Spectacular Simone de Beauvoir Archive $380,000-$470,000 At Christie's

by Stephen J. Gertz

An outstanding trove of over 350 original and unpublished signed autograph letters and postcards written by French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, social theorist, and author of the major work of Feminist theory, The Second Sex (Le Deuxième Sexe, 1949; 1953 in English), Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), is being offered by Christie's-Paris in it Importants livres anciens,  livers d'artistes & manuscrits sale, April 30, 2014. It is estimated to sell for $380,000-$470,000 (€280,000-€350,000; £250,000-310,000).

Spanning the years 1918-1957, the letters, each 1-10 pages in length and written to her mother, Françoise de Beauvoir (1887-1963), constitute an informal book by de Beauvoir, discussing her childhood and adolescence, life as an independent teacher, her emancipation, etc., and in detail recounts her daily life, travels, her readings (Dumas, Dostoevsky, Saint- Exupery, Faulkner, Celine, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, and many detective novels), meetings, and the progress of her literary work.

As the letters progress from youth to adulthood, discussion of her blood family ebbs and the tide flows to the "small family" she was adopted into, whose members, cited many times, included Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques-Laurent Bost, Olga Zuorro, Bianca Bienenfelds, Nathalie Sorokin Fernand, and Stephan Gerassi, and also Merleau-Ponty, Nizan,  Colette Aubry, the Morels, the Guilles, the Leiris, Raymond Aron,  etc.  

There is much discussion of Jean-Paul Sartre, whom she met in 1929, opening "a new era" in her life. Several letters detail her life with Sartre: a trip together to Spain in 1931; sojourns in Spain, Italy, Germany - where she joined Sartre  in an internship at the French Institute in Berlin in 1939 - in Greece (July-August 1937) and Morocco (summer 1938). She finds Nuremberg "covered with swastikas," and Morocco "horribly lousy, but extremely attractive." 

She discusses her June 1940 exodus from Paris - Sartre was taken prisoner and would not be released until April of the following year; Simone took refuge in La Poueze. She writes of taking a long bicycle trip with Sartre in the free zone to organize a resistance movement. "There is a dearth here," she wrote Sept. 13, 1940 from Cannes, "and twice I had a breakfast of dry bread." The Liberation and her immediate post-war life are covered.

She writes of her 1947 lecture tour in the United States, where she met novelist Nelson Algren, who took her for a walk on the wild side and became her lover. "New York absolutely delights me and life is delicious" (January 28, 1947). She talks about a trip to Sweden with Sartre, and another in the United States and Mexico with Algren in 1948, then Algeria  the following autumn, and with a ferocious appetite for life she describes her discoveries and impressions. Concurrently, she began The Second Sex: "J’ai envie de travailler le plus possible parce que ce livre sera très long à faire et je voudrais quand même bien qu’il soit fni dans un an," she writes in September 1948; the book would be published a year later. 

Additional Sartre, Algren, an important trip to China in 1955, and more through 1957 when the correspondence ends.

The provenance to the archive is rock-solid: from Henriette, Simone's sister, aka Helene de Beauvoir. Her adopted daughter, Mrs. Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, assisted Christie's with the dates to many  letters otherwise dateless.

The significance of this archive cannot be underestimated: it constitutes an epistolary autobiography of one of the towering figures in feminist thought and a major figure in twentieth century French literature.

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Images courtesy of Christie's, with our thanks.
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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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Are U.S. Women Driving American Men To Hell By Baring Their Flesh?

by Stephen J. Gertz

“When women come here with knee length dresses and stoop to pick up apples, I think the men can see more that it is the Lord’s will for them to see.”

So sayeth Mrs. DeWitt Smith in Are We Dragging Our Men To Hell By Our Modern Dress? A four-page pamphlet, it was published without date in the 1940s. It was reprinted without date in the 1960s. It reads as if it were written without date during the 1800s.

Or yesterday in response to Miley Cyrus' recent performance during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards and subsequent forced run through the media gauntlet.

The text of Are We Dragging Men To Hell By Our Manner Of Dress? reads in full:

The old sign of the harlot's den was a red light by night, and women sitting in front by day showing their legs. The Bible says to Christians:
 

"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array." I Timothy 2:9
 

A preacher said, "Only yesterday my manhood was insulted. Across from and facing me on a street car sat a 'something' -- a female picking her teeth. Her dress was above her knees with no effort to keep them together. Horrors! What are we coming to when a clean man must cover his face with a paper or turn his head the other way to keep from seeing entirely too much? It seems that many of these she animals have lost all modesty and are out for sale, offering all that is left - just leg! legs!! legs!!!"
 

A good lady said, "These knee-length dresses are not modest. The Holy Spirit showed me that at least half of the calf of the leg should be covered."
 

Hear what Dr. [Perry] Lichtenstein, Physician of Tombs Prison in New York City, who is able to speak authoritatively on the causes of crime, says: (He has seen, in 12 years, 170,000 prisoners pass over the 'Bridge of Sighs', and he ought to know.) "The so called crimes of passion are increasing alarmingly, and will continue to do so in my opinion until the principal cause is eliminated. This, it seems to me, is the present style of dress which, to say the least, is immodest. Rolled stockings and similar styles have a direct bearing on crime incitation no matter how innocent the wearer may be." It is safe to say that there would be much less crime today, far fewer homes whose happiness has been blasted forever by unfaithfulness, fewer divorce trials, less violations of maidenly honor, if everyone of these underworld styles could be thrown into the deepest Hell.
 

Dr. [Thomas De Witt] Talmadge said, "Thousands of men are in Hell, whose eternal damnation is due to the improper dress of women."
 

In a neighboring town lives a boy who was graduated from the State University with the highest honors. Later he had a fine position but acquired a venereal disease, went insane, and now is in the insane asylum part of the time--all because of lust.
 

Low necks, short dresses scarcely to the knees, bare arms, painted faces - in a word - everything to arouse passion and lust is the order of the day.
 

"Everybody does it!" I know - but do you belong to the 'everybodies' or are you a pilgrim?

I went to Bible school, and one day the teacher had a special meeting of the girls and told them if they would let the Lord talk to them, they would lengthen their dresses. When the school had a social gathering, one boy left the party when the girls were playing games, etc. He could see too much, he said.
 

When women come with knee length dresses, and stoop to pick up apples, I think the men can see more that it is the Lord's will for them to see.
 

I would rather wear my dresses a longer length and please the Lord, than to try to please a hard-to-please fickle world. We surely will never send men to Hell by wearing longer dresses.
 

D.L. Moody in his book, Prevailing Prayer, said, "Why is it that many of our children are going down to a dishonored grave? Many Godly parents find that their children are going astray. Does it arise from some secret sin clinging around the heart? I sometimes tremble when I hear people quote promises, and say that God is bound to fulfill those promises to them, when all the time there is something in their own lives which they are not willing to give up. It is well to search our hearts and find out why our prayers are not answered."
 

One saintly woman, who wore rather long dresses, said, when she put on a shorter dress, the Lord would not hear her prayers.

John Wesley said gay and costly apparel tends to influence lust.
 

During the first hundred years of her ministry, Methodism was the greatest power for righteousness of any movement since Pentecost. In those days of her glory, Methodism always insisted upon plainness of attire.
 

We may say if we wear our dresses a longer length we will look differently. What does Charles Finney (one of the most God-used evangelists of the all time) say? "I will confess that I was formerly myself in error. I believed the best way for Christians to pursue was to dress so as not to be noticed: to follow the fashions so as not to appear singular. But I have seen my error and now wonder greatly at my former blindness. It is your duty to dress so plain as to show the world that you place no sort of reliance in things of fashion.
 

If you wear immodest clothing that offers a suggestive appeal to sex, and stimulates those baser impulses which slumber in the human breast, do you think the Lord is so likely to protect your girl and boy in the wave of immorality among youth and others?
 

Preachers, if you think these knee length dresses are not modest, and it is a sin for women to wear them, will you be faithful to the Lord to warn them? Can you expect the Lord to put a hedge around yours sons and daughters, and keep them moral in this immoral world, if you do not?
 

I am trusting the Lord to keep my three sons pure. Can the Lord protect young people? I know He can; because He has kept mine moral. I couldn't commit adultery if you would give me the whole world; neither can I get mixed up in an affair with some other woman's husband (which is so common these days). If He can keep me moral, He can keep your son and daughter moral. The power of the Devil is great; but, praise God, the Lord has more power.
 

I don't want Jesus to say to me some day, "By the exposure of your flesh you have dragged men to Hell." Do you?

There are plenty of antecedents to the above, not the least of which is Apropos of Women and Theatres, written by former actress and women's rights lecturer, Olive Logan (1839-1909), and published in 1869 by Carleton in New York.

Logan, who earned the scorn of Mark Twain, devotes two chapters to decrying the "coarse rage which [has] spread in our theatres, until it [has] come to be a ruling force in them," to wit: About The Leg Business, detailing the exposure of women's gams on the boards, and About Nudity In The Theatre, discussing the post-Civil War phenomenon of women appearing onstage scantily clad. (Interestingly, Logan makes one of the first references in a general circulation book to "a new theatrical term in use among 'professionals' which embraces all sorts of performances in its comprehensiveness, to wit: The Show Business").

As far as the business of show too much goes, Are We Dragging Our Men To Hell By Our Modern Dress? was not Mrs. DeWitt Smith's only exploration of the looming apocalypse on America's near horizon. Evidently a woman of few words, she wrote two other four-page only tracts, Christians Are Sleeping While Communists Work (Minneapolis: Osterhus Publishing Company, 195?) and Never Take Your First Drink, Never Spend Your First Nickel in Gambling, and Never Touch Tobacco (Randleman, NC: Pilgrim Tract Society, 194?).

To declare that Are Women Dragging Men Into Hell By Their Manner Of Dress is extremely scarce in any edition because there are no copies, according to OCLC, in institutional holdings worldwide sounds impressive but is sort of meaningless; libraries clearly felt it wasn't worth adding to their collections. But it is truly rare: I do not pretend to have seen every similarly themed book and pamphlet but I have seen quite a few over the last thirty years and this one is a first for me.

It does, however, make me feel all warm and fuzzy to report that OCLC records only one copy each of Mrs. Smith's Christians Are Sleeping While Communists Work and Never Take Your First Drink, Never Spend Your First Nickel in Gambling, and Never Touch Tobacco in institutional holdings worldwide. Acquisition librarians have apparently judged that loopy tracts on Communism, alcohol, gambling, and tobacco are of greater importance to our culture than a loopy anti-cheesecake jeremiad. 

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SMITH, Mrs. DeWitt. [caption title]. Are We Dragging Men To Hell By Our Modern Dress? (Randleman, N. C.: Pilgrim Tract Society, Inc.), n.d. [after 1948, c. 1960]. Unbound tract, approx. 5.25 x 3.5 inches, [4] pages on green stock. Illus. Later edition.

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Image courtesy of Garrett Scott, Bookseller, with our thanks.

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"All Women's Colleges Should Be Burned"

by Stephen J. Gertz

Alonzo B. See, elevator manufacturer and outspoken foe of higher education for women, who retired in 1930 as president of the A. B. See Elevator Company, which he founded in 1883, died last night at his home, 373 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, at the age of 94. Unknown to the general public, except that his name had been read by many elevator passengers, Mr. See became 'suddenly famous' to use the phrase of a New York Times editorial, when in 1922, in reply to a request from Adelphi College for funds, he replied that 'all women's colleges should be burned'" (New York Times, December 17, 1941).

That statement sparked a national controversy, causing many readers of The New York Times to “hit the ceiling faster than they ever ascended in one of the See elevators,” as the Times afterward quipped.

A collection of letters by Alonzo B. See, in his time America's most notorious misogynist-provocateur,  has come to market.

His original 1922 letter (leaked to the NY Times, and his copy included in the collection) to Adelphi College, a women's school in Brooklyn, NY, reads in part:

"If I had my way I would burn all the women's colleges in the country...of all the fool things in the world I think the college for women is the worst. When they graduate from the colleges they cannot write a decent hand. They know nothing about the English language. They cannot spell. They are utterly ignorant of the things they should know, and they have their brains twisted by studying psychology, logic and philosophy and a lot of other stuff not only useless but positively harmful - a lot of stuff which could have been concocted only in the diseased brains of college professors...nothing would be better for the girls that are now in colleges than to be taken out of the colleges and put to hard manual labor for at least a year, so that there might be put into their heads some little trace of sense..."

In the Foreword to Schools (NY: Privately Printed, 1928), See's out-of-this-world thesis on education in general and female education in particular, he declares: "We have a nation to save. To save the nation the children must be rescued from their mothers and from pedagogues, the women must be rescued from themselves, and men must rule their homes again."

Misogyny was as easy as A.B. See. 
Photo credit: Green-Wood.com

Moreover, "there should be an end to all this talk about the goodness of women. It does no good, and it is not true. Men are better than women. Men are more truthful than women. Men are not deceitful like women. Men are more honest than women. Men are not quarrelsome like women."

Furthermore, "fathers should watch over their girls, make them obey absolutely and make the girls wait on them in every particular - that is, bring them their slippers, get their hats and coats and wait on them in every other way."

This was red meat and carnivores of both sexes of all ages ate it up and spit it out in letters to the editor appearing in newspapers throughout the country.

At least one woman challenged him to a debate but he gave her the bum's rush, asserting that "I never discuss anything logical with women. They can talk straight for about five minutes and then they go off the handle. They haven't got the reasoning power a man has, and I wouldn't think of debating with any woman on any subject."

He was himself a compulsive writer of letters to the editor or anybody who'd listen. As an example, on November, 1926, according to the Times' obit, he was on the attack: "The schools injure the eyes, the nerves and the whole physical natures of the children, causing some to succumb to diseases they could have withstood if their health had not been undermined in the schools."

In a December 1922 letter to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, See wrote, "women average about five ounces less less brain matter than the men, and the part they lack is the reasoning capacity."

In a 1925 letter to an admirer he stated, "A feminist is a woman with a feeble mind, whose brain cracked when she tried reason."

A dire influence upon The Little Rascals.

[Note to female readers: please holster your side-arms].

Newspaper readers who had come to enjoy See's over-the-top pronouncements even as they denounced them must have felt chagrined when they read in April, 1936 that See had "changed his mind about women."

What happened?

It seems that he held a dinner in his home to entertain fifteen women who had achieved prominence outside the house, husband, and children. To a goading Times reporter who cued him on the animosity he had aroused among women in the past, See replied:

"Well, that is all changed now. Up to tonight I still had that same opinion. But I changed it tonight."

For all the hoopla that accompanied his earlier declarations, this one was ignored by the media. As the Times wryly noted, "the attention given to this astonishing about-face was microscopic."

See's copies of the letters cited above are included in the collection along with many more. Some have been published or are publicly known; the majority have yet to be examined by scholars. This archive - over 100 letters -  is being offered for $4,500. It's a small price to pay for the fevered correspondence of a proto-cable TV bloviator whose targets also included trade unions, public education in general, immoral and degenerate Jazz age culture, the New York Chamber of Commerce, you name it. The hits just keep on comin'.

Photo credit: Chester Burger.

Alonzo B. See rests in Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where the Virgin Mary keeps an eye on him with leg poised to kick him upside the head should he open his mouth in the great beyond and disrespect the women in charge.

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Unless noted otherwise, images courtesy of Lorne Bair Rare Books, currently offering this collection, with our thanks.

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The Amazon Of The American Revolution

by Stephen J. Gertz

I "burst the tyrant bounds which held my sex in awe."

The Female Review: or, memoirs of an American young lady whose life and character are peculiarly distinguished - being a Continental soldier (for nearly three years) in the late American War, during which she performed the duties of every department into which she was called with punctual exactness, fidelity, and honor. By a citizen of Massachusetts. Portrait engraved by Graham. Dedham: Printed by Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, for the author, 1797.

"The subject of this memoir was born at Plympton, Mass. in 1760. Disguised as a man, she enlisted in the Revolutionary Army (Fourth Mass. Regiment) under the name Robert Shurtleff, and was wounded in a skirmish at Tarrytown, N.Y. She was also present at Yorktown" (From a Boston bookseller's catalog c. 1916).

"There are few cases known to history, of women serving as soldiers, without discovery of their sex, but all, save our heroine, were in foreign armies: she remains the only one known to our own army, until 1861-65, when according to Mrs. Livermore's My Story of the War [Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington and Company. 1888], there were many in the Union Army, by one unnamed authority almost four hundred - though of course none were enlisted if their sex was known.

"It is admitted that there were two women in Washington's army who did soldier's work - Molly Pitcher of Monmouth, and Margaret Corbin of Fort Washington - But theirs was but a 'service of occasion,' and they were not regularly enlisted, as was Deborah Sampson" (Editor's note to 1916 edition).

Deborah Sampson (1760-1827) was born the daughter of impoverished farmers who claimed distinguished lineage from the early Pilgrims. Bound out as an indentured servant as a child, she became literate and taught school for six months after her indenture ended in 1779. She was five feet seven inches - tall for a girl of that era - and, according to observers, possessed a sturdy physique and was strong.

"A more headstrong and even reckless aspect to Sampson's nature appeared during the year 1782. Inspired by the events of the American Revolution, she dressed in men's clothing and enlisted in the Massachusetts militia forces under the assumed name of Timothy Thayer. Caught soon afterward and exposed as a woman masquerading in men's clothes, she was forced to yield the bounty money that was customarily paid to enlistees during that period of the revolutionary war. Unhindered by this initial setback, and rejecting a suitor who was favored by her mother, Sampson dressed in men's clothing once again and on 20 May 1782 enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, under the assumed name of Robert Shurtlieff (given variously in other sources as Shirtliff, Shurtleff, or Shirtlief). Mustered in Worcester, Massachusetts, on 23 May 1782, she marched southward to West Point, New York, as a member of the Continental army.

"Sampson saw considerable action during her year and a half in the American forces (20 May 1782-23 Oct. 1783). She took part in a battle against American Loyalists near Tarrytown, New York, where she was wounded in the thigh. Treated by a French surgeon in the American army, she extracted a musket ball from her thigh [with penknife and needle] rather than have her gender discovered. Around this same time she suffered the indignity of having the First Baptist Church of Middleborough, Massachusetts, sever its connections with her, citing her 'very loose and unchristian like' behavior" (American National Biography).

She continued her service in the Continental Army through war's end. For a brief period immediately afterward she continued to pose as a man, under the name Ephraim Sampson. But in 1784 she married Benjamin Gannett, settled down, and bore three children. Sampson suffered from the effects of her war wounds, and experienced financial difficulties.

She solicited assistance from her friend and neighbor in Canton, Massachusetts, Paul Revere, who wrote letters in her behalf, and may have provided direct financial support. Sampson was placed on the pension list of the United States in 1805 (retroactive to 1803) as the result of her petitions and the pleading of Revere.

Title page, 1916 reprint, Tarrytown, N.Y. : William Abbatt.

The diary she kept of her exploits as a soldier was lost when, returning to West Point, the boat she was in capsized. She told her wartime stories to Herman Mann, a printer, publisher, and editorial writer for the Dedham. Massachusetts Village Register.

"He interviewed her, and after much persuasion she agreed to let him write her story, with his promise that she would have the final say…but  there is reason to believe that Deborah never did get final review. Mann arranged for a list of subscribers to pay costs and promised Deborah a share of the profits, but it seems she did not receive much of these. He commissioned Joseph Stone of Framingham, Massachusetts, to paint Deborah's picture for a frontispiece for the book" (Bohrer, Glory, Passion, and Principle: The Story of Eight Remarkable Women at the Core of the American Revolution, p. 208).

Mann was loose with facts, added his own "moral reflections," and with his own vivid imagery and fanciful hyperbole related her experiences. As a result, the book is now considered to be more the product of his pen than Sampson's direct memories; his words, not hers. Mann even spelled her surname incorrectly: it is "Samson," no "p."

A more accurate recounting of Deborah Samson's exploits can be found in The Women of the American Revolution by Elizabeth F. Ellet (NY, Baker and Scribner, 1848). In the Preface, Ellet notes, "I have been told that the Female Review about this heroine was not in any measure reliable and that Deborah Samson repeatedly expressed her displeasure at the representation of herself which she did not at all recognize. The following facts respecting her I received from a lady who knew her personally and has often listened with thrilling interest to the animated description given by herself of her exploits and adventures."

In 1802 Deborah Samson began public speaking to theater audiences in New England and New York; she was the first professional woman lecturer in the United States. Billed as "The American Heroine" and wearing a blue and white uniform and armed with a musket, she performed military manual exercises while relating how she had 'burst the tyrant bounds which held my sex in awe.' The remainder of her life was uneventful.

"Sampson's wartime service was both sensational and remarkable. The activities of this American 'Joan of Arc' were in many ways more extraordinary than the heroics of persons such as Betsy Ross and Molly Pitcher. First, Sampson's military service was reasonably well documented; second, she took obvious pride and pleasure in both her service and in the manner of her disguise; and third, she attracted the attention of a revolutionary notable, Revere. Even in her own day, a Massachusetts newspaper marveled at the story of a 'lively, comely young nymph, nineteen years of age, dressed in man's apparel,' serving in the armies of the revolutionary cause" (Davis, "A 'Gallantress' Gets Her Due: The Earliest Published Notice of Deborah Sampson," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 91, no. 2 (1981): p. 322). "As was the case with many heroes and heroines of the Revolution, Deborah Sampson Gannett's name faded from the public memory by the mid-nineteenth century" (American National Biography).

Lost in obscurity Deborah Samson was rediscovered by the feminist movement during the late 1960s. In 1983 Deborah Samson was formally proclaimed "Official Heroine of the State of Massachusetts."

The first edition of The Female Review is quite rare; according to ABPC only two copies have come to auction within the last thirty-seven years. Only one copy of the 1866 reprint has seen the auction rooms during the same period. There are no copies of the 1797, 1866, or 1916 (with biographical corrections) editions currently being offered by anyone, anywhere in the world; the book is as scarce as can be.

But for those interested in reading this tale of the American Revolution's amazon in male drag the full text is available online.

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[SAMPSON, Deborah] [MANN, Herman]. The Female Review: or, memoirs of an American young lady whose life and character are peculiarly distinguished - being a Continental soldier (for nearly three years) in the late American War, during which she performed the duties of every department into which she was called with punctual exactness, fidelity, and honor. By a citizen of Massachusetts. Portrait engraved by Graham. Dedham: Printed by Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, for the author, 1797.

First edition. Twelvemo. xv, [16]-258, [8] pp. Frontispiece portrait by Stone, engraved by Graham.

Sabin 44314.

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Virtue For Girls In The American Toilet

by Stephen J. Gertz

"Children's books joined the crusade against the prevailing 'pride and affectation in dress,' and little girls in particular were regaled with alarming examples to prove that 'prettiness is an injury to a young lady, if her behaviour is not pretty likewise'" (Kiefer, American Children Through Their Books 1700-1835, p. 94).

In 1827 a curious little book was published in New York. The anonymously written The American Toilet - a title that refers to the rituals of daily grooming and dressing, and the items used to do so - was one of the many early books for children issued to instruct them on the path to adulthood and righteousness. The book's emblematic illustrations were accompanied by moral precepts. It is one amongst the genre known as "conduct books" for children.

At this stage in their development all children's books were didactic in nature, and while great for the parents were dry and deadly to the children compelled read them. Fun was not a part of these books; fun, indeed, was frowned upon and not part of a child's education. Childhood as we now understand it did not exist.  In those days childhood was adulthood with baby teeth.

Modesty, humility, cheerfulness, mildness, truth, contentment, good humor, innocence, compassionate tears, moderation, industry, perseverance, benevolence, fidelity, meekness, charity,  circumspection, discretion, piety, and regularity. These are the virtues that young girls in eighteenth and nineteenth century America were expected to cultivate. They are the virtues that many in modern America believe have gone into the toilet and down the drain. They are the virtues taught in The American Toilet. Conspicuously absent are the dubious modern virtues of gettin' jiggy and workin' your twerk.

The book illustrates various toilet articles, each accompanied by a couplet. 

"Touch with this compound the soft lily cheek / And the bright glow will best its virtue speak," reads the verse for Genuine Rouge. The lesson is bared when a hinged flap on the illustration is raised to expose the virtue. "Genuine rouge" is revealed to be not a cosmetic but modesty.

Book collectors familiar with the genre will recognize the format as a movable or transformation book, and an early one, the simplest then imagined, produced, and published, a "flap-book." It is quite possibly the first produced in America. This added a novel and fun aspect to learning virtues, noticeably absent from other conduct books. Of further interest to collectors is that The American Toilet is amongst the earliest color-plate books published in America to employ lithographs original to the United States, here hand-colored.

Lithography was developed in Europe and during the early nineteenth century all printers skilled in the process were British, French, or German. With few exceptions all early American color-plate books were reprints or piracies of British editions; there were simply no native-born American printers with the necessary skill set at this early point in the century. The plates/stones were imported; the books printed in the U.S. The lithographs in The American Toilet were, in contrast, made in New York by one of the few printer-publishers in the U.S. with the technical know-how to produce them, Imbert's Lithographic Office, a pioneer firm.

"Anthony Imbert, originally a French naval officer, learned lithography while a prisoner of war in England. He arrived in New York about 1825 and immediately undertook a series of illustrations for a Memoir published to celebrate the completion of the Erie Canal. His other work includes a series of New York views, portraits, and cartoons. He is last listed in the New York city directory in 1835, and he died sometime before 1838, when his widow Mary is listed selling boys' clothing on Canal Street" (Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library).

Advertisement for Imbert in NY American For The Country, January, 1827.

"The American Toilet, a neat little production, sold for account
of a charitable institution, is now at its 2d edition. A few of the
1st edition are yet to be disposed of - price 50 cts."

"The price of the new edition, which has been much
 improved, is 75 cts. in black, $1 colored, neatly bound."

The concept of The American Toilet was not original to the U.S. The book was based upon a flap-book published in London in 1821.

"Small gift books were already popular in England during the 1820s, and the lithographer, Imbert, blatantly pirated a British work to produce his American Toilet. In this delicate little work, the illustrations of various cosmetic canisters have hinged flaps of paper which can be raised to see the 'true' beautifier. Thus 'A Wash to Smooth Away Wrinkles' is revealed to be 'laughter,' 'Genuine Rouge' to be 'modesty,' and so forth" (Reese, Nineteenth Century American Color-Plate Books).

Contrary to Reese, The American Toilet was not a piracy. It was, rather, inspired by The Toilet, which was anonymously written by Stacey Grimaldi, illustrated by his father, miniature painter William Grimaldi, and published in London by N. Hailes and R. Jennings in 1821. I recently had both volumes pass through my hands; the concept is similar, the execution  different, the Grimaldi version with thirty-two pages of text and only nine plates with flaps, the captions not couplets but, rather, extended verses. The American Toilet contains nineteen plates (plus title-page) and no accompanying text. Its illustrations and couplets are completely original.

"Although derivative from Stacey Grimaldi's The Toilet, first published in London in 1821, the American book was the work of the sisters Hannah Lindley Murray and Mary Murray. Neither of them is credited n the book itself, which as copyrighted by George Tracy, and the nature and extent of their involvement in its production is unclear. A second, 'improved' edition was also issued in 1827 for seventy-five cents a copy (the first cost fifty cents), and copies of each were available colored or uncolored. The publication of a second edition indicates some success, and the work was undoubtedly bought as a novelty, since it is probably the first American book to contain transformation plates. It began something of a tradition…" (John Carbonell, Prints and Printmakers of New York State: 1825-1940, edited by David Tatham, p. 24). 

Who were the Murray sisters?

"Hannah Lindley Murray (1777-1836), translator, born in New York City…Her father was a native of Pennsylvania, who settled in New York before the Revolution and was a successful merchant of that city for more than fifty years. The daughter'was an accomplished linguist, and with her sister, Mary, translated Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered,' the "Fall of Phaeton' from Ovid, a 'History of Hungary' from the French of M. de Sacy, Massillon's 'Discourses,' and a variety of operas from different languages. She also painted, wrote verses and hymns, and, aided by her sister, composed a poem in eight books on the 'Restoration of the Jews.' None of her writings were published until after her death, when a few of her miscellanies were included in a 'Memoir' by Reverend Gardiner Spring, D. D. (New York,1849)" (Appleton's Encyclopedia).

The first edition of The American Toilet was, apparently, published in 1825. There are five copies in institutional holdings worldwide, all in the U.S. It is scarcely, if ever, seen in commerce. The volume under notice is the second edition, issued without date but, according to the deposit notice verso to the title-page, published on January 11, 1827. It appears that the Murray sisters began the project by producing hand-made copies of the book that they sold to raise money for charity groups. They and their book, it seems, came to the attention of Imbert, who printed it based upon the Murrays' homemade version.

The British version was reprinted more than once. So was The American Toilet. Imbert published a third edition in 1832, and editions, presumably piracies, were published by Kellogg in Hartford, CT in 1841 and 1842 under the title The Young Ladies Toilet. In 1867 another edition was issued, in Washington D.C. by Ballantyne, under the title, The Toilet. There was a crudely produced piracy of The American Toilet published in Charleston, N.C. during the 1830s. "A garish and inferior version on a much larger scale is My Lady's Casket, published in Boston in 1835 [i.e. Lee and Shepard, 1885]" (Muir) with forty-eight recto-only leaves and new illustrations by Eleanor Talbot. The 1827 Imbert edition is typically found with damaged or missing flaps.

Percy Muir, in English Children's Books, discusses the original 1821 version under the rubric, "Toilet Books," a sub-species of conduct books.

If you've been waiting for the toilet-training joke, sorry to disappoint. However flush the possibilities, modesty, discretion, circumspection, meekness, and, in all things, regularity preclude further comment.

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[MURRAY, Hannah Lindley and Mary]. The American Toilet. New York: Printed and Published at Imbert's Lithographic Office, n.d. [January 11, 1827]. Second edition. Twentyfourmo (4 5/8 x 3 5/8 in; 118 x 85 mm).  Hand-colored lithographed title page with deposit notice to verso, and nineteen hand-colored lithographed plates with hinged flaps; a total of twenty hand-colored lithographs. Original full straight-grained morocco, rebacked at an early date, with gilt-rolled border and gilt lettering.

Not in Bennett.  Gumuchian, Les Livres De L'Enfance du XVe au XIXe Siecle 334. Rosenbach, Early American Children's Books 683. Reese 51.

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

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Fighting Modern Evils With Old Rare Books

by Stephen J. Gertz

MILLER, Fred S. Fighting Modern Evils That Destroy Our Homes
- A Startling Exposure of the Snares and Pitfals of the Social World
- Vividly Depicting How Homes Are Wrecked and Souls Destroyed
Through Wiles and Trickery of Mystic Cults.
N.P. [U.S. of Canada]: n.p. [the author], n.d. [c. 1913].

In the modern world each footfall is an opportunity to drop into an abyss and snowshoes won't prevent you from sinking into perdition. There is, however, a rich corpus of vintage self-help, instructional and inspirational literature to keep you from drowning in a pool of damnation.

Here's a small selection, from Old New Age, the latest catalog from David Mason Rare Books.

KRESS, Daniel H. The Cigarette.
As a Physician Sees It.
Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publ., [c. 1932].

Modern Evil #1: Cigarettes.

Pacific Press Publishers of Mountain View, California was a Seventh Day Adventist venture dedicated to educational titles on activities that lead to the road to ruin. Get your kicks on Route 666 and experience Hell Before Death.

Here, inside the Los Angeles Coliseum during the 1932 Olympic Games, the U.S. track team doc examines a runner prior to race time. Judging by the expression on the Olympian's face, he's just been diagnosed with Stage-3 lung cancer and congestive heart failure. Will he make it to the finish line?

Not too long after this pamphlet appeared, Big Tobacco would recruit doctors real or otherwise to endorse their products in advertisements, M.D.s who, apparently, had their fingers crossed when taking the Hippocratic Oath.

HORN, M[ildred]. A. Mother and Daughter.
A Digest for Women and Growing Girls,
Which Completely Covers the Field of Sex Hygiene.
Toronto: Canadian Hygienic Products Ltd, n.d. [c. 1940s].

Modern Evil #2: Reckless Teen Behavior.

Young girls - you know who you are - have you no shame? Want to find a good husband? Have children? Lead a long, wholesome life? Listen to your mother! She'll teach you all about the science of keeping clean, healthy, and happy! You'll be miserable but so what? Fun is over-rated.

HALE, Beatrice Forbes Robertson. What Women Want.
An Interpretation of the Feminist Movement.
New York: Frederick Stokes, (1914).

Modern Evil #3: Feminism.

Damned suffragettes were tearing the social fabric in America and England, the contemporary social fabric an easily stained synthetic silk with rough threads; good riddance. 

Actress, suffragist, prolific author and lecturer Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale (1883-1967), niece of J. Forbes Robertson,  the famed London actor and theater manager, was an ardent feminist who married young Wall Street lawyer Swinburne Hale in 1910. He was "won by her speeches…Young attorney began ardent courtship after hearing her espouse woman's cause" (NY Times, April 29, 1910)

"Miss Forbes-Robertson will not give up the stage nor abate her efforts on behalf of the woman suffrage cause after her marriage to Mr. Hale. She has been prominently connected with the campaign for woman suffrage in both England and in this country, where she has been of large service through her platform eloquence.

"She is a finished speaker, and though she has never become associated with the extreme militant suffragettes closely enough to accomplish arrest, she has done a great deal of platform work here and abroad" (Ibid).

The Hales divorced in 1920 and Beatrice returned home to England but continued to visit the United States and remained fully engaged in the women's rights movement.

Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale was, it seems, a bit naive about her sisters in the struggle. Margaret Sanger, in The Woman Rebel,  her law-challenging journal, wrote:

"Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale said at a debate on feminism that she knew of only two feminists who advocated free love and unmarried motherhood, and that they were not suffragists, but anarchists. What a limited knowledge of women Mrs. Hale has! Perhaps after all self respect and morality are confined to the anarchist women!"

What Women Want is a very rare book with only a handful of copies in institutional holdings worldwide. Read the full text here.

VOM BRUCH, Harry W. The Carnival of Death.
Or the Modern Dance and Other Amusements.
Mont Morris, IL: Kable Brothers Co., n.d. [c. late 1910s].

Modern Evil #4: Dancing.

Dancing had been viewed as sinful as far back as the eighteenth century but with the influx of single girls into the urban workforce the perils of the dance hall did a grand jeté into the evangelical congregation with jeremiads aplenty.

The tacit terpsichorean culprit in Carnival of Death is, I suspect, the Black Bottom, which originated in New Orleans in the first decade of the 20th century. Its roots in African-American culture made it Public Enemy #1 amongst the decline of the West set.

Am I alone in mourning the passing of dances with names? The Black Bottom, Charleston, Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, Mambo. Cha-Cha, Merengue, Rhumba, Bossa Nova, the Swim, the Frug, the Shing-a-ling, the Monkey, the Mashed Potatoes, Watusi, Hully-Gully, the Shake, the Twist, the Funky Chicken, Pony, the Loco-motion, the Freddy,  the Bump, the Hustle, Macarena - even those dreaded of all social-banquet dances, the Hokey-Pokey and the Bunny Hop: quick, what's the name of the latest dance of 2012-2013? The Whatever.

ELLESBY, James. A Caution Against Ill Company:
Or, a Discourse Shewing the Danger of
Conversing Familiarly With Bad Men.
London: F.C. & J. Rivington, 1812.
Tenth edition.

Modern Evil #5: Bad Men.

Reverend James Ellesby, author of The Sick Christian's Companion (1729) -  no smirking, please; the book is a selection of prayers to endure illness, not a guide for Christians of dubious turn of mind - here cautions against females engaging in casual social intercourse with bad men; it can lead to that other casual intercourse, you know, the one that leads to the streets. From hello to Hell is only one lost virtuous vowel away.

Come on, gals, 'fess-up. Bad men are catnip! This is why, only hours after my Bar Mitzvah, I immediately began riding Harleys without a license, using bad language, smoking, playing pool, hanging-out on street corners, staying up past my bedtime, and generally flouting authority so egregiously that I was routinely remanded by the court to my room without supper. In short, I became a chicklette-magnet, 11 and 12-year old vampettes vying for the attention of this older, thirteen year old man so incredibly wise, so astonishingly smart, so breathtakingly handsome, so overweeningly conceited, and desperate to become an excommunicated Boy Scout but too milquetoast for misdemeanors, much less felonies.

"He's irresistible. He treats me like crap. I'm in love!"

HARRIS, Rev. W.S.. Hell Before Death.
With Illustrations by Paul Krafft.
N.P.: (Luther Minter): n.d. [c. 1908].
By Subscription Only.

Modern Evil #6: Capitalism.

Hell Before Death author, Rev. W.S. Harris, "who has devoted many years in securing better conditions for humanity," writes:

"Under the whip of monopolistic slavemasters, the host of common people, generally known as laborers, are getting deeper into bondage…This movement on the part of Labor was perhaps the most fortunate thing that could have happened; for, if capitalistic oppression had continued unchecked for a few decades more, by this time, the nation would be owned and controlled by a few great moguls, and the great bulk of humanity would be reduced to a new type of slavery even more abject than the kind under which we now suffer" (from the Preface. Full text of Hell Before Death here).

Sure glad that didn't happen.

SOUTHARD, R.E. Problems of Decency.
(St. Louis): The Queen's Work, n.d. [c. 1949].

Modern Evil #7: Indecency.

The Catholic University of America library has 742 publications, pamphlets and magazines from The Queen's Work, a Jesuit publishing house based in St. Louis and the pioneer mass circulation magazine to popularize the Catholic faith.

It was founded and edited by Daniel Aloysius Lord, S.J. (1888-1955), a popular American Catholic writer. Lord became national director of the Sodality of Our Lady in 1926, also serving as editor of its publication, The Queen's Work magazine. He stepped down from editorship in 1948, but continued to write for the magazine for the remainder of his life, producing more than 500 pamphlets, plays, and songs.

In 1927, he served as a consultant to Cecil B. DeMille for his silent film, King of Kings. The advent of talkies alarmed him. "Silent smut had been bad," he would write in his autobiography, Played by Ear. "Vocal smut cried to the censors for vengeance."

In 1929, he began work on Hollywood's Production Code. "Here was a chance," he wrote, "to read morality and decency into mass recreation." He aimed "to tie the Ten Commandments in with the newest and most widespread form of entertainment," aspiring to an ecumenical standard of decency, so that "the follower of any religion, or any man of decent feeling and conviction, would read it and instantly agree."

In 1930, Lord's draft of the Code was accepted by Will H. Hays and promulgated to the studios with only minor changes, but it lacked an enforcement mechanism, and Lord came to consider it a failure. It was only with the mid-1934 advent of the Production Code Administration headed by Joseph Breen that the Code became the law of Hollywood for more than twenty-five years.

Clean up the movies? Sanitized for your protection? Mission accomplished!

GAYNOR, R. Leo. The Mysteries of Luck,
Together With Invaluable Information on the Occult
Science of Astrology, Numerology, Graphology, etc.
N.P. [Canada?}: W.K. Buckley, n.d. [ c. 1936].

All the self-help and inspirational books in the world will not, of course, be of any value whatsoever unless Lady Luck takes a liken' to ya' and makes it all better. But don't tell Dr. Phil.

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Images courtesy of David Mason Rare Books, currently offering these titles, with our thanks.
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Great Literary Faces 1938-1939

by Stephen J. Gertz

 "For a writer, his portrait is the only link he can establish with his readers. When we read a book whose content moves us, we are interested to look at the author's face, which is generally printed on the jacket since the publisher is aware of our wish to see if these features correspond to the idea we have formed of the author. This image is thus very important to the man of letters. He prefers a photographer in whom he can have confidence" (from Gisèle Freund: Photographer, 1985).

Simone de Beauvoir.

In 1977, German-born French photographer Gisele Freund (c.1908/12-2000) revisited portraits of ten men and women of letters, who originally sat for her in 1938-1939, for an edition limited to thirty-six copies of her work, Au pays de visages.

The writers were Colette, Virginia Woolf, André Gide, James Joyce,  Jean Cocteau, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sarte, André Malraux, Vita Sackville-West, and Silvia Beach's companion,  the poet, publisher, and proprietor of the famed bookshop La Maison des Amis des Livres (1915-1951), Adrienne Monnier.

Colette.

Freund printed the portraits using the dye-transfer process developed by Technicolor in 1928 and refined by them in 1932. Labor and time intensive, the process results in extraordinarily beautiful hues that can be hotly vivid or possess muted richness as no other; it is intense. Color photographs using the dye-transfer process are instantly recognizable as such, as are movies photographed in Technicolor.

James Joyce.

Gisele Freund was born into a Jewish family in Schöneberg, near Berlin. In 1928, her father bought her a Leica. She liked it and pursued photography as a hobby while studying sociology and literature. Some hobby: when the Nazis came to power the Freunds left Germany with Gisele smuggling out the portraits she had made of Hitler's political victims.

She studied at the Sorbonne and played chess with Walter Benjamin, who, while she was writing her dissertation, La Photographie en France au dix-neuvième siècle, at the Bibliothéque National,  was  also there, writing a study of Baudelaire. Her dissertation was published by Adrienne Monnier, who, along with Sylvia Beach, introduced Gisele to Paris' literary circle.

Virginia Woolf, in her London house, 1939.
She never saw the portrait, and later called Gisele a "devil woman."

After the war, Gisele worked as a free-lancer for Magnum Photos. Legendary photo-journalist Robert  "if your photographs aren't good enough you're not close enough" Capa, who had co-founded Magnum, told her "If you want to make money, give up your job as a reporter. It will earn you a good living, but you'll never get rich." 

During the 1970s, Gisele Freund toured Japan, the Near East, and the U.S., where, in 1977 K&S Laboratories in Chicago printed these great portraits, amongst the many dye-transfer photographs she took of writers and artists in pre-war Paris.

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FREUND, Gisele. Au pays des visages. Washington D.C.: [Harry H. Lunn Jr], 1977. One of thirty numbered copies of a total edition of thirty-six. Folio. Ten original dye transfer photographs, each signed by the artist in ink, and each loosely mounted (with hinged corners) on large rag mats. 

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Images courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd, currently offering this title, with our thanks.

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Women Who Read and Write Too Much

By Stephen J. Gertz

Look at that! Instead of milk she is pouring shoe polish
into my hot chocolate! Enough with that damned novel!

In 1844, French painter and caricaturist Honoré Daumier published Les Bas Bleus, a series of forty lithographs satirizing bluestockings, i.e. intellectual women. They turn traditional gender roles topsy-turvy and cramp a man's style.

Instead of doing the laundry they hang men out to dry. Sacrebleu!

Oh Agony!.... To have spent my maidenhood dreaming of a
husband who, like me, adored hallowed poetry, and to wind up
with a husband who only likes to bait dudgeons...
the man was born to be a pike!...

Of Les Bas Bleus Gordon Ray wrote, "the bluestockings of this series are almost all literary ladies, and Daumier's satire is directed as much against the literary character in general as its feminine manifestations. At the same time, his attitude towards his subjects is consistently severe, and the fact that he made all forty plates in eight months, whereas most of his longer series extended over several years, suggests that they were inspired by deep-seated and well-developed convictions...

Goodbye Flora, my dear... don't forget to send two copies
of your frothy little pieces to the newspaper office...
and I shall whip them up in my article.

"Advocates of women's rights have as little reason to be grateful to Daumier for Les bas bleus as Jews have to be grateful to Forain for Psst...! [1898-99]... Nevertheless, the album contains some masterly designs" (The Art of the French Illustrated Book, pp 241-242).

- A woman like me... sew on a button?.... you must be out of your mind!
- So be it!... It's not enough that she is wearing my breeches...
she has to throw them on my head!!

In other words, despite its gentle humor and artful compositions Les Bas Bleus by Daumier is staunchly anti-feminist. Though they never signed it literary ladies upset the social contract. Womens rights is a zero-sum game; when women gain, men lose. Vive le difference, death to equality.

May I come in my dear, or are you still collaborating with Monsieur?

Daumier was not inclined to depict women as traditionally beautiful creatures to begin with; his eyes were jaundiced. Comparing Daumier with his contemporary, Gavarni, Ray continued:

Ever since Virginie obtained the seventh honorable mention
for poetry at the Académie Française, I, a captain of the
National Guard, am supposed to count the sheets for the laundry
every Saturday. If I don't do it , my wife will wash my head...

"If Daumier could not draw a pretty woman, as is sometimes alleged, Gavarni at this period could hardly draw an ugly one" (The Art of the French Illustrated Book, pp 220-221).

- The artist captured me as I was writing my melancholic book
entitled "Sorrows of my soul." The eyes came out quite well but
the nose is not sorrowful enough!...
- (Man, sotto voce) - No... it is just in a sorry state...

If Daumier can be blamed for this pointed visual social satire, his publisher, Charles Philipon, may be responsible for each plate's verbal sally. Daumier had collaborated with Philipon when creating political satire for Philipon's notorious La Caricature, Philipon often suggesting the subject/theme and writing the caption.

- Devilish brat! Why don't you let me compose in peace
my ode on the happiness of maternity!
- All right, all right...... he is going to be quiet.....
I am going to give him a good whipping in the other room.
(aside): from looking at what my wife is writing in her work,
it is she who makes the most noise of all.

When, after La Caricature shuttered, Philipon established Le Charivari, Daumier joined him in this journal of social satire, whence Les Bas Bleus originally appeared as a serial. Their previous collaborative formula may have continued: Philipon writing the jokes, Daumier visualizing them.

(Collaborations between caricaturists and publishers were not unusual at all. Twenty-five years before Les Bas Bleus was published British caricaturist George Cruikshank and publisher-bookseller William Hone often collaborated on political satires. Publishers had their eye on current social and political events, chose topical subjects that they thought would appeal to the public, and called upon an artist to realize the caricature).

Hell and damnation! hissed!... whistled!... booed!

It would be interesting to know what Marie-Françoise Aubert, wife of printing house Chez Aubert proprietor Gabriel Aubert, and sister of Charles Philipon (who set the couple up in business in order to handle the printing of his magazines and lithographs), thought of Daumier's (and her brother's) attitude about women. Hers was the brain that managed Chez Aubert to prosperity. Perhaps successful business women were accorded respect that bluestockings, with their heads in the air within books, were denied.

This is an extremely rare book. OCLC records on one copy of Les Bas Bleus in institutional holdings worldwide, not, incredibly, at the BNF, but, rather, at the Morgan Library, and it has never been at auction since ABPC began recording results in 1923. 

As for the ladies of France taking on literary airs blame it on Georges Sand, a baleful influence on contemporary womanhood and generations of women to come. Next thing you know, they'll be a female Secretary of State of the U.S.A. French fries? Non! Freedom fries? Non, non!! Fuggetaboutit fries? Oui!

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DAUMIER, Honoré.  Les Bas Bleus. Paris: Chez Aubert, 1844.

First edition. Tall quarto (13 1/2 x 10 3/8 in; 341 x 262 mm). Forty hand-colored lithographed plates.  Lith. by Imp. Aubert.

Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 169. Daumier Register 1221 - 1260.
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Caption translations from the French by The Daumier Register.

The Daumier Register needs your help.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Of related interest:

Scarce Daumier Childrens Books at Daumier Register.

Tonight On "The Bachelor": Daumier's Single Man.

A Rare Suite of Pre-Political Lithographs By Charles Philipon Surfaces.
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