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ILAB Library - All You Need To Know About Rare Books and the Antiquarian Book Trade
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[+] More Collecting Rare Books and First Editions - The Female Marine and Her Sisters
Published since 23 Oct 2012Ann Thornton the female sailor and Sophia Johnson the friendless orphan are interesting in that their stories employ the same sequence of events that befell Elizabeth Emmons – personal tragedy, followed by cross dressing, followed by physical impairment. (Note Sophia Johnson's missing right arm.) Then there was Mary Lacy, “The Female Shipwright” who served four years at sea and seven years at Portsmouth Dock Yard in England, disguised as a man. Mary had a taste for young girls, and ascribed her troubles to a fondness for dancing with men - making for a delicious double reverse. However, the classic expression of this theme in American literature is the story of Louisa Baker, the Female Marine.
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[+] More Women Who Read and Write Too Much
Published since 19 Jul 2012In 1844, French painter and caricaturist Honoré Daumierpublished 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!
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[+] More These Days of Hatlessness - Emily Post's Etiquette
Published since 11 Jun 2012Should I cover my tattoos and piercings before a job interview? Should I throw a divorce party? These questions are considered in the 18th edition of Emily Post’s famous book on “Etiquette”, revised and updated by the author’s great-granddaughter. If you want to learn how to have a love affair or a cup of tea in high society during the 1920s, read the original edition, or Jack Lynch’s collecting tip! Jack Lynch ist English professor at Rutgers University in Newark and the author of “You Could Look It Up: The Reference Shelf from Babylon to Wikipedia”. In his blog “You Could Look It Up” he introduces (no: he presents) useful, classic, amazing, funny and extraordinary dictionaries of all possible subjects and from all centuries.
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[+] More Women in Revolutionary Debate. Female Novelists from Burney to Austen
Published since 20 Jan 2012Stephanie Russo is a lecturer at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research is focused on the 18th and 19th century novel. Her new book, published by Hes & de Graaf, is a very good read, and a highly important work for everyone who is interested in the history of ideas, culture and society, and, in particular, in the history of women who did not only embroider cushions while waiting in the parlour for Mister Darcy, but who took their opportunities to change their situation and to influence their society by means of literature.
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[+] More Amor vincit omnia - Women Travellers II
Published since 21 Sep 2011I would like to introduce this instalment on Women Travellers with a quote by noted explorer and chauvinist, Samuel Hearne: “Women were made for labour: one of them can carry or haul as much as two men do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night … they do everything, and are maintained at a trifling expense.” Not everyone will agree with the bit about trifling expense. But anyone who has ever made a trip with a female companion that involved more than getting into a train or onto a plane, knows what old Sam is on about. And so, without further ado, I introduce to you five stalwart ladies, who sometimes turned out to be even braver than (their) men.
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[+] More Amor vincit omnia - Women Travellers
Published since 30 Aug 2011Much has been written about travelling women, women travellers, willing or unwilling. Many great names spring to mind: Alexandra David-Neel, Ida Pfeiffer, Isabella Bird, or Emma Roberts to name but a few. We know a lot less about women who accompanied their husbands or lovers, or even met them during their peregrinations. Many of them were hardly mentioned in the books the men wrote. Others wrote their own version of what happened, and this is often the more interesting book, because it shows the world from an entirely different angle.
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[+] More Collecting Women Writers: Julia Peterkin, Ellen Glasgow, Margaret Ayer Barnes, Alice Walker
Published since 07 Jul 2011"Everyone knows Alice Walker's 1982 novel The Color Purple, but not everyone knows that the first issue jacket has only one address for the publisher on the rear flap – later issues have two." - "Peterkin's Pulitzer-winning novel Scarlet Sister Mary (1928) turns up occasionally, but there we have seen two variants of the jacket and haven't yet been able to determine whether one precedes or not." - "Spoken pompously, and with an air of experience: "Yes, my dear fellow, its the only copy we've ever seen (sotte voce: this week)." What is worth collecting or not among the works of Julia Peterkin, Alice Walker, Margaret Ayer Barnes and Ellen Glasgow.
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[+] More Rare Books in the Press: Good Girls, Bad Girls, and The Private Library
Published since 15 Apr 2011Plutonian beauties, women from outer space, female survivors in urban jungles, satanistic feminism or the teen-age mafia: a very special collecting tip by L.D. Mitchell: "Good Girls, Bad Girls, and The Private Library"
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[+] More Collecting Rare Books and First Editions: Essential Texts in Feminist Theory & Feminist Thought
Published since 08 Mar 2011A collecting tip for all who are interested in the history of society and culture: Marie C. Hansen has published a list of the most important works on feminist theory and feminist thought. From Mary Wollstonecraft to Virginia Woolf to Simone Beauvoir to "Mad Man". Some snippets:
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[+] More Christine de Pizan: A Fifteenth Century Champion of Women
Published since 16 Feb 2011"Many think of power in the Middle Ages as a male-dominated sphere. In many ways it was. History records that men held what was called the formal, direct exercise of public authority. They controlled the Church and the aristocracy, the two power centers in medieval culture." However, there were exceptions to the rule. Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos writes about a "women champion": Christine de Pizan.
