I am fairly sure that the Poems of Katherine Philips was the first 17th century book by an English Woman , I bought back some 30 years ago, and since then I have always been taken by her as a Person, Author, Poetess and Cultural force. I have read most all of her published work, Poems and Letters, and continue to each time anew find more to ponder. I hope that those of you who are not familiar with explore her works and life.
Today I offer along with a second (non false) edition of Katherine Philips poems. Five other books on sex, behavior, gender in English from the early modern period.
741J Katherine Philips (1631-1664)
Poems By the most deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda. To which is added Monsieur Corneilles Pompey & Horace, Tragedies. With several other Translations out of French.
London: Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman at the Sign of the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1669 $4,500. ON HOLD
Folio 28 x 17 cm. Signatures: π2, A4, a-Z4, Aa-Tt4, Uu2. Third edition overall, Second Authorized edition. Two leaves with very small holes, The portrait of Katherine Philips is bound opposite the title. This copy is bound in contemporary full calf respectfully rebacked. There are three leaves preceding the text which contain 18th century notes of bibliographic as well as biographic interest to the reader of Philips. These notes are certainly by an astute scholar who compares editions, located quotations in other works and other interesting tidbits gleaned from the text , such as ”Lucasta is Mrs Anne Owen”, and mentions other Authors and Friends of the Society, Francis Finch et al.
“The daughter of a London merchant, Katherine Fowler [her maiden name] was probably the first English woman poet to have her work published. She married a gentleman of substance from Cardigan, James Philips, and seems to have moved effortlessly into the literary circle adorned by Vaughan, Cowley, and Jeremy Taylor. She was best known by her pseudonym ‘Orinda’ and the name appears on the collection of her Letters, which give a useful picture of the early seventeenth-century literary world. Her translation of Corneille’s ‘Pompee’ was performed in Dublin in 1663 and a collection of her verses was published posthumously in 1664.” (Stapleton)
Mrs. Philips’ poems were circulated in manuscript, and secured for her a considerable reputation. The surreptitious quarto edition produced in 1664 caused her much annoyance, and Marriott, the publisher, was obliged to withdraw it from sale, and publicly to express his regret for having issued it. Some trouble was taken, it would appear, to destroy the copies, which would account for its rarity. In the preface of the 1667 edition, reference is made to the ‘false edition,’ and a long letter from the author in relation to it is quoted.
P.W. Souers, in his critical biography of Katherine Philips, asserts for her the right to be historically the first English poetess—“In her, for the first time in the history of English letters, a woman was received into the select company of poets.” Jeremy Taylor dedicated to her his “Discourse on the Nature, Offices, and Measures of Friendship;” Abraham Cowley, Henry Vaughan the Silurist, Thomas Flatman, the Earl of Roscommon, and the Earl of Cork and Orrery all celebrated her talent, and Dryden could pay no higher compliment to Anne Killigrew than to compare her to Orinda. Keats, in a letter to Reynolds in 1817, quotes her verses with approval.
Wing P-2034; ESTC (RLIN),; R020915
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1. 415J #779 . Anon.), Robert Waring, 1614-1658. Translated by John Noris.
Effigies amoris in English: or the picture of love unveil’d.
Oxford: London : Printed for James Good in Oxford, and sold by J. Nut [i.e. Nutt, London], 1701. Price: $950
Duodecimo; A-E12, F11 (A1, half title lacking ) Bound in modern full calf. Some wonderful quotes for this book:
The Answer of R. W. to his Friend, importunately desiring to know what LOVE might be?
I Acknowledge the wanton Ty∣ranny of imperious Love, that is always requiring the most diffi∣cult Trials of the Affections. Now though it be a kinde of an Hercu∣lean Labour it self to Love, considering those severe duties, those toyls, and hazards appendant to it; as if Cruelty were its sole delight: Nevertheless we believe it reasonable, what names so∣ever we have given to Love, that he should exercise his Soveraignty, which is certainly very great and puissant; and by the Severity of his Commands, that he should augment the glory of his high Rule, and our obedient Sub∣mission.
“However, this is the supreme Office of Reason, to make a right choice of Disposition and Conditions; to choose a Companion with whom we are sure to live with more delight than with our selves; whose judgment we may be sure to follow as our own: or else to stay till we can finde a proper Ob∣ject of Love. Then also so to love, like one who is guided by Judgment, not carried away by Passion; like one so far from ceasing, that he is always beginning to Love. This is to joyn Patience with Constancy. This is to receive the Idea more fairly imprinted in the Minde, than in Wax, and to preserve more stedfastly. ‘Tis the Of∣fice of Vertue, to determine upon one measure of wishing; to covet a dispo∣sition and inclination like his own, through all the changes of Fortune; and so to make two of one, that they may act the same person.”
The “Amoris Effigies (anon.), London, 1649, 1664, 1668, 1671. In 1680 appeared a loose English translation, by a Robert Nightingale, which deviated in many points from the Latin original. John Norris, under the pseudonym Phil-iconerus, published a fresh translation, London, 1682; 2nd edit., 1701; In his introduction, Norris wrote of Waring’s “sweetness of fancy, neatness of style, and lusciousness of hidden sense”.
Waring also wrote Latin verses, including in Jonsonus Virbius [playwright Ben Jonson.](1639), reprinted in the 1668 and subsequent editions of the Amoris Effigies, under the title of Carmen Lapidorium.” (DNB).
ESTC N1243
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The true amazons: or, the monarchy of bees
2. 542J. Joseph Warder active 1688-1718.
The true amazons: or, the monarchy of bees. Being a new discovery and improvement of those wonderful creatures. Wherein is experimentally demonstrated, I. That they are all govern’d by a queen. II. The amazing beauty and dignity of her person. III. Her extraordinary authority and power. IV. Their exceeding loyalty and unparallel’d love to their queen. V. Their sex, male and female. VI. The manners of their breeding. VII. Their wars. VIII. Their enemies with directions plain and easy how to manage them, both in straw-hives and transparent boxes; so that with laying out but four or five pounds, in three or four years, if the summers are kind, you may get thirty or forty pounds per annum. Also how to make the English wine or mead, equal if not Superior to the best of other wines.
London : Printed for John Pemberton, at the Buck and Sun over-against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet-street, and William Taylor at the Ship in Pater-noster-row, 1716 . Price $ 1,000
Octavo 18 ½ x 11 ½ cm. signatures: A-H8, I4
The third edition with additions. Engraved portrait of Warder Bound in Contemporary calf, with raised bands, boards with gilt-ruled border, rebacked with gilt-ruled spine. Red sprinkled edges. Occasional minor spotting. Traces of cautiously repaired worming on portrait and first two preliminary leaves. Contemporary correction on p. 44 where the printed king has been replaced by queen. Inscription on rear board ‘William Tvy His book at Bagshot 1717.’
Without a doubt the concept Warder takes is from Butler’s Female Monarchy . The work, which was considerably in advance of any former treatise and contained many curious particulars concerning the habits of bees as well as practical instructions for their management, went through nine editions, the last of which appeared in 1765 (London, 8vo). It remained the standard work on the subject until it was superseded by John Thorley’s ‘Mελισσηλογία, or the Female Monarchy’ (London, 1744, 8vo). A portrait of Warder, engraved by Henry Hulsberg, was prefixed to his book on bees.
[Warder’s True Amazons; Noble’s Continuation of Granger’s Biogr. Hist. ii. 313; Mills’s Full Answer to Mr. Pellonière’s reply to Dr. Snape, 1718; A Vindication of Joseph Warder and Charles Bowen from Mr. Mills’s Calumnies, 1718. These two pamphlets, which contain some personal particulars, were the products of a petty local squabble in which Warder was involved.
English Short Title Catalog,; ESTCT51789
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3. 331j. Theolophilus Polwheile,
Aὐθέντης, Authentēs. Or A treatise of self-deniall. Wherein the necessity and excellency of it is demonstrated; with several directions for the practice of it. By Theophilus Polwheile, M.A. sometimes of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, now teacher of the Church at Teverton in Devon
London: :printed for Thomas Johnson, and are to be sold by Richard Scott book-seller in Carlisle, 1658. Price: $1,100.
First Edition ¶. bound in mid 19th century brown calf, (48) 424 (46) pp. including 8 pp. publisher’s catalog, errata leaf at end, text clean, bright, collated complete, ownership signature of a B. Fuller in an old hand on bottom of title page, probably not that of Bishop William Fuller, but perhaps. Wing (2nd ed.),
Wing P2782; Thomason; E.1733[1]. .NO US Copy.
In 1651 Polweile took the degree of M.A. He was preacher at Carlisle until about 1655 (Dedication to Treatise on Self-deniall). In 1654 he was a member of the committee for ejecting scandalous ministers in the four northern counties of Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland, and Westmoreland. From that year until 1660, when he was driven from the living, he held the rectory of the portions of Clare and Tidcombe at Tiverton. The statement of the Rev. John Walker, in ‘The Sufferings of the Clergy,’ that he allowed the parsonage-house to fall into ruins, is confuted in Calamy’s ‘Continuation of Baxter’s Life and Times’ (i. 260–1). Polwhele sympathised with the religious views of the independents, and after the Restoration he was often in trouble for his religious opinions. After the declaration of James II the Steps meeting-house was built at Tiverton for the members of the independent body; he was appointed its first minister, and, on account of his age, Samuel Bartlett was appointed his assistant. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter, Tiverton, on 3 April 1689. His wife was a daughter of the Rev. William Benn of Dorchester. Their daughter married the Rev. Stephen Lobb
¶ Polwheile was a minister based mainly in Tiverton; the year after this was published, in the Restoration of 1660, he was ejected from his ministerial position for his religious views and for his sympathies with the Independents, who advocated for local control and for a certain freedom of religion for those who were not Catholic; because of this, he was often in trouble until the Declaration of Indulgence by James II in 1687, establishing freedom of religion in England (James II being Catholic). Polwheile died in 1689. Very Good.
(DNB).
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4. 480J. Judith Drake. (Mary Astell or Judith Drake (fl 1696 d. 1723)
An essay in defence of the female sex. In which are inserted the characters of a pedant, a squire, a beau, a vertuoso, a poetaster, a city-critick, &c. In a letter to a lady. Written by a lady.
London : printed for A. Roper and E. Wilkinson at the Black Boy, and R. Clavel at the Peacock, in Fleetstreet, 1696. Price: $1,800
Octavo (16 x 9 ½ cm) Signatures: A8, B4, B-K8, L4 (Lacking the engraved frontispiece, “The Compleat Beau”)
Bound in Contemporary blind stamped calf, rebacked. The contents generally clean, Lacking the engraved frontispiece of “The Compleat Beau”. Second edition, published the same year as the first, of “one of the greatest works of early modern ‘feminism’” (Smith, p. 727).
The words “a pedant, .. beau,” and “A vertuoso, .. &c.” are bracketed together on title page. Quire L is two settings: last line of text on p. 148 is 1) “the mean Performance of” or 2) “mean Performance of”.
Wing A4058. NOW Wing (CD-ROM, 1996), D2125A
Published anonymously and previously attributed to Mary Astell or Jane Barker, the essay is now generally credited as the work of author and physician Judith Drake (c.1670-1723), active as part of an intellectual circle who included Astell and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
“In 1696, An Essay in Defense of the Female Sex was published in London, “written by a Lady.” For a long time, this work was attributed to Mary Astell, an English pro-woman writer, known for her work A Serious Proposal to the Ladies published two years earlier. In recent years, however, the authorship has been attributed to Judith Drake, and English intellectual from the same circle as Astell. She was married to the physician and political pamphleteer James Drake, who wrote a poem dedicated to the author, which appeared in the second edition of the book. Another piece of evidence of Drake’s authorship is in the description of the book that appears in a catalog of books sold after 1741 by the publisher Edmund Curll, in which it was noted that it was written by “‘Mrs. Drake, probably a sister of Dr. James Drake, who attended to the publication of the pamphlet’” (quoted in Hill 877). Her husband was James Drake, fellow of the Royal Society, physician and writer on medicine and politics; his name is given to the laudatory verses which introduce this work. Judith completed, edited, and published her posthumous medical opus Anthropologia Nova in 1707.
The essay is now considered “one of the most significant English contributions to the beginning of the modern debate concerning women” (Smith, p. 727) .
Written in the form of a letter to a friend, “the tract vigorously and witfully defended feminine intellectual ability and character. Drake drew on John Locke’s essay on human understanding to construct a rationalist framework on which to argue that these were customs and language. which spawned the belief that women were intellectually inferior to men. Drake then rejected the cult of the elders and, in their stead, defended the value of learning ‘Modern’ and the value of information education for women Drake welded rationalist epistemology to ‘feminist’ The argument was particularly original in the context of early modern writings in favor of women. For, despite the proliferation of these works at the end of the 17th century, only two “feminist” texts had previously used such a methodology as a basis for their discussion, and only one had been English. was The Woman as Good as the Man (1677), a translation of the Cartesian analysis of François Poulain de la Barre on the cultural construction of gender, On the equality of the two sexes (1673). Two decades later, another Cartesian-inspired treatise joined the debate. This was a serious proposition from Mary Astell to the ladies (1694 and 1697), who advocated the establishment of places of “religious retreat” which would allow women to withdraw from the world to practice contemplation “(Smith, pp. 728- 29). See Hannah Smith, “English“ Feminist ”Writings and“ An Essay in Defense of the Female Sex ”by Judith Drake (1696),” The Historical Journal, vol. 44, no. 3, 2001, p. 727-47.
Wing (CD-ROM, 1996),; D2125A; Arber’s Term cat.,; II 580
V
5. 136J. Jean Frederic Ostervald (1663-1747)
The nature of uncleanness consider’d: wherein is discoursed of the causes and consequences of this sin, and the duties of such as are under the guilt of it. To which is added, a discourse concerning the nature of chastity, and the means of obtaining it. By J. F. Ostervald, minister of the church of Neuschâtel, author of A treatise of the causes of the present corruption of christians, a catechism,&c
London: printed for Printed for R. Bonwicke, W. Freeman, Tim : Goodwin, J. Walthoe, M. Wotton, S. Manship, J. Nicholson, B. Took, R. Parker, and R. Smith . (1708) Price: $1,100
Octavo 19 x 12.5cm [4],xxxiv,[10],280p. First and only edition Early calf binding, hansomly tooled spine . This is a very interesting of diatribe on “clealness’ and it’s opposite.
Ostervald “His writings had a great influence, bearing spiritual renewal among Waldensian, Dutch, German, Hungarian and Scandinavian Protestants. Moreover, the English Royal Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts – of which he was a member – brought his teachings to the countries of the Middle East, India, Canada and the West-Indian Islands. His highly influential oeuvre was later called “the second Reformation”.1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 20
“Yet never was more need of Discourses of this nature than now, when Wickedness appears bare-fac’d, and too many are neither afraid nor ashamed to glory in it; as if it were a piece of Bravery, or a Jesting Matter, to bid Defiance to the Almighty, and daringly provoke him to his Face. When People come to this height of Impiety, it is high time to warn them of their exceilive Folly and Danger, and to intreat and befeech them to bethink themlelves in time, left the Wrath of God break forth upon them, and there be no efcaping. This is a dreadful Case, and may justly be expected to bring down heavy Judgments upon a People, where these Iniquities prevail, to make their Land mourn, and the Inhabitants thereof languid, or possibly, as it fared with God’s own chosen People the Jews, to let them be no more a Nation. Were they only the common and more ordinary Sins of this kind, such as Adultery. Fornication, &c. that we have caufe to complain of, thefe would miferably expofe us to the terrible Indignation of the Almighty, and the dire Effects of it. But to our Sorrow and Shame it must be confess’d, that yet more grievous Abominations are found amongst us, such as our Country had only heard of in former Ages, but which make too fad a noise in this, to the Terror and Ailonishment of all the Faithful in the Land.”
ESTC T86652 (two copies west of the Mississippi.)
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