The Ladies Monitor, A Poem
Bellow Falls, Vermont: Bill Blake & Co., 1818. Item #554 8vo. 180 x 115 mm. (7 1/4 x 4 1/2 inches). 180 pp. Contemporary calf binding with red leather spine label. Rubbing to edges and cover. Half of front flyleaf is missing and rear attached endpaper is partially loose. Some light foxing, otherwise a very good copy. Fessenden (1771 -1837) was a poet, inventor and lawyer from New Hampshire. Considered an authentic American voice, his contemporary Nathaniel Hawthorne once praised his work as a “truly Yankee effusion.” This book, written in the form of a conversation between a young maiden, Narcissa, and an unnamed older male mentor. The conversation serves to warn young women from being fascinated by fashion and looks when picking a mate and to not disregard the charms of a “provincial suitor” (Kelly). Shaw, American Bibliography 44034. McCorison, Vermont Imprints, 2015. Kelly, Catherine E. In the New England Fashion: Reshaping Women's Lives in the Nineteenth Century, Cornell University Press, 2018, p. 134.
Price: $200.00