Inscribed: “Elizabeth P. Peabody / from the author / March 1840.”  From the Peabody Books (part of the CFPL Vault Collection).  Gift of Elizabeth Peabody, 1878.

An inscription may reveal much about the history of a particular copy of a book, providing context and enhancing collectability.  The inscription in the volume here shown demonstrates that Elizabeth Peabody included volumes from her personal collection in her Foreign Library.  Her copy of George Ripley’s Letters on the Latest Form of Infidelity (a compilation of the heated exchange in print between Ripley and Andrews Norton, a conservative critic of Transcendentalism) was inscribed by Ripley for her in March of 1840, well before she opened the Foreign Library.

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