chang found Djerassi’s norethisterone [the present patent] among the most promising compounds, and it was developed into the second progestin after Enovid to be used in an oral contraceptive. While both Pincus and Djerassi have alternately been called “the father of the birth control pill,” Djerassi was among the earliest of scientists to pioneer the chemical bases of what would become the Pill, and he would be the first to gain national recognition for his contribution. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1978 for patent #2,744,122 (this one). Djerassi’s conviction that the Pill made the sexual liberalization of the 1960s possible is widely shared, and chemical control of the fertility cycle was a key ingredient in subsequent advances in reproductive technologies, beginning with in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the late 1960s. This is an original Patent Office printing, contemporaneous with the issuance of the patent. Later printings would be a photocopy; the present document is printed and thus original. Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 13 “A SUPREME NOVELIST IN THE AGE OF GREAT NOVELISTS”: BEAUTIFUL 25-VOLUME ILLUSTRATED LARGE-PAPER EDITION OF GEORGE ELIOT’S WORKS, WITH A SIGNED AUTOGRAPH LETTER BOUND IN 13. ELIOT, George. The Writings. Boston and New York, 1908. Twenty-five volumes. Octavo, contemporary full brown crushed morocco gilt. $11,000 Splendid large-paper edition of Eliot’s writings, number 29 of only 750 sets produced, with over 150 illustrations including hand-colored frontispieces in double-suite, with a signed autograph letter by Eliot bound into Volume I. Eliot, who pioneered the method of psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction, has been praised for the qualities that make her “a supreme novelist in an age of great novelists” (Kunitz and Haycraft, 212). The illustrations reproduce original drawings by Charles Brock, Frederick Pegram, Ambrose Dudley, Henry Paget Archibald Hartrick and others, as well as photogravures by C. E. Walmsley, many taken for this edition, of English estates and countryside featured in Eliot’s writings. The frontispieces appear in double suite, one of each beautifully hand-colored. Includes all of Eliot’s major novels, as well as the essays and letters. With an extensive biographical and critical notice. The autograph letter, signed by Eliot (with her actual name, Marian Evans), reads: “1 Sydney Place Dover. March 20, 1855. Dear Friend, I wrote to you in a hurry the other day. I had not time to express what I really feel—thorough sympathy with you under this terrible trial of illness. Indeed in my first hasty reading of your letter I did not fully bring before myself the meaning of the words ‘three weeks in bed from disease of the left lung.’ But now I do so, I am grieved to think of what you must have suffered, so I write this note from old friendship, ___ with ___ to tell you how sincerely I shall be interested to know of your progress towards health. I suppose I shall be in London before long, but any news of you before then would be very welcome. There is no use in this letter, to be sure, but I couldn’t help writing it. Perhaps after all it may do you a little good to know that you have the hearty interest and friendship of Marian Evans.” Fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month SCARCE FIRST EDITIONS OF PARTS I AND II OF A SEMINAL COLLECTION OF KEY CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE COURTS OF HENRY VIII, ELIZABETH I, JAMES I AND CHARLES I, FEATURING THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF ELIZABETH'S FAMED ARMADA SPEECH 14. (ELIZABETH I, HENRY VIII, JAMES I, CHARLES I, et al.). Cabala: Sive Scrinia Sacra. Mysteries of State & Government: in Letters of Illustrious Persons, and Great Agents; in the Reigns of Henry the Eighth, Queen Elizabeth, K: James, and the late King Charles. In Two Parts. London, 1654. Two parts bound in one volume. Small quarto, period-style dark brown paneled calf. $3500 First editions of both parts of this major collection of official correspondence from the courts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I, featuring the first publication of Elizabeth’s renowned Spanish Armada Speech (1588), a printing of Henry VIII’s 1533 letter “Touching his Title of Supreme Head of the Church of England,” and a letter from Ann Boleyn written from the Tower shortly before her execution, along with first or early printings of letters from James I, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Donne, Francis Bacon and other key figures in the often perilous tumult of court rivalries, religious furor and foreign intrigue. This scarce volume contains first editions of Parts I (Cabala) and II (ScriniaSacra… Supplement) of a major collection of more than 300 letters—official correspondence from the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I—that includes many of the most “important state papers issuing from the English court” and provides fascinating insight into court rivalries, religious politics and foreign intrigue (Sir Walter Raleigh and his Colonie, 23n). Of particular interest is the first printing of Elizabeth’s powerful Armada Speech, delivered by her at Tilbury (1588), present in a letter (circa 1624) from Doctor Leonel Sharp to the Duke of Buckingham (Cabala, pp. 257-262). As chaplain to the Queen’s Lieutenant General, Sharp was present at Tilbury, and his transcription of the Queen’s Armada Speech is of great import, for “nothing of it survives in her own handwriting. The speech was not published until 1654 [i.e. 1653, this edition], when a copy sent many years later by Sharp to the Duke of Buckingham was printed.” Sharp’s letter had been given by Buckingham to an anonymous collector; scholars have discovered only one other copy, which Sharp sent to the Queen. While debate remains on the Queen’s sole or full authorship of the Armada Speech, most historians agree that Elizabeth “was speaking extempore, without notes… Sharp was the first person to commit her words to paper.” As Sharp’s transcription seems to have been “scribbled out as the Queen spoke,” this first printing stands as a crucial record of “the inflections of Elizabeth’s voice as she was delivering the words by which—thanks to Dr. Sharp—she will always be remembered” (Pryor, Elizabeth I: Her Life in Letters, 99). Part I (Cabala) bound without publisher’s advertisements at rear; Part II with pagination as issued of “160, 181-355” with page 255 misnumbered 355. ESTC R21971. Wing C184. See Wing C183, S2110. Owner ink stamp to upper margin of Part I title page. Upper margin of general title repaired on verso, text mildly toned in places, occasional spotting and faint dampstaining. Period-style binding attractive and fine. 14
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 15 FIRST EDITION OF MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT'S WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE: A SHORT HISTORY OF A GREAT MOVEMENT 15. FAWCETT, Millicent Garrett. Women’s Suffrage. A Short History of a Great Movement. London and Edinburgh, 1912. Small octavo, original green cloth. $2000 First edition of this history and analysis of the women’s suffrage movement from the perspective of the leading moderate suffragist, in original cloth. A concise history of the women’s suffrage movement, also incorporating extensive discussion of the future of the movement, from international successes in enfranchisement to areas with potential for further gains. Fawcett was one of the earliest women’s suffrage activists, focusing on quiet advances through writing (Elizabeth Barrett Browning) and respectful activism (Elizabeth Fry). A suffragist rather than a more militant suffragette, Fawcett was deeply inspired by her mentor, John Stuart Mill, and led the moderate National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). “Later generations have not found it easy to evaluate [Fawcett]. In contrast to the Pankhursts, she shrank from hero-worshippers and did not seek to be a charismatic leader. As a speaker she was persuasive rather than inspirational… She took pride in her ‘Englishness’ and—not only in the context of war—had some of the defects that implies. Her statesmanlike qualities were nevertheless crucial in guiding the British women’s movement. The range of her contributions to public and intellectual life in an exceptionally long and influential career has only recently been recognized. Once stereotyped as a narrowly bourgeois liberal feminist, she is now appreciated as a woman who also addressed the exploitation of working women and child abuse. She argued—while never adopting the language of ‘sex war’—for votes for women on the grounds that they had distinctive insights to offer and interests to defend. Changing fashions and values in politics and feminism, and her status as an emblem of the women’s movement, have complicated the task of her biographers—and will continue to do so until it becomes possible to represent eminent feminists sympathetically as creatures of, as well as rebels against, their times” (ANB). Text very fresh with mild embrowning to preliminary blanks, bright original cloth. A handsome about-fine copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 16 16. (HAMILTON, Lady Emma) FRANKAU, Julia. The Story of Emma, Lady Hamilton. London, 1911. Two volumes. Tall folio, original full vellum gilt. $4800 Signed limited first edition of this richly illustrated biography of Lady Hamilton, number 132 of only 250 copies signed by the author, with 38 lovely color plates and 37 in-text illustrations, beautifully bound in full elaborately giltdecorated vellum, and housed in the scarce original publisher’s box. “A true and authentic account of the birth, life and death of the notorious adventuress… together with the story of her many lapses from virtue both before and after her connection with Immortal Nelson, the Hero of the Nile” (page v). Lady Hamilton was much loved as a subject for various portraitists, including Sir Joshua Reynolds and George Romney; many of these portraits are reproduced here in color. With errata slip in Volume I. Fine condition, a beautiful copy of this richly illustrated and beautifully bound work. Scarce original box expertly restored. “THE STORY OF HER MANY LAPSES FROM VIRTUE…”: BEAUTIFULLY BOUND AND ILLUSTRATED LIFE OF EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 17 THE LIFE AND WORK OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY, TWICE INSCRIBED BY SUSAN B. ANTHONY TO HER "COWORKER" AND FELLOW SUFFRAGETTE 17. (ANTHONY, Susan B.) HARPER, Ida Husted. The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony. Indianapolis and Kansas City, 1899, 1898. Two volumes. Octavo, modern full brown morocco. $16,500 First edition of the first two volumes of this biography of America’s pioneering reformer—the only volumes published during her lifetime, inscribed and signed by her in each volume. Inscribed in Volume I: “Mrs. Olivia B. Hall, Ann Arbor—Michigan—From her affectionate friend & coworker Susan B. Anthony. Rochester, N.Y. Jan. 1, 1899,” and in Volume II: “Mrs. Olivia B. Hall, Ann Arbor—Michigan—May the New Year bring added causes for happiness to her and all the loved ones of her home circle & to all homes—is the wish of her affectionate friend and coworker, Susan B. Anthony. Rochester, N.Y. Jan. 1, 1899.” At her death in Rochester, New York in 1906, Susan B. Anthony, who “came to personify the demand for woman suffrage to most Americans… left an enormous legacy… Her image, words and standards of work permeated the struggle for what women called the ‘Susan B. Anthony amendment… Another legacy lasted still longer; Anthony made certain that the movement’s history survived. In 1897 she brought Ida Husted Harper to live with her in Rochester to prepare two volumes of the Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, based on massive archives” (ANB). Anthony and Harper closely collaborated on the first two volumes, the only volumes of the biography published in Anthony’s lifetime. A later volume—not included in this set—was added by Harper after Anthony’s death. With frontispiece portraits, 68 full-page illustrations and over 100 in-text facsimile signatures and engraved ornamental initials throughout. Recipient Olivia Bigelow Hall (1822-1908), a noted suffragette from Ann Arbor, Michigan, hosted Anthony on many occasions and is mentioned numerous times in the text. She and her husband Israel Hall bought the Baldwin house and 78 acres of farmland in 1876; the Baldwin/Hall house remains the oldest house in the North Burns Park neighborhood in Ann Arbor, and much of that land became “Olivia B. Hall’s Subdivision” in 1890, filled in with homes for University of Michigan faculty and prominent Ann Arborites, as well as fraternity and sorority houses. Olivia Avenue in that neighborhood is named for her. Fine condition. A desirable inscribed copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 18 “AMONG QUAKER WOMEN OF HER DAY, HUME HAD AN EXTRAORDINARY KNOWLEDGE OF THE ARTS, LITERATURE AND THEOLOGY”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF HUME’S EXHORTATION, 1747 18. (QUAKERS) H[UME], S[ophia]. An Exhortation to the Inhabitants Of the Province of South-Carolina… Philadelphia, 1747. Octavo, contemporary brown calf rebacked with original spine laid down, raised bands. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $12,500 Very rare first edition of this pioneering and electrifying work by Quaker minister Sophia Hume, famed across England and America for her eloquence, printed with the aid of Philadelphia Quakers and issued by the publishing house of William Bradford, who arrived in America with William Penn in 1682 and whose firm published Paine’s Common Sense, scarce in contemporary calf. Sophia Hume, born in South Carolina, was the granddaughter of Mary Fisher, one of the first Quakers to preach in New England. Raised Anglican, Hume moved to England where she converted and joined the Society of Friends. “Like many other women converted during the Great Awakening around 1740, she was accused of ‘Delusion’ and ‘religious Madness.’ But despite the disapproval of her children and former friends, she traveled extensively for more than 30 years, writing and preaching both in England and the colonies” (Moynihan et al, Second to None: I). At that time Quaker “women’s participation in the ministry, traditionally a masculine prerogative, sprang from Quaker belief in both genders’ capacity to be guided by the Holy Spirit in inspired preaching… Long before 19th-century women reformers pioneered in the secular realm, challenging social convention as females delivering public lectures, Quaker women ministers in colonial America were routinely speaking in public before ‘mixed audiences’ (composed of both men and women)” (Larson, Daughters of Light, 4, 10). Hume had returned to Charleston in the late 1740s where, “to spread her message further, she wrote The Exhortation… and, to get it printed quickly, took the manuscript to Philadelphia,” arriving there in June 1747 (Boyer, Notable American Women, 234). She “preached at a number of Friends’ Meetings during the summer months and left for London in late October. In the interim the Meeting of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia promoted a subscription ‘for defraying the charges of printing our frd Sophia Hume’s book” (Miller 445). “Among Quaker women of her day, Hume had an extraordinary knowledge of the arts, literature and theology… [The Exhortation] conveyed a fairly simple appeal for repentance and reformation, its strength derived from Hume’s lifelong gift for strong phrases and intense, incantational prose” (Boyer, 234-5). With 14-stanza “Divine Love Commemorated” at rear. Sabin 33780. See Evans 5974; 6166. Early owner ink signatures to front free endpaper. Some foxing and minor embrowning to text. Contemporary calf covers nicely restored. An extremely good copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 19 "THE BATTLES SHE FOUGHT ARE STILL BEING FOUGHT": FIRST EDITION OF JANE JACOBS' DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES 19. JACOBS, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York, 1961. Octavo, original black half cloth, dust jacket. $1200 First edition of Jacobs’ pioneering first book, the urban planning classic that “rocked the planning and architectural establishment” (New York Times), a splendid copy in the original dust jacket. In 1961 Jane Jacobs, “the hugely influential writer and social critic… rocked the planning and architectural establishment” with The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs’ groundbreaking analysis of urban planning “proposed radically new principles for rebuilding cities: 1. A street or district must serve several primary functions. 2. Blocks must be short. 3. Buildings must vary in age, condition and use. 4. Population must be dense… But most compelling was her description of the everyday life she witnessed from her New York City home… The battles she ignited are still being fought” (New York Times). This is Jacobs’ first published work; in 1996 she won the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture. “First Printing” on copyright page. An excellent copy in fine condition.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 20 20. (JOSEPHINE) MASSON, Frédéric. Joséphine, Impératrice et Reine. Paris, 1899. Folio, contemporary full dark-green morocco gilt. $2000 Limited edition, number 590 of 1200 copies produced, beautifully illustrated with over 30 captioned tissue-guarded plates, including a beautiful color frontispiece portrait of “L’Imperatrice Josephine en 1806,” and eight in-text illustrations. Handsomely bound in full morocco-gilt by Durvand. Masson, best known for his works on the Bonapartes, emphasizes the romantic, personal, and dramatic sides of history through his use of detail and anecdote. Text in French. Original printed paper wrappers and spine bound in at front and rear. Bookplate. A splendid volume in fine condition. BEAUTIFULLY BOUND AND ILLUSTRATED LIFE OF JOSEPHINE
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 21 “I KNOW THAT I’M DOOMED AND I’M NOT GOING TO STRUGGLE AGAINST MY FATE” 21. KAVAN, Anna. Asylum Piece and Other Stories. London, 1940. Octavo, original beige cloth, dust jacket. $1950 First edition of Helen Ferguson’s first book to be published under her nom de plume, Anna Kavan. Born Helen Emily Woods, British novelist Anna Kavan is “one of the most mysterious of modern writers” (J.G. Ballard). “Kavan’s contemporary Lawrence Durrell saw her as a writer in the lineage of Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes; others have placed Ice in the canon of drug novels, along with De Quincey’s Confessions of an English OpiumEater and Huxley’s Brave New World.” This collection is “a strangely, uncannily penetrating study of the workings of the diseased mind, the unrealities become realities, the withdrawal into the intangible world, the breakdown of personality—and, most extraordinary of all, the flashes of clarity, understanding and despair. Some of the stories are told in the first person; others in the third; all deal with people in the asylum, or on brief leave of absence in the outside world” (Kirkus). Book with faint foxing to endpapers, edges of text block, and original cloth, and mild toning to spine. Dust jacket with slightest foxing, mild rubbing to edges, and a bit of toning to spine. An extremely good copy.
B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S W O M E N S H I S T O R Y 2 0 2 4 Women's History Month 22 “SOME PEOPLE WHO USED TO BE WITH SENATOR ROBERT KENNEDY WERE TALKING ABOUT HELPING THE POOR NEGRO WORKERS OF THE SOUTH…”: TYPED LETTER SIGNED BY JACQUELINE KENNEDY THE MONTH AFTER RFK’S ASSASSINATION 22. KENNEDY, Jacqueline. Typed letter signed. No place, July 25, 1968. Single sheet of cream letterhead stationary (measures 6 by 9-inches). $7000 A fascinating typed letter on Kennedy coat of arms letterhead, signed by Jacqueline Kennedy to one of her favorite artists and designers, Leslie Tillet, where she speaks of Robert McNamara, Robert Kennedy, and civil rights efforts to aid African Americans. The letter is especially momentous in that it is dated by her the month after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and three months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This rare July 25, 1968 typed letter signed by Jacqueline Kennedy is on Kennedy coat of arms letterhead, and is addressed by her in her elegant cursive: “Dear M. Tillett.” The recipient was highly regarded artist Leslie Tillett. One of Mrs. Kennedy’s favorite designers, “her bedroom when she was first lady featured a Tillett print on the curtains and elsewhere” (New York Times). In the letter, she writes of potential philanthropic efforts to assist African Americans, particularly those that might involve Robert McNamara, who became president of the World Bank that April after serving as both President Kennedy and President Johnson’s Secretary of Defense. Mrs. Kennedy also speaks of Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated the month before the date of this letter. He had been strongly involved in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which early prompted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated that April, to commend Robert Kennedy for his “able, courageous and effective work in guiding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through both Houses of Congress” (Stanford University). The text of the letter reads: “I finally had the occasion to give your papers to Mr. McNamara. He was most interested but I would not expect an immediate follow-through as I know all the World Bank problems in these places are so huge. They don’t seem to have gotten down to details yet, but I know he will and that some good will come of it eventually. Some people who used to be with Senator Robert Kennedy were talking about helping the poor Negro workers in the South—using their skills (for making quilts, etc.) so that they could market their wares and make some money. Perhaps some time this fall we could talk about this, with you, as I am certain you would be a greater help than anyone. Sincerely,” signed by Jacqueline Kennedy. A distinctive signed letter in fine condition.
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