Search Results: Books By Women from Sumner & Stillman

1882. London: George Routledge and Sons, n.d.[1882]. Original glazed pictorial boards with yellow cloth spine. This was the first of Kate Greenaway's fourteen little almanacks -- probably published actually in late 1882. There are 23 pages of charming illustrations in color. This is a very good-plus copy (minor cover soil and rubbing, bookplate on front endpaper). Birmingham G.49.

1885. London: George Routledge & Sons, n.d.[1885]. Original white morocco-grain boards pictorially decorated in gilt and bordered in dark blue, all edges gilt. This was the fourth of the fourteen Greenaway almanacks, and in­cludes 23 pages bearing her color illustrations. This copy is in the special binding of imitation-morocco white boards, with illustration and lettering in gilt and with border in dark blue. This is a near-fine copy, with very minor cover soil. Birmingham G.52.

1890. [London:] George Routledge & Sons, n.d.[1890]. Original white pictorial boards with yellow cloth spine. This was the ninth of the fourteen almanacks by Kate Greenaway, in the standard binding of white pictorial boards showing a woman with three children, within a border of leaves. There are 22 pages bearing Greenaway illustrations in color. This is a very good-plus copy (very minor soil, one small chip out of the yellow cloth spine, bookplate). Birmingham G.57.

1917. London: Frederick Warne and Co., n.d. [1917]. Original green-grey boards lettered in red, with front cover pictorial onlay. First Edition, first or second printing (indistinguishable from each other) -- but in later-state binding. Most of these rhymes are Beatrix Potter's own, but also included is "You know the old woman who lived in a shoe?". She first did illustrations for that rhyme as early as 1893, and she and Warne planned a volume of illustrated verse soon after PETER RABBIT made such a hit in 1901-1902. However it kept getting set aside for other volumes, and then Norman Warne died in 1905, and the project was dropped for a dozen years -- when in 1917 Fruing Warne asked her for another story and she did not have one. (Five years later there would be another volume of rhymes, CECILY PARSLEY'S NURSERY RHYMES.) The first two APPLEY DAPPLY printings came out in October and November 1917; the third printing did not come out until 1919-1920. Though all three are undated, the third is… Read More

1909. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. Original very dark grey-green ribbed cloth decorated in gilt. First and only Edition, first printing (the only other printing was 250 copies printed three months later for Macmillan's London edition). This was Edith Wharton's second volume of verse, preceded only by her rare first book, the anonymous 1878 volume VERSES (of which only a dozen copies are known to survive). Although Wharton had written many of these poems years earlier, this burst of poetic inspiration was the result of her 1907-1908 adulterous affair with the notorious bisexual journalist Morton Fullerton (introduced to her by Henry James); she (like other victims) wrote him numerous love-letters which he claimed to be destroying, only to have him sell them when he later needed money. This is a bright copy, fine except for light rubbing at the spine ends, and minor foxing of the endpapers. Uncommon. Garrison A17.I.a.

1878. To "My dear Mrs. Wood." 4 pages (all sides of a bifolium). South Berwick [Maine]: 13 August 1878. Signed "Sarah O. Jewett." The text of this letter reads: Here is the Boat song for you, and it was very good of you to care for it. And I am very glad to have the chance to tell you how much I enjoyed being with you while I was at Rye and how sorry I am that we live so far apart that I shall not be likely to see you often. It was so kind of you to ask Julia and me to visit you and wouldn't it be charming if some happy day that plan came true! But I am afraid Julia and I will hardly see each other for a long time to come, though I made brave plans when I was with her, for joining her abroad. That is the sorrow of being so fond of one's friends as I am -- one is so sorry when one sees one's best friends seldom but after all I can't help remembering that by and bye when one looks back from another world, separation will seem such a little thing and the lessons learned from it so grand and so sweet. I… Read More

1882. Five pages, to "Dear Uncle William". Salisbury England, 26 June 1882. In this lengthy letter, the American author reports on her improving health (rheumatism), writes of visiting Portsmouth Harbour and Stonehenge (on her trip with Annie Adams Fields), and asks about their mutual relatives back home in South Berwick, Maine. ... I came up from the Isle of Wight [where they called unannounced upon Poet Laureate Tennyson] to old Portsmouth... We saw the old man-of-war lying off in the stream on which Lord Nelson died... the harbor was full of vessels. It is a naval station like our Portsmouth [NH] ... Later we came to Salisbury... and went to see the famous old cathedral and then drove out across Salisbury Plain several miles to see the old Druid monuments of Stonehenge. The stones are enormous ... and you can trace the shape of the old temple though many of the pillars have fallen... Mrs. Fields sends you her regards and with much love I am Yours affectionately Sarah O. Jewett Although she uses… Read More

1877. [the tale of a horse, BY a horse] London: Jarrold and Sons, n.d.[1877]. 8 pp undated ads. Original green cloth decorated in black and gilt. First Edition of this classic tale, told in the first person by Black Beauty himself. He encounters masters both kind and cruel, and as a result the book came to be seen as the UNCLE TOM'S CABIN for animals' rights -- in fact, the first American edition, which came out thirteen years later, was published by the American Humane Society. The tale has been filmed numerous times, beginning in 1910 and continuing in 1946, 1971 and 1994. Anna Sewell (1820-1878)... had been crippled by a leg-injury since she was fourteen years of age [resulting in her constant need for horse-drawn carriages], and by the time she came to write BLACK BEAUTY [from 1871 until 1877], her one and only book, she was bedridden [and in declining health: she dictated most of the tale to her mother and, at the end too weak of voice for that, wrote on little slips of paper which her mother… Read More

1870. With Illustrations. London: Macmillan and Co., 1870. 44 pp ads dated January 1870. Original green cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of this historical novel, loosely based upon King Henry V of England and his "caged lion," James I of Scotland. This is a very good copy, perhaps near-fine, slightly rubbed at the binding extremities. Not in Wolff, but #9 in his original collection donated to Harvard.

1881. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1881. 1 page preliminary ads, undated. Original dark green cloth, beveled boards. First Edition, which consisted of 2000 copies. This is "early Jewett" -- her fourth book, after DEEPHAVEN (1877), PLAY DAYS (1878) and OLD FRIENDS AND NEW (1879). It is a collection of eight short stories, including "River Driftwood," "Andrew's Fortune" and "Miss Becky's Pilgrimage." This is a nearly fine copy, with scarcely any soil or wear (one faint dent on the spine); this has become a tough title to find in such condition. Blanck 10878 (citing blue or green cloth; we have also had light brown).

1901. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901. Original dark grey-green paper-covered boards decorated in gilt. First Edition of Edith Wharton's second collection of short stories; this volume includes seven, all appearing in book form for the first time. This was her third volume of fiction, following THE GREATER INCLINATION (1899, stories) and THE TOUCHSTONE (1900, a novella). The seven items in CRUCIAL INSTANCES are so clearly inferior to the best of THE GREATER INCLINATION that it has even been speculated that Edith Wharton had written them some years earlier and had dragged them out of her drawer in the winter of 1901 to meet contractual obligations. In fact, they were all written... after THE TOUCHSTONE -- in 1900 and 1901 [Lewis]. This copy is in grey-green paper-covered boards, elaborately gilt, while others are in red cloth; there is no priority, but it is much tougher to find these paper-covered copies in decent shape. This is a bright, close-to-fine copy, with very little of the edge-wear… Read More

1913. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913. Original red cloth. First Edition of Edith Wharton's ninth novel, about the rural Midwestern divorcée Undine Spragg first in New York City and then in Paris -- written just after the author had finalized her divorce and moved permanently to France. ...Still considered an indecent topic for literature at that time, Wharton explores with satire and wisdom divorce as a distinctly American custom... Near the end of the novel, matrons of French society (of the famous Faubourg-Saint-Germain district) look on in horror as a parade of wealthy American women, twice- or thrice-married, attempt to infiltrate aristocratic society... While the French may consider divorce a common American disease, America has its own Faubourg, called Washington Square, where dissolved marriages are viewed with equal scorn. We see this clearly in the novel's opening section. [Penguin] This is a fine, attractive copy, with scarcely any of the spine-fading that often afflicts this… Read More

1904. With Illustrations by Frank E. Schoonover. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1904. Original red cloth. First Edition of this tale of the Reconstruction Era -- the author's fifth book, and the concluding volume in a trilogy (following VOICE OF THE PEOPLE of 1900 and THE BATTLE-GROUND of 1902) that deals with life in Virginia from the end of the Civil war until the turn of the century. THE DELIVERANCE deals with the Blake family, prosperous landowners for over two centuries, who after the war are defrauded by the white overseer managing their property and wind up having to switch homes with him -- he buys their estate at auction, while the Blakes move into his former house. Ellen Glasgow, born and raised in Richmond, would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1942, for IN THIS OUR LIFE. This is a fine, bright copy of the first book that brought Glasgow some real popular success.

1904. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. Original red cloth. First Edition of the author's third collection of short stories. The title story is quite appropriate more than a century later: an eminent scientist decides to have a bit of a joke on the general public by publishing a perfect parody of the kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense that... is just a little bit too believable to make disproving it an easy task. His book a resounding success, and the public clamoring for more, the professor faces a dilemma: let everybody down by exposing his satire, thus earning eternal enmity and likely ostracism, or give in to the public for more of the same [Sherrod]. This is a fine, bright copy; atypically, the red spine is NOT faded. Garrison A9.I.a. Provenance: bookplate of the collector Christopher Clark Geest.

1908. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1908. 32 pp ads dated Autumn 1908. Original blue cloth. First Edition of "these further exciting incidents in the life of the Scarlet Pimpernel during the French Revolution after the King's death" -- the sequel to Baroness Orczy's THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (play 1903, novel 1905) and I WILL REPAY (1906). Although this was the third book (of eighteen) published in this Reign-of-Terror series featuring Sir Percy Blakeney aka The Scarlet Pimpernel, it is the seventh in plot chronology. THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL has been adapted for the screen at least three times -- in 1919, in 1950 (as "The Fighting Pimpernel"), and in 1969. None of these is to be confused with Daffy Duck's memorable 1954 short titled "The Scarlet Pumpernickel." An oddity of this book is that in its own ad catalogue it is listed as THE ILLUSIVE PIMPERNEL. This is the Michael Sadleir copy, with his small oval bookplate on the front free endpaper; it is in fine condition (all-but-inevitable foxing on the edges of… Read More

1911. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911. 1 preliminary page + 4 pp undated ads. Original red cloth. First Edition of Edith Wharton's best-known book, a grim novella sited on a bleak Massachusetts farm. "As in THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, the central problem is that of the barriers imposed by local convention upon an individual whose happiness depends on rising above them" [OCAL]. This copy's leaves have a gilt top edge, and the word "wearily" is printed properly at the bottom of p. 135. Both copies with gilt top edge and copies with plain top edge appear with this word both perfect and battered: therefore, although it is generally assumed that "wearily" became battered during the 6000-copy print run (though it's possible it became battered and was then fixed), one cannot assume that the 2500 copies with gilt top edge were printed or issued earlier than the 3500 copies with plain top edge. In any event, this is a very nearly fine copy (one very faint damp-mark on the front cover, one leaf with a… Read More

1929. Philadelphia: David McKay Company, (1929). Original dark green cloth with front cover pictorial onlay. First Edition of this collection of tales outside of the "Peter Rabbit" series, about a traveling circus that was invisible to humans. According to her Preface these tales "were not meant for printing... I send them on the insistence of friends beyond the sea [i.e. Alexander McKay]." Beatrix Potter did not wish for an English edition of THE FAIRY CARAVAN, because she felt that the stories were 'too personal -- too autobiographical' to publish in [that] country [Linder]. Thus the first edition was this American one (100 sets of the McKay sheets, with a different first section, became "Beatrix Potter's Limited Edition" in the UK -- to secure copyright there); it was not until 1952 that a UK trade edition appeared, almost a decade after the author's death. Included are six color plates including the frontispiece, plus another on the front cover; there are also numerous drawings within the text,… Read More

1907. [in 1907 dust jacket] With Illustrations by Alonzo Kimball. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907. 4 pp undated ads. Original red cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition of this novel set against the background of American industry, published in the year the author left America for Europe. This little-known novel... was considered controversial for its frank treatment of such issues as labor and industrial conditions, drug addiction, mercy killing, desire, and divorce and second marriages. John Amherst, an idealistic middle-manager in a New England textile mill, is committed to improving the deplorable working conditions of the laborers in his charge. But upper management, whose only concern is maximizing profits, frustrates his efforts. When Amherst eventually marries Bessy Westmore, the widow of the former mill owner, he is able at last to initiate an ambitious project of reform. But happiness for John and Bessy proves to be short-lived. It quickly becomes clear that Bessy does not… Read More

1897. An Old Governess's Tale. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' With Prefatory Letter by the Author. London and Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, 1897. 2+32 pp undated ads. Original dark blue cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of this collection of six contributions that had appeared in Chambers's Journal in the late 1840s, here published in book form for the first time -- as a tribute, ten years after the author's death. This is an unusually bright copy, fine except for a small mark on the front cover. Sadleir 1810; Wolff 4991.

1905. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, n.d. [1905]. Original tan cloth decorated in green and red. First Edition of this mystery, issued as a volume in Bobbs-Merrill's "Pocket Book" series. The narrator stops to spend the night on "a dark and stormy night," in a big house in rural western Pennsylvania -- where the gentleman at the door seems to be expecting him. This is a near-fine copy (volume slightly askew, but virtually no wear or soil). In our experience this is a scarcer Green title than others published by Bobbs-Merrill at about the same time.