London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; and Edinburgh: A. Constable, 1820. First edition. Pine-Coffin 819-3; Robinson, Wayward Women, pages 44-45; see the ODNB. A travel narrative revealing of the adventurous and fearless nature of its author, Maria Graham (1785-1842). In the summer of 1819, she, her husband.....
London: John Murray, 1819. First edition. Robinson, Wayward Women, page 275; Pine-Coffin, page 175. The first of two travel narratives by English poet Marianne Baillie (1775-1831), written with a "ladylike attitude to touring" (Robinson), in which she extols the beautiful, but is easily uncomfortable with surroundings to which she is.....
Paris: Fr. Cocheris Fils, Libraire, 1808. First and only edition. Jackson, Romantic Poetry by Women, Williams 8(c); OCLC records 15 copies. A French translation of more than 30 poems by Helen Maria Williams, including ones on her real and imaginary travels: "Sonnet sur la ligne équinoxiale”; “Sonnet sur l’oiseau du.....
Hartford: Seldon & Goodwin, Printers, 1815. First edition. BAL 17615; Shaw & Shoemaker 35937; Stoddard & Whitesell 1111. The uncommon first book by Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865), a substantial collection of poems and short essays which foreshadowed her career as one of the most popular and prolific American literary women.....
Various publishers and locations, including London, Edinburgh, New York and Philadelphia, 1803-1903. Grant was famous her works on Scottish lore and history, especially Letters from the Mountains; Being the Real Correspondence of a Lady, Between the Years 1773 and 1803; and her account of life in New York, where she.....
London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1833. First and only edition. Colbert; Robinson, page 196. One of three European travel narratives by Elizabeth Strutt (circa 1785-1867), a prolific novelist, whose publishers included the Minerva Press. Her travel writings were representative of the new class of cultural tourists, who descended on.....
Bristol: Albion Press: Printed by Wansbrough and Saunders, 1821. First edition. Jackson, Romantic Poetry by Women, page 262. Poems centering on the ancient history of Bristol and its surroundings by a woman who was apparently a local. The Albion Press flourished in Bristol for about 12 years, circa 1818-1830. Attractive.....
Paris: E. Typographia Regia [Colophon: Curante Sebastiano Cramoisy], 1651. The first printed edition of the complete text. The first work of history written by a Western woman, Anna Comnena (1083-1153), the 12th century Byzantine princess. She wrote The Alexiad to chronicle the achievements of the reign of her father, emperor.....
London: Printed by George Cawthorn, Bookseller and Printer to the Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, 1803. First edition in English. The first English translation of Madame de Stael's impressive survey of literature in historical perspective, De la Litterature Consideree dans ses Rapports avec les Institutions Sociales, a work that.....
Baltimore: Published for the Editor by E. J. Coale, Richard J. Matchett, Printer, 1821. First edition. American Imprints 4963; Sabin 12173. A commonplace anthology compiled by Marylander Elizabeth Chase (1767-1840), the sister of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Chase. The contents, from both American and English sources.....
London: Printed for T. Evans, 1775. Second edition; the first was published in 1752 under the title Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain . . ESTC T94269; NCBEL II, 1806. A slightly revised edition of George Ballard's collection of 50 brief biographies of remarkable English women, from poets to.....
London: John Murray, 1880. First edition. Robinson, Wayward Women, page 81; Theakstone, Victorian & Edwardian Women Travellers, page 35. The extraordinary account by Isabella Bird (1831-1904) of her first trip to Japan, which she undertook alone in 1878. Upon arrival she hired a servant to accompany her and purchased a......
London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by Andrew Millar, R. and J. Dodsley, and J. Leake, 1757. First edition. ESTC T140917; NCBEL II, 999. Two works of historical fiction, both written in the first person, based on the lives of two prominent women in classical history, Cleopatra (51-30 BC).....
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme Brown, 1809, First edition. Colbert, Women's Travel Writing, 1780-1840; and see the ODNB. The first of three travelogues by Scottish writer and novelist Elizabeth Isabella Spence (1768-1832), a series of 55 letters about her excursions in the countryside and observations on what.....
London: Routledge, Warnes, and Routledge, 1859. First edition. Robinson, Wayward Women, page 117; Theakstone, Victorian & Edwardian Women Travellers, page 260. The second of two books by Englishwoman Emily Emeline Lowe (b1835), a lively narrative about travels through Sicily with her mother, which they undertook unescorted – i.e., unprotected –.....
London: Printed for A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1789. First edition. ESTC T71718; Rothschild 1551; Pine-Coffin 784-5; Robinson, Wayward Women, page 243. In 1784 Hester Lynch Thrale (1741-1821), the famous friend and confidante of Samuel Johnson, married an Italian musician, Gabriel Mario Piozzi, and they soon set off for Europe.....
London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1801. First edition. Rothschild 1553; NCBEL II, 1595. A sweeping chronological history of the world in 540 pages, from the birth of Christ to 1800, told in the entertaining, informal style of Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741-1821). Retrospection was written and published to celebrate (and profit.....
New York: C. S. Francis; Boston: J. H. Francis, 1839. First edition. BAL 11139; Wright I, 1583; Sabin 37991. The first book by Caroline Kirkland, an interesting realistic novel based on her first-hand experience of pioneer life with her husband and six children in a remote Michigan village. She writes.....
London: Printed for J. Bell, 1786. First edition. Sabin 61167; ESTC T43897. An opera in part based on Marmontel's Tale of the Coralie, with music by James Hook (1746-1827). A note on the front free endpaper in a learned bookseller's hand attributes the authorship to Harriet Horncastle Hook, the wife.....
London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842. First English edition. Noted under BAL 11143. ¶ The second book by Caroline Kirkland (1801-1865), a collection of sketches about the life of raising a family on the Michigan frontier, where she moved to from New York in 1837.
London: Printed by Brettell for Appleyards, 1808. First edition. The first of three plays by Marie Therese Kemble (1774-1838), the Austrian-born English actress and mother of Fanny Kemble. She moved to England at an early age and became a popular child actress. She later married actor Charles Kemble, for whom.....
Weimar: Landes-Industrie-Comptoir, May, 1826. An example of the influence and spread of the news of Mary Somerville’s first scientific publication, “On the Magnetizing Power of the More Refrangible Solar Rays” – i.e., the magnetizing power of sunlight – that had been published in the February, 1826, issue of the Proceedings.....
London: Printed by J. Plymsell; for T. N. Longman, 1797. First edition. ESTC N12984. Rachel Charlotte Biggs was acquainted with France when she traveled by herself there in 1792 to aid an aristocratic lady friend, during which time she witnessed the Revolution during its grim climax. Out of concern for.....
London: Printed by Hughes and Robinson, 1848. First edition. OCLC records five copies (Duke, Columbia, Monash and London Library). An elaborate attempt to defend a literal interpretation of the Bible in the form of an eccentric attack on Charles Empson, who had apparently traveled to Egypt and had written about.....