Search Results: Authors starting with I from Whitmore Rare Books

London: J. Evans, 1795. Early edition. One of several iterations printed in broadside format between 1750 and 1800. Measuring 380 x 240mm printed to recto only. Trivial wear to edges; long closed tear between columns three and four with no loss to text. A lovely example of this scarce broadside, depicting a young woman rejected by her father on account of her sex, and the life she builds for herself within the patriarchal marriage economy. ESTC reports copies of this impression at four libraries; no copy of any edition has appeared at auction, and the present is the only example in trade. On the surface, The Wandering Young Gentlewoman is a fairytale of meritocracy. The second daughter of a gentleman, the protagonist is roundly and fully rejected by her family: "In twelve months time this woman we hear, Had another daughter of beauty most clear. And when he knew it was a female, In bitter passion he presently fell." Railing at his wife, the squire demands that this second child be cast off into the… Read More

New York: G.P. Putnam, 1864. Near Fine. Twenty-six small octavo volumes (6 5/16 x 4 inches; 160 x 102 mm). Bound ca. 1880 in three-quarter plum calf over marbled boards ruled in blind. Smooth spines with two slightly raised bands, elaborately lettered and decorated in gilt. Marbled edges and endpapers. Spines uniformly sunned. Previous owner's name written on several of the title pages. Engraved frontispieces, head-and-tailpieces. A Near Fine set overall. Washington Irving (1783-1859), American author, wit, and man of society. His highly successful burlesque, A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809), written under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, has been called "the first great book of comic literature written by an American" (The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature). His best-known book, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1820), contains sketches of English life, essays on American subjects, and two of the most famous… Read More