Teena Rochfort-Smith: A Memoir with Three Woodbury-Types of Her, One Each of Robert Browning and F.J. Furnivall and Memorial Lines by Mary Grace Walker by Rochfort-Smith, Mary Lilian; Teena Rochfort-Smith; Frederick James Furnivall; Robert Browning; Mary Grace Walker - 1884

London: Frederick James Furnivall, 1884. Hardcover. Third issue. Dark-blue silk-bound hardcover with debossed gilt title and cross to front and 5 ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS tipped-in. The book is complete but the spine is split, covers detached, and the signatures loose; the name "Cora F. Blodgett" is written on the first page. The memorial album for Mary Lilian "Teena" Rochfort-Smith (September 22, 1861 - September 4, 1883), a twenty-two-year-old who died when her dress caught fire while she was trying to burn some letters. The album was published by her mentor and "admirer" (some say, lover) Frederick James Furnivall, an English philologist who co-created the Oxford English Dictionary. She is remembered for her 1883 three-scene prototype of Shakespeare's play Hamlet, comparing the four versions known of his text. As one scholar noted: "the sample demonstrates that, once completed, Teena Rochfort Smith's edition would have been the most complex presentation of the texts of Hamlet ever attempted." This copy--one of 250 from the third printing--contains 16 leaves (32 pages) with three original woodburytype photographs of Rochfort-Smith tipped-in; one of Furnivall; and one of Robert Browning (Furnivall and Rochfort-Smith were members of the Browning Society, founded by Furnivall in 1881.) The first page reprints an article on Rochfort-Smith's life from the Birmingham Weekly Post, Feb. 16, 1884. Following the title page is a 11-page biography reprinted from the Cheltenham Ladies' College Magazine, Feb. 1884; the text of a resolution by Furnivall to the New Shakespeare Society, Oct. 12, 1883; an In Memorium poem by Mary Grace Walker, Dec. 9, 1883; and finally, tipped-in to the last page, is a reprint of a review of the first printing of the album, from the "The Critic and Good Literature," New York, Apr. 26, 1884. Printed by Clay and Taylor, Suffolk. BOOKS SHIP THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY, WRAPPED IN PADDING, IN A BOX.