THE TURNER'S COMPANION: Containing Instructions in Concentric, Elliptic, and Eccentric Turning; also Various Plates of Chucks, Tools, and Instruments; and Directions for Using the Eccentric Cutter, Drill, Vertical Cutter, and Circular Rest; with Patterns, and Instructions for Working Them by [Gascoigne, Mary Isabella Oliver] - 1851

Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1851. 12mo. 135 pages, including half-title, plus 14 plates, two of which are folding. 8-page publisher's catalog at rear. Original publisher's ribbed cloth with gilt cover title and embossed rules and decorations the covers; salmon-colored endpapers. 17.5 x 10.5 cm. Former Sondley Reference Library with a faint reminder of removed call number on the front cover, tasteful bookplate on the front pastedown, and embossed stamp on the title leaf and several of the plates. Else good. Small chips to spine ends, clean horizontal tear to spine and several splits to joint with neat internal repairs. Hinges are intact and the binding remains sound. Light foxing to the prelims and the plates with scattered traces elsewhere; very faint offsetting from the text to some of the plates. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. The work was originally published as the "Handbook of Turning" in London in 1842. The author was Mary Isabella Oliver Gascoigne (1810-1891) of Parlington Hall, Yorkshire. While revealing her gender by writing anonymously and by referring to herself in the masculine in the preface, she encourages women to pursue the craft. "Why should not our fair countrywomen participate in this amusement? . . . What occupation can be more interesting and elegant than ornamenting wood or ivory in delicate and intricate patterns, and imitating, with the aid of the lathe, the beautiful Chinese carving, so much and so justly admired? Besides, the taper fingers of the fair sex are far better suited than a man's heavier hand, to produce the requisite lightness and clearness of effect." --p. 13.