Key Collecting Areas: Collecting Thoreau

48.  Margaret Fuller.  Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition and Duties, of Woman, ed. Arthur B. Fuller.  “Third Thousand” (Boston, John P. Jewett; Cleveland, Ohio; Jewett Proctor & Worthington; New York, Sheldon, Lamport, 1855).

Women in the 19th century

Women in the 19th century
Innscription

Inscribed by Daniel Ricketson to Cynthia Thoreau.  Joel Myerson Collection of Nineteenth-Century American Literature, University of South Carolina.

After the success of Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Fuller’s brother Arthur began to edit collections of her writings.  In this one, he presented a text of Woman that he “corrected” to remove what he considered grammatical and stylistic infelicities.  This was the first truly rare book scholar-collector Joel Myerson bought, a work inscribed by one of Thoreau’s closest friends to his mother and, thus, undoubtedly a volume to which he had personal access.  Myerson tells the story of its purchase: “When in 1972 I saw it in a catalogue for $75, I called and bought it for the university library but, after a few minutes, asked myself ‘Are you crazy?,’ and even though I didn’t have the money, called back and had them send it to me personally.  This purchase is an example of why for years I joked that if I ever had my bookplate printed, it would be in the shape of a Visa card.”

 

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