"NO ASPECT OF OUR TIME IS MORE SIGNIFICANT OF PROGRESS THAN THE EVER-GROWING DISCUSSION OF THE PLACE AND DUTIES OF WOMEN IN THE SOCIAL STATE": OUR FAMOUS WOMEN, 1884, FEATURING 20 STORIES, ESSAYS, AND ANECDOTES ABOUT ACCOMPLISHED WOMEN BY PROMINENT 19TH-CENTURY WOMEN WRITERS INCLUDING HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, JULIA WARD HOWE, AND ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

STOWE, Harriet Beecher, HOWE, Julia Ward, STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, et al. Our Famous Women. An Authorized Record of the Lives and Deeds of Distinguished American Women of Our Times. Hartford, Connecticut: A.D. Worthington, 1884. Thick octavo, original three-quarter dark purple morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, raised bands, all edges gilt. $2200.

Early edition of this collection of 30 profiles of famous women written by 20 famous female writers, wonderfully illustrated with dozens of illustrations and portraits, in original three-quarter morocco-gilt.

"Our Famous Women is the title which the publishers, with rather questionable taste, have given to an otherwise attractive and meritorious volume. It comprises 30 brief and well-executed biographical sketches as of many well-known American writers, artists, educators, philanthropists, etc., of the gentler sex, prepared by 20 of their country-women who belong to the sisterhood of literature, and it is illustrated with a number of excellent full-page portraits, engraved from photographs taken expressly for the work. The biographical sketches are earnest, discriminating and heartily sympathetic, and display, as women only can when womean is her subject, a subtle insight of those delicate but strong traits of female character which are woman's chiefest ornament" (contemporary review, Harper's). Women profiled include Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Margaret Fuller, Julia Ward Howe, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. First published the same year with a different subtitle: "Comprising the lives and deeds of American women who have distinguished themselves in literature, science, art."

Interior generally quite clean, inner hinges expertly reinforced, light wear mainly to extremities of binding. A near-fine copy.