Scarce Scenes From a 19th C. Courtship & Marriage

by Stephen J. Gertz

Marriage is a wonderful institution. 

But who wants to live in an institution?

 - Groucho Marx

Young cupid held a council, by lover's vows he swore
He'd hold up for example, a pair of lovers more;
By lovers' vows he swore it, young Charles in love should fall,
and so arranged that very night that he should meet the ravish'd sight
of Julia at a ball.

Thus begins A New Matrimonial Ladder, a gentle satire published c. 1853 on the progress of love at first sight toward nuptials, the chains of matrimony, later disillusion, reproach and estrangement, followed by reconciliation and happiness ever after.

Admiration.

Agitation.

Eighteen hand-colored engravings illustrate fifty-five quatrains on the courtship and marriage of Julia and Charles, a young lady and gentleman in the mood for love, pronto.

Approbation.

Flirtation.

Little is known about its writer, Edward Concanen, beyond that OCLC records five books authored by him, all, as here, issued by Read & Co., a London second-tier publisher who partnered with Ackermann, the great color-plate book and print publisher.

Declaration.

Acceptation.

Of the book's illustrator, however, we know quite a bit.

"Thomas Onwhyn (1814–1886), illustrator, was born in Clerkenwell, London, the eldest son of Joseph Onwhyn, a bookseller and newsagent at 3 Catherine Street, the Strand, London, and his wife, Fanny...

Solemnization.

Possession.

"Thomas Onwhyn came to public notice by his contribution of a series of ‘illegitimate’ illustrations to works by Charles Dickens. He executed twenty-one of the whole series of thirty-two plates to The Pickwick Papers, which were issued in eight (though intended to be in ten) monthly parts by E. Grattan, 51 Paternoster Row, London, in 1837; they are for the most part signed with the pseudonym Samuel Weller, but some bear Onwhyn's initials. 

Rumination.

"From June 1838 to October 1839 Grattan issued a series of forty etchings by Onwhyn, illustrating Nicholas Nickleby. In a letter of 13 July 1838 Dickens referred to ‘the singular Vileness of the Illustrations’ (Letters of Charles Dickens, 1.414). He objected to piracy but not to imitation and was friendly with Charles Selby, the author of Maximums and Specimens of William Muggins (1841), which was also illustrated by Onwhyn (ibid., 2.332). After his death an additional set of illustrations to The Pickwick Papers made by Onwhyn in 1847 was discovered and they were published in 1893 by Albert Jackson of Great Portland Street, London.

Alteration.

"Onwhyn's most lasting contribution was to the ephemeral end of the book trade in the 1840s and 1850s, illustrating the comic side of everyday life. Undertaken for shadowy publishers such as Rock Bros and Payne, and Kershaw & Son, he produced a score of pull-out or panorama books, coloured and plain, lithographed or etched for the popular market. Satirizing tourism, teetotalism, and fashion, they included Etiquette Illustrated (1849), A New Matrimonial Ladder (c.1850), What I Saw at the World's Fair (1851), Mr and Mrs Brown's Visit to the Exhibition (1851), A Glass of Grog Drawn from the Bottle … (1853), Cupid's Crinoline (1858), Nothing to Wear (1858), and Scenes on the Sands (c.1860).

Disputation.

"He signed his work T. O., O., or with the pseudonym Peter Palette, as in Peter Palette's Tales and Pictures in Short Words for Young Folks (1856). He sometimes etched the designs of others—for example, Oakleigh, or, The Minor of Great Expectations by W. H. Holmes (1843). He was an indifferent draughtsman but showed real humour in his designs. His talent was somewhat overshadowed by those of his most eminent contemporaries such as George Cruikshank and Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). Onwhyn, who also drew views of scenery for guidebooks and illustrated six novels by Henry Cockton, abandoned artistic work, becoming a newsagent for the last twenty or thirty years of his life" Simon Houfe, Oxford DNB).

Detestation.

The engraver of the plates, Charles Hunt, flourished during the 1830s-1860s as a renowned aquatint engraver and etcher of sporting prints, Engen's Dictionary of Victorian Engravers, Print Publishers and Their Works devoting a full page to Hunt and his oeuvre.

Separation.

There is some question regarding the correct date of publication. A penciled note to the title page of the copy before me declares 1853; the English Catalog of Books suggests 1840-1849; the DNB c. 1850; COPAC notes the copy at Oxford c. 1860. We throw out the ECB low of 1840; it is far too early. The 1853 date feels just right.

Reconciliation.

The New Matrimonial Ladder is quite rare, with OCLC/KVK recording only six copies in institutional holdings worldwide. ABPC notes only one copy at auction within the last thirty-seven years, in 2004.

Matrimonial Ladder! Or Such things are.
Drawn by M. E. Esqr. Engrav'd by G. Hunt.
London: Thos. McLean, 26 Haymarket, n.d. [1825].

A new matrimonial ladder implies an old one and, indeed, approximately twenty-five years earlier, in 1825, Matrimonial Ladder!, by M. E. (Michael Egerton), was issued featuring hand-colored aquatints illustrating the very same stages of courtship and marriage that Concanen and Onwhyn would later interpret in their New Matrimonial Ladder: "Admiration," "Flirtation," "Approbation,"  "Declaration," "Hesitation," "Agitation," "Acceptation," "Solemnization," "Possession," "Rumination," "Alteration," "Alteration," "Irritation," "Disputation," "Desperation," "Detestation," "Separation," and "Reconciliation."

Tailpiece - New Matrimonial Ladder.

All's Well That Ends Well
Look Before You Leap

 A 21st century reinterpretation of Matrimonial Ladder would have to include modern rungs not found in these earlier editions: "Online Dating," "The Hook-Up," "Cyber-marriage," "Break-up by Text Message," "Divorce Court," "Bitter Child Custody Case Played Out In Public," "Revenge Porn," "Mutual Murder For Hire" followed by "Copping a Plea" and finally "Burying the Hatchet," the whole saga posted on YouTube for viral distribution.

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CONCANEN, Edward. ONWHYN, Thomas (illustrator). A New Matrimonial Ladder. With Twenty Illustrations, Designed by Onwhyn - Engraved by Charles Hunt. London: Read & Co… Ackermann & Co., n.d. [1849-1860].

First edition. Quarto (10 1/2 x 7 3/4 in; 268 x 198 mm). Unpaginated. Twenty hand-colored  plates, including extra title and tailpiece, heightened with gum arabic, with fifty accompanying verses.

Not in Tooley or Abbey.

English Catalog of Books, Vol. 1, p. 161.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.

You can read the complete text of The New Matrimonial Ladder here.
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Take My Wife, Please! The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills Slain In This 19th C. British Satire

by Stephen J. Gertz

The following was anonymously written by Percival Leigh in 1840 and is extracted from The Fiddle Faddle Fashion Book. It is, in essence, a c. 1960 comedy routine in deadly wry 19th century prose - Please take my wife, Sir! For maximum effect readers are advised to imagine Jack Carter, Alan King, Shecky Greene, Morty Gunty, Corbett Monica, Pat Cooper, Buddy Hackett, or yes, Henny Youngman reciting the text. Ladies are beseeched to holster their sidearms for the duration of the post - the author is  throwing popcorn, not grenades. - SJG

The Duties of a Wife

It is our decided opinion that a wife ought by no means to flirt in society in so open a manner as to attract the attention of beholders.

Nevertheless, we esteem it expedient that every married lady of ton should be provided with a crowd of admirers sufficiently numerous to prove to her husband what a treasure he has got; and also to keep him on his best behavior.

She should never pry into her husband's affairs; resting always on the confident belief that he is the best judge of them himself; and therewith should spend as much money as she can persuade him to let her.

Ever anxious to augment the honor and renown of her lord and master, she should be careful never to show herself in public except dressed in the first style of fashion, totally regardless of expense.

Her domestic affairs must be left entirely to the superintendence of her housekeeper; whom, however, (to conduct herself as a good manager), she should occasionally accuse of peculation.

From breakfast to the proper hour for the drive, or promenade, her time should be occupied in sitting in the drawing-room, and receiving visitors; to whom, for the credit of her husband, she is to display herself to the greatest possible advantage.

She should be possessed with the eccentricity of desiring to nurse her own children, she must drink, under pretense of being delicate, much more bottle porter than, strictly speaking, is fit for her; and must obviate the ill effects thereof by taking medicine.

Duly impressed with an awful sense of her responsibility for the education of her family, she should confide it implicitly to the care of a governess. She should however, take good heed that her little girls are imbued, from their earliest years, with a laudable and beneficial love of finery.

To set a good example to those beneath her, she should be unremitting in her attendance at church; and the more strikingly to show her respect for religion, should always go there, if possible, in her carriage. The footmen and coachman are to be strictly charged to remain, meanwhile, absorbed in devout meditation, and on no account whatever to go to a public house.

As she is precluded from practicing that sort of economy who consists in denying herself anything, (to conduct which would be derogatory to her husband's dignity, and painful to his feelings), she must diligently avoid all unnecessary expenditure on others. For example, she must give her servants the very smallest wages which they will take; and be as cautious in the indulgence of her charitable feelings, as the opinion of the world will allow her to be. In particular, let her shun the unprincipled extravagance of throwing away money on poor people and beggars, most of whom are very improper characters, while all of them, as everybody well knows, are amply provided for by a compassionate and Christian legislature.

Our concluding piece of advice may seem impertinent, but our sincerity must be the excuse of our rudeness. She must assiduously cultivate the most rigid morality, that is to say, the study of preserving the purity of her reputation with the world, and the elegance of her personal appearance.
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Mark Twain On How To Announce Your Marriage Engagement

by Stephen J. Gertz

On October 16, 2013, Bonham's-Los Angeles is offering a three-page, recto and verso Autograph Letter Signed, dated Elmira, NY, February 5, 1869 by Mark Twain regarding his engagement to be married, in its Fine Books and Manuscripts including Historical Photographs sale. It is estimated to sell for $15,000-$25,000.

Samuel L. Clemens and Olivia Langdon, the woman who would become his wife, initially met at the end of 1867; together they attended a reading by Charles Dickens. Throughout 1868 Twain conducted his courtship of her primarily through letters. Olivia rejected his first proposal but accepted his second in 1869. Upon her acceptance, Clemens composed a clarion call to his family, less an engagement announcement than a gushing, self-deprecating declaration of intent that dares his family not to love his future wife, the sort of sentiment deeply appreciated by a prospective spouse.

The letter reads in full:

Olivia Clemens, neé Langdon.

My dear Mother & Brother & Sisters & Nephew & Niece, & Margaret: 

This is to inform you that on yesterday, the 4th of February, I was duly & solemnly & irrevocably engaged to be married to Miss Olivia L. Langdon, of Elmira, New York. Amen. She is the best girl in all the world, & the most sensible, & I am just as proud of her as I can be.

It may be a good while before we are married, for I am not rich enough to give her a comfortable home right away, & I don't want anybody's help. I can get an eighth of the Cleveland Herald for $25,000, & have it so arranged that I can pay for it as I earn the money with my unaided hands. I shall look around a little more, & if I can do no better elsewhere, I shall take it.
 

I am not worrying about whether you will love my future wife or not—if you know her twenty-four hours & then don't love her, you will accomplish what nobody else has ever succeeded in doing since she was born. She just naturally drops into everybody's affections that comes across her. My prophecy was correct. She said she never could or would love me—but she set herself the task of making a Christian of me. I said she would succeed, but that in the meantime she would unwittingly dig a matrimonial pit & end up tumbling into it—& lo! the prophecy is fulfilled. She was in New York a day or two ago, & George Wiley & his wife Clara know her now. Pump them, if you want to. You shall see her before very long. 

Love to all. Affect'ly 

Sam. 

P.S. Shall be here a week.

Twain, c. 1869.

They were married a year later. Their marriage a happy one, it lasted thirty-four years, enduring the death of two children and periodic financial troubles secondary to Clemens' weakness for get rich quick schemes. Aside from pen & paper, the only investment that ever paid off for him was his effort to win the heart of Olivia Langdon.

This letter is found in The Love Letters of Mark Twain, p. 64. Its provenance is solid: that of the prominent Twain scholar and collector Chester L. Davis, (1903-1987). It was last seen at Christie's New York, June 9, 1992, lot 35, when it sold for $9,500. 

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Letter image courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.
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Mr. Bigamy's Confessions: An Old Seven Wives Tale

by Stephen J. Gertz

Some one has said that if any man would faithfully write his autobiography, giving truly his own history and experiences, the ills and joys, the haps and mishaps that had fallen to his lot, he could not fail to make an interesting story; and Disraeli makes Sidonia say that there is romance in every life. How much romance, as well as sad reality, there is in the life of a man who, among other experiences, has married seven wives, and has been seven times in prison - solely on account of the seven wives, may be learned from the pages that follow.

He's just a guy who can't say no. The guy in question is L.A. Abbott (b. 1813), who, in 1870, published an anonymous memoir of marriage craps, lucky seven not so lucky for our "matrimonial monomaniac," who, evidently, found the process of divorce distasteful so why bother? The trials and tribulations of a bigamist ensue.

It was all a series of misunderstandings, claims Abbott, a homeopathic doctor. When he took a young lass with him on his professional rounds out of town, for instance, she was the one who claimed they were married, not him, who was, after all, still married to another. When his brother-in-law found out about this incident, the gods of matrimony rained hell and Abbott wound up in the hoosegow.

Spoiler Alert: the farmer's daughter makes an appearance:

“From the day, almost, when I began to board with this farmer there sprung up a strong attachment between myself and his youngest daughter which soon ripened into mutual love.”  

Mutual love often ripens in Abbott's life, alas, too often at the same time. First comes love, then comes marriage, then come cops in the jailhouse carriage. It's one misadventure after another as our hero takes it on the lam throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New England, Canada, and California, one step ahead of the authorities - and in-laws with pitchforks and torches. But never for long. You can run but you can't hide: Abbott becomes acquainted with the penal system x seven, prison scrapes and daring escapes. Oh, and he forges bank notes, steals, and kidnaps his own son - who later tries to murder him. Citizens of the Bay State will be fascinated by Abbott's discussion of "Love-Making in Massachusetts," whence the farmer's daughter worsts Abbott in Worcester.

Save for "flogging the devil" out of one wife, it's one serio-comic connubial calamity after another, escapades aplenty, the entire book neatly summarized in its Table of Contents, which reads like a film treatment for a whacked-out farce, Mel Brooks & Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage Monomaniac. Caveat: beware of milliners on the make.

Frontispiece.

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST AND WORST WIFE. My Early History. The First Marriage. Leaving Home to Prospect. Sending for My Wife. Her Mysterious Journey. Where I Found Her. Ten Dollars for Nothing. A Fascinating Hotel Clerk. My Wife's Confession. From Bad to Worse. Final Separation. Trial for Forgery. A Private Marriage. Summary Separation.

CHAPTER II. MISERIES FROM MY SECOND MARRIAGE. Love-Making in Massachusetts. Arrest for Bigamy. Trial at Northampton. A Stunning Sentence. Sent to State Prison. Learning the Brush Business. Sharpening Picks. Prison Fare. In the Hospital. Kind Treatment. Successful Horse-Shoeing. The Warden my Friend. Efforts for my Release, A Full Pardon.

CHAPTER III. THE SCHEIMER SENSATION. The Scheimer Family. In Love with Sarah. Attempt to Elope. How it was Prevented. Second Attempt. A Midnight Expedition. The Alarm. A Frightful Beating, Escape. Floggiing the Devil Out of Sarah. Return to New Jersey. " Boston Yankee." Plans to Secure Sarah.

CHAPTER IV. SUCCESS WITH SARAH. Mary Smith as a Confederate. The Plot. Waiting in the Woods. The Spy Outwitted. Sarah Secured. The Pursuers Baffled. Night on the Road. Efforts to Get Married. " The Old Offender." Married at Last. A Constable After Sarah. He Gives it Up. An Ale Orgie. Return to " Boston Yankee's." A Home in Goshen.

CHAPTER V. HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER. Return to Scheimer's. Peace, and then Pandemonium. Frightful Family Row. Running for Refuge. The Gang Again. Arrest at Midnight. Struggle with my Captors. In Jail Once More. Put in Irons. A Horrible Prison. Breaking Out. The Dungeon. Sarah's Baby. Curious Compromises. Old Scheimer my Jailer. Signing a Bond. Free Again. Last Words from Sarah,.

CHAPTER VI. FREE LIFE AND FISHING. Taking Care of Crazy Men. Carrying off a Boy. Arrested for Stealing my Own Horse and Buggy. Fishing in Lake Winnepisiogee. An Odd Landlord. A Woman as Big as a Hogshead. Reducing the Hogshead to a Barrel. Wonderful Verification of a Dream. Successful Medical Practice. A Busy Winter in New Hampshire. Blandishments of Captain Brown. I go to Newark, New Jersey.

CHAPTER VII. WEDDING A WIDOW AND THE CONSEQUENCES. I Marry a Widow. Six Weeks of Happiness. Confiding a Secret, and the Consequences. The Widow's Brother. Sudden Flight from Newark. In Hartford, Conn. My Wife's Sister Betrays Me. Trial for Bigamy. Sentenced to Ten Years' Imprisonment. I Become a " Bobbin Boy." A Good Friend. Governor Price Visits Me in Prison. He Pardons Me. Ten Years' Sentence Fulfilled in Seven Months.

Attempt To Elope With Sarah Scheimer.
An exciting bridal shower and bachelor party rolled into one.

CHAPTER VIII. ON THE KEEN SCENT. Good Resolutions. Enjoying Freedom. Going After a Crazy Man. The Old Tempter in a New Form. Mary Gordon. My New " Cousin." Engaged Again. Visit to the Old Folks at Home. Another Marriage. Starting for Ohio. Change of Plans. Domestic Quarrels. Unpleasant Stories about Mary. Bound Over to Keep the Peace. Another Arrest for Bigamy. A Sudden Flight Secreted Three Weeks in a Farm House. Recaptured at Concord. Escaped Once More. Traveling on the Underground Railroad. In Canada.

CHAPTER IX. MARRYING TWO MILLINERS. Back in Vermont. Fresh Temptations. Margaret Bradley. Wine and Women. A Mock Marriage in Troy. The False Certificate. Medicine and Millinery. Eliza at Saratoga. Marrying Another Milliner. Again Arrested for Bigamy. In Jail Eleven Months. A Tedious Trial. Found Guilty. Appeal to Supreme Court. Trying to Break Out of Jail. A Governor's Promise. Second Trial. Sentenced to Three Years' Imprisonment.

CHAPTER X. PRISON LIFE IN VERMONT. Entering Prison. The Scythe Snath Business. Blistered Hands. I Learn Nothing. Threaten to Kill the Shop Keeper. Locksmithing. Open Rebellion. Six Weeks in the Dungeon. Escape of a Prisoner. In the Dungeon Again. The Mad Man Hall. He Attempts to Murder the Deputy. I Save Morey's Life. Howling in the Black Hole. Taking Off Hall's Irons. A Ghastly Spectacle. A Prison Funeral. I am Let Alone. The Full Term of my Imprisonment.

CHAPTER XI. ON THE TRAMP. The Day of my Deliverance. Out of Clothes. Sharing with a Beggar. A Good Friend. Tramping Through the Snow. Weary Walks. Trusting to Luck. Com fort at Concord. At Meredith Bridge. The Blaisdells. Last of the "Blossom" Business. Making Money at Portsmouth. Revisiting Windsor. An Astonished War Den. Making Friends of Enemies. Inspecting the Prison. Going to Port Jervis,

CHAPTER XII. ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP SARAH SCHEIMER'S BOY. Starting to See Sarah. The Long Separation. What I Learned About Her. Her Drunken Husband. Change of Plan. A Suddenly-Formed Scheme. I Find Sarah's Son. The First Interview. Resolve to Kidnap the Boy. Remonstrance of my Son Henry. The Attempt. A Desperate Struggle. The Rescue. Arrest of Henry. My Flight into Pennsylvania. Sending Assistance to my Son. Return to Port Jervis. Bailing Henry. His Return to Belvidere. He is Bound Over to be Tried for Kidnapping. My folly.

CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER WIDOW. Waiting for the Verdict. My Son Sent to State Prison. What Sarah Would Have Done. Interview with my First Wife. Help for Henry. The Biddeford Widow. Her Effort to Marry Me. Our Visit to Boston. A Warning A Generous Gift. Henry Pardoned. Close of the Scheimer Account. Visit to Ontario County. My Rich Cousins. What Might Have Been. My Birthplace Revisited.

CHAPTER XIV. MY SON TRIES TO MURDER ME. Settling Down in Maine. Henry's Health. Tour Through the South. Secession Times. December in New Orleans. Up the Mississippi. Leaving Henry in Massachusetts. Back in Maine Again. Return to Boston. Profitable Horse-Trading. Plenty of Money. My First Wife's Children. How They Have Been Brought Up. A Barefaced Robbery. Attempt to Blackmail Me. My Son Tries to Rob and Kill Me. My Rescue. Last of the Young Man.

CHAPTER XV. A TRUE WIFE AND HOME AT LAST. Where Were All My Wives? Sense of Security. An Imprudent Acquaintance. Moving from Maine. My Property in Rensselaer County. How I Lived. Selling a Recipe. About Buying a Carpet. Nineteen Lawsuits. Sudden Departure for the West. A Vagabond Life for Two Years. Life in California. Return to the East. Divorce from my First Wife. A Genuine Marriage. My Farm. Home at Last.

Wright, in American Fiction 1774-1900, wrongly includes the book as a novel. Kaplan, in contrast,  rightly includes it in American Autobiographies. It's too fantastic to be phoney. “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't” (Mark Twain).

Twain would have loved this book. Groucho Marx would have had a field day with it.

Capt. Spaulding: [to Mrs. Rittenhouse and Mrs. Whitehead] Let's get married.
Mrs. Whitehead: All of us?
Capt. Spaulding: All of us.
Mrs. Whitehead: Why, that's bigamy.
Capt. Spaulding: Yes, and it's big of me too.
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N.B.: A word to the wise (and wives): If you write and publish a book anonymously keep your name off the copyright page.
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[ABBOTT, L. A.]. Seven Wives and Seven Prisons: or, Experiences In the Life of a Matrimonial Monomaniac. A True Story, Written By Himself. New York: Published for the Author, 1870. First edition. Twelvemo. 205 pp. Original green cloth, gilt lettering. Frontispiece, three plates.

Kaplan, American Autobiographies 10. Wright II, 3. 
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Images courtesy of Garrett Scott, Bookseller, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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D-I-V-O-R-C-E or, John Milton on Splitsville

by Stephen J. Gertz

In 1643, poet John Milton, who later wrote Paradise Lost, anonymously published The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, the first of four tracts he wrote 1643-1645 in support of divorce against Canon law, which he believed was contrary to the true meaning of Scripture and the Gospel. If a marriage was not working it was to the good of both sexes for it to be dissolved. His argument was that unsuitable unions of couples ‘chained unnaturally together’ should be broken on the grounds of incompatibility, a radical idea in its time. It shocked his contemporaries.

Divorce in 17th century England was against the law. You married for life, a holy bond that only God could break by calling one of the parties home. If the union was contentious it was a marriage to the death.

Milton had a stake in the issue.  In 1642, at age thirty-three, he married  a seventeen year old girl, Mary Powell. She soon deserted him to return to her parents. Divorce was impossible, divorce and remarriage doubly so. You could legally separate but never dissolve the union. The only out was a church annulment but that involved admitting that the marriage was never consummated,  the husband was impotent, or the wife frigid, each a major public embarrassment. He argued that neither ecclesiastic or civil powers held authority in matters of marriage and divorce; it was a a strictly private affair.

John Milton.

But only for the man. Milton had no interest in granting women the power to divorce their husbands. Yet his definition of marriage as something more than a union for procreation (or remedy against fornication) was wholly modern if one-sided: "the apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh him against the evils of solitary life."

An unhappy couple, "mistak’n in their dispositions through any error, concealment, or misadventure"  was doomed to a "spight of antipathy to fadge together, and combine as they may to their unspeakable wearisomnes and despaire of all sociable delight." This violated  his belief in marriage as mutual companionship.

The 1643 first edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce sold out almost immediately; controversy then and now tends to promote sales. Attempts were made to ban the tract.  A second edition was issued in 1644, greatly enlarged by almost half and including a new Preface "To the Parliament of England with the Assembly." Two more editions appeared in 1645, reprints of the 1644 issue, one with an errata page, the other, possibly unauthorized, without one. The other three of Milton's Divorce tracts are The Judgment of Martin Bucer, Tetrachordon, and Colasterion. John Milton's model for the ideal marriage is manifest in the relationship between Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost (1667).

Gustave Doré, Adam and Eve in the Garden, Paradise Lost (1866).

In 1964, as the first kid on my block to come from what was then still quaintly called a "broken home," I was in the vanguard, a young, lone pioneer on the  frontier when the Greatest Generation decided things weren't so great and made a strategic retreat from the domestic battlefield to a separate peace. It was in the next year, 1965, that the divorce rate in the U.S. began its march toward doubling by 1975; I was an anxious point-man on recon before hostilities broke-out on a large scale.

Holy matrimony, Batman! In those days,  New York State, as so many others, made divorce a legal ordeal as wrenching as its emotional anguish. But there was an exotic, legit alternative. You could visit  pre-drug cartel Juarez in sunny Mexico, hang around for a few hours, have lunch. see the sights, pay a nominal court fee, and be granted a that's-all-there-is-to-it divorcio al vapor - evaporated nuptials. 

My mother was necessarily one such divorce tourist. I'm not sure whether it occurred during Mexico's Dia de los Muertos holiday but afterward my parents' marriage was officially dead and no one was celebrating except me. Consumed with guilt for bearing such a betraying sentiment (and for so much more), I  beat myself up like a human piñata for years afterward. And, in what became a family tradition, my own marriage ended in divorce, as did my sister's. For me, divorce was a rite of passage ceremony, an adult bar mizvah for the damned. When I walked out the door I dropped off a cliff.

Now, everybody's doing it; so what else is new? But forty-eight years ago my sister and I earned purple hearts for injuries incurred in the cross-fire, wounds that, for me, never bled until much later when the  effects of my parents' divorce finally spilled. When the  school psychologist - who I was sent to because I was truant for nearly three months straight - asked how I thought my parents' split affected me, I insouciantly replied, "not at all," the response of a kid who'd battened-down the hatches and hunkered-in until the storm passed but it never did.

As crippling as its aftermath was had my parents not split-up my outcome would have been so much worse before it got so much better. It might not have gotten better at all. I'm thankful to John Milton for his efforts at reformation.

In 1968, country-western diva Tammy Wynette spelled out what was still the broken love that dare not speak its name, below introduced by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, a married couple that only a six-shooter could separate but was never drawn and fired for the sake of their child, Trigger, who they stuffed as a keepsake after his death.

And now, as God said in Paradise Lost when He expelled Adam and Eve from  Eden, "Happy Trails!"*


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M[ILTON], J[ohn].  The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; restor'd to the good of both SEXES, from the bondage of CANON LAW, and other mistakes, to the true meaning of Scripture in the LAW and GOSPEL compar'd: wherein also are set down the bad consequences of abolishing or condemning of Sin, that which the law of God allowes, and Christ abolisht not: now the second time revis'd and much augmented in two books: to the Parliament of England with the Assembly. London: Imprinted in the Year 1645.

Forth edition. Small quarto. [8], 72 pp, with the usual mispagination to pp. 69-78 in sheet G. Lackng errata.

Wing M2110. Coleridge, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Milton Collection in the Alexander Turnbull Library 17. Parker, Milton: A Biography, pp. 890-891.

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* Paradise Lost by John Milton. Newly Revised for a Popular Audience by T. Basil Leeves. Frostbite Falls: Wottsamatta U Press, 1989.
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Image of 1645 edition courtesy of Bernard Quaritch Ltd, currently offering this title, with our thanks.

Image of 1643 first edition courtesy of Rutgers University, with our appreciation.

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Welcome To Marriage Island, The Isle of Connubial Blitz (1765)

by Stephen J. Gertz

Welcome Isola del Maritaggio (Marriage Island), the Too-Much-Reality TV show! I'm your host, Al Fresco, sitting in for Silvio Berlusconi who is on special assignation. 

Each week contestants enter the island through the ports of Love, Bad Advice, or Self-Interest but once on the island it is impossible to escape! You may, however, if things get tough, claw your way over to Divorce Peninsula on the north side of the main island or, if fortune smiles, Widowhood Peninsula on its West coast where the Bridge of Sighs of Relief provides comfort for the superficially bereaved.

Challenging hot-spots on the main island include the Provinces of the Jealous, the Unhappy, the Incompatible, and the Great Province of Cuckolds. With all the hustle and bustle don't worry about missing a trek up and through the Mountains of In-Laws; it's unavoidable. Afterward, you can bathe in the River Chaste.

Lover's Isle.

Contestants aren't told but they can avoid Marriage Island altogether simply by sailing around it to Lover's Isle. It's one of those things best discovered on their own particularly after the knot is tied. We keep our mouths shut - unless, of course, they're indiscreet or we need to spike the ratings.

Bigamy Island.

Masochistic contestants who can't get enough of Marriage Island can opt for a lifetime on Bigamy Island, a spin-off series with no end to story complications; it'll run forever as long as the homicide rate stays under control.

Note horned cuckold at right.

If you would like to become a contestant, you will be sent, for a small four-figure non-refundable deposit, Carta Topografica dell'Isola Maritaggio, a satiric travelogue written by Eustache Le Noble (1643-1711), who led a dissipated life, was jailed and fell passionately in love with a beautiful grocer-woman who was doing time in the same prison. This slight volume originally appeared in French as Carte de l'isle de mariage in 1705, and was translated into Italian and published in 1765. Please allow 10-14 days for delivery.

 But for now, buona fortuna e addio from Isola del Maritaggio!

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LE NOBLE, Eustache. Carta Topografica dell'Isola Maritaggio di Monsieur Le Noble per la Prima Volta Tradotta Dal Francese in Italiano. Cosmopoli [Italy]: n.p., 1765. First Italian edition. Octavo. 40 pp. One folding map.

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Map and titlepage images courtesy of Altea Gallery, currently offering this item, with our thanks.
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Speaking of marriage:

Novelist Richard Brautigan's Unrecorded One Day Marriage Certificate Surfaces.
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The Fast Women of New York (Vintage 1869)

by Stephen J. Gertz

Society to-day in New York means everything and anything...The members of it are chiefly concerned in the important item of living, although some of them live at a fast dying rate. The rage of the hour with the masses is display, ostentation, dress and the gratification of all the animal desires. Toes are educated more than hands, and the tongue talks vastly more than the brain thinks. Polish, etiquette and accomplishment are of more value than honesty of purpose and a good common sense education. There are exceptions to this rule, as there are to all rules, but this is the way we look at the masses.

Society of to-day represents the highest perfection of our Anglo-Saxon civilization as developed under a republican form of government in the New World. While there is much in it which is worthy of all admiration, there is much which is crude, false, foolish, wicked and deserving of our censure. It is now content with nothing short of what money can purchase....As the love of money is the root of all evil, so society which is built on money has much in it which is evil...

Thus begins The Women of New York: Or the Under-World of the Great City. Illustrating the Life of Women of Fashion, Women of Pleasure, Actresses and Ballet Girls, Saloon Girls, Pickpockets and Shoplifters, Artists' Female Models, Women-of-the-Town, Etc., Etc., Etc., a grand tome from 1869, a significant time in American culture when, weary of war, seeking pleasure, and greater personal freedoms, the average American city dweller's manners. mores, and values began to dramatically shift. The emergence of the working woman, freed from domestic chains, created great anxiety amongst religious leaders, moralists, and culturally conservative citizens. 

The Women of New York is just one of the many books that were published in the late 1860's-early 1870s that warned of a cultural Armageddon in the making. It, amongst these other volumes, constitutes nothing less than the origin of  the culture wars in the United States, now in their 151st year.

The Belle of Fashionable Society.

After a discussion of the good old days and an enumeration of the various types of society, the pseudonymous George Ellington gets down to business: the ladies of New York who exemplify the New Woman, to wit: whores and, due to their modern behavior, the nearly so if they're not careful. The shop girl - a new phenomenon - is just one step up from the streets.

At the Races - "Liquoring Up."

The book is divided into  eight sections: Women of Fashion; Women of Pleasure; Married Women; Wicked Women; Female Artistes (Ballet-Girls; Female Models; Actresses); Life in a Female Seminary; Other Women (i.e. physicians; "strong-willed women"); Female Institutions.  Married women do not escape Ellington's  indictment; the chapter titles to that part of the book tell the tale: Matrimonial Infelicities; Marriage à la  Mode; Married Intrigues in Middle Life; Married Liaisons; Separation and Divorce in New York; "Fast Women." There's no escaping the author's scorn; these women are wicked.

Fast Women at the Races.

But not as wicked as "Wicked Women," which include Female Astrologists; Female Clairvoyants; Female Adventurers; Female Pickpockets and Shoplifters.

A Stylish Mamma.

Beware the "fast woman."

"They indulge in all the 'manly sports' which it is possible for women to indulge in, and their philosophy or belief, if they have one, is to eat, drink, and be merry. They are of the world, worldly, and prefer to live and enjoy the present...

"The number of these fast women in New York is perfectly astounding to persons who really have a chance to know. There are, of course, a great many good women in New York who are not fast [slow women: "not so fast, buddy!"]...Fast women are not necessarily bad - they may be virtuous, they may scorn or pity the cyprian - but whatever they may be in that respect they are 'fast,' and lead an exceedingly rapid though short life."

One of the Few Good Mammas.

The above may be one of the few good mammas but I suspect Sylish Mamma is having a better time; "one of the few good mammas" could use a stiff drink to loosen-up; any stiffer in appearance and she might be confused with a caryatid.

The Queen of the "Underworld."

"Out of doors, on the streets of New York, under the light of the gas-lamps, the denizens of the under-world may be seen in even greater numbers than in the fine houses..." And so we are introduced to "Nymphs du Pave,"  a delightful euphemism for streetwalkers; the pavement-pro has never sounded so exotic.

A Female Gambling House on Broadway.

"Women of all classes of society in New York use stimulants and narcotics to a greater or lesser extent but the demi-monde in particular, above and beyond all others, are addicted to these unwholesome and life-destroying habits. If the women of fashion are compelled to use various kinds of opiates to induce sleep, how much more are the women of pleasure, whose life is one continued round of dissipation all the year through, and who never know what rest is...This practice is about as common as eating among them, and is indulged in by all classes of women-on-the-town, whether they be high or low.

"Hasheesh was the favorite drug with these women some years ago but it is no longer thought much of...Laudanum is a favorite drug with the demi-monde, and some of them carry its use to a fearful extent."

Female Models and the Artist at Work.

"To be a model female requires considerable good sense and qualities of the head and heart. To be a female model one can get along without any of these qualifications, so long as she possesses a fine, voluptuous form."

It should be clear by now that this book could have been written yesterday. The Culture Wars, modern greed, and the place of women in today's America can be traced in a very straight line back to this, and other, similar books of the era, a time when the new was outpacing the old at breakneck speed and the old had a bad case of the willies. Women were beginning to think and do for themselves.  Next thing you know they'll want to vote. Call the Riot Squad.

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ELLINGTON, George (pseud.). The Women of New York: Or the Under-World of the Great City. Illustrating the Life of Women of Fashion, Women of Pleasure, Actresses and Ballet Girls, Saloon Girls, Pickpockets and Shoplifters, Artists' Female Models, Women-of-the-Town, Etc., Etc., Etc. With Numerous Engravings. New York: The New York Book Company, 1869. First edition. Tall octavo. 650 pp. Frontispiece, 43 full page engraved plates.

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Hey, Rare Book Guy! What’s “Mock Love”?

(Not our correspondent).

Hey, Rare Book Guy!
 

I've come across a book that's got me a stumped: Love and Mock Love; or How to Marry to the end of Conjugal Satisfaction by George Stearns. Boston: Bela Marsh, 14 Bromfield St. 1860. It was in a box of old books I bought.

I recognized the name George Stearns - famous Garrisonian Abolitionist.  I'm also curious about the misspelling of the publisher on the title page: i.e. Bela Marsh - instead of Bella Marsh.

So, I'm hoping to 'tap' this resource to learn a little bit more about his book. Thank you in advance for your time!

C.W.
Ames, Iowa

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Dear C.W.:

“Shmock! Shmock!”

(Forgive me, I read the words “mock love,” was thrown into Mr. Peabody’s WABAC Machine and caromed back to the early-1960s, comedian Steve Allen, and his trademark nonsense exclamation).

You have unearthed a scarce little gem, a book that played a role in the early Feminist movement in the United States. George Stearns was, indeed, an abolitionist but also a prominent feminist free-thinker and social reformer. Love and Mock Love is his contribution to early feminist literature.

In True Love and Perfect Union: The Feminist Reform of Sex and Society (1981), author William Leach discusses the book. And what, pray tell, is true love? According to Stearns, “True love inspires no jealousies, perpetuates no murders, suggests no suicides, induces no miscarriages, creates no family wars, and warrants no selfish lusts.” It is an idealized vision of intimate relationships somewhat divorced from reality and devoid of human drama.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, married people (and, I’m told, singles) have sex. And there’s the rub.

To the 19th century feminist, romantic love was a “counterfeit passion,” and dangerous. Ideal love and the perfect marriage was, according to Leach, a social regime that stressed symmetry in all things, from the physical to the social contract. Sexual freedom, for the 19th century feminist, meant exactly that: Freedom from sex. It messed things up and turned women away from their intellectual, career, and moral potential. But if you have to have it, let it be symmetrical, and not inspire jealousy, murder, and suicide. Unselfish lust, apparently, was the goal. And, one supposes, without the emotional entanglements that lead to jealousy, murder, and suicide. In other words, placid, dispassionate sex.

I’ve noticed that a few other scholars have picked up upon Love and Mock Love; it is recognized as one of the more interesting period  books on love and marriage.

In an 1863 advertisement found in the Christmas Annual, William White & Co. of Boston offers Love and Mock Love for 25 cents. In 1865, William White advertised the book thus: “Plain 30 cents, gilt 50 cents. Postage 4 cents.”

Stearns was a very interesting individual.

“George Luther Stearns (8 Jan. 1809-9 Apr. 1867), manufacturer and abolitionist, was born in Medford, outside of Boston, Massachusetts...Stearns'...[industrial] pipe business produced a sizable fortune, and he would draw from it liberally to support his reform interests...In the political struggle against slavery, Stearns...supported antislavery third-party candidates... 

George Luther Stearns
Founding member of ZZ Top.

“...Stearns raised money (much of it his own) to purchase Sharpe's rifles and other supplies to support the free state settlers... Deeply impressed with John Brown's call for retributive justice, Stearns became an important financial backer of the guerrilla chieftain in Kansas...supporting and financing Brown's plans to extend his antislavery guerrilla war into Virginia. After Brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Stearns and a fellow conspirator, Samuel Gridley Howe, fled briefly to Montreal. But Stearns returned to defend his actions before a Senate committee investigating the role of 'subversive organizations.' He admitted that he supported Brown's efforts to 'go into Virginia or some other state and relieve slaves,' but he denied any knowledge of plans to commit treason against the United States...

“At the close of the [Civil] war Stearns joined with J. Miller McKim and Charles Eliot Norton to establish The Nation. It was to be 'a weekly newspaper,' announced Stearns, 'to advocate advanced opinions.' Stearns [was] the single largest financial contributor to the new publication...He did not live to see his goal of universal suffrage constitutionally secured” (Louis S. Gerteis. "Stearns, George Luther"; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000).  

Incredibly, OCLC and KVK locate only one copy in institutional holdings, at the British Library (shelfmark 8415.aa.19.).

As for Bela Marsh - that’s the way the Boston publisher, active c. 1840-1865, spelled his name; it is of Hungarian origin, i.e. Bela Lugosi and Bela Bartok. In 1841, his (then) firm, Marsh, Capen, and Lyon, was sued by another publisher for piracy. He seems to have sold his stock to William White; hence White's ads for this book originally published by Marsh.

Thanks, C.W., for the question. You made my day.
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STEARNS, George. Love and Mock Love or How to Marry to the end of Conjugal Satisfaction by George Stearns, author of "The Mistake of Christendom," etc. Boston: Bela Marsh, 14 Bromfield St. 1860. 32mo (thirtytwomo, i.e. tricesimo-secundo; 12 cm). vxvi, 17-128 p.
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Have a question about an old or rare book? The Rare Book Guy is here for you. But first you need to get the full details.
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Images of Love and Mock Love courtesy of the questioner. Image of George Stearns courtesy of the West Virginia State Archives. Header image is licensed from Corbis Images and is protected by copyright.
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