Item #19903 The Excellency of the Female Character Vindicated; Being an Investigation Relative to the Cause and Effects of the Encroachment of Men upon the Rights of Women, and the Too Fequent Degradation and Consequent Misfortunes of the Fair Sex. Printed from the Second Edition. By the Author of the “Beauties of Philanthropy.”. Thomas Branagan.
The Excellency of the Female Character Vindicated; Being an Investigation Relative to the Cause and Effects of the Encroachment of Men upon the Rights of Women, and the Too Fequent Degradation and Consequent Misfortunes of the Fair Sex. Printed from the Second Edition. By the Author of the “Beauties of Philanthropy.”

The Excellency of the Female Character Vindicated; Being an Investigation Relative to the Cause and Effects of the Encroachment of Men upon the Rights of Women, and the Too Fequent Degradation and Consequent Misfortunes of the Fair Sex. Printed from the Second Edition. By the Author of the “Beauties of Philanthropy.”

Harrisburg [Penna.]: Printed by Francis Wyeth, 1828. Stated third edition. Original calf spine, marbled boards, 6.75 x 4.25 inches, 280 [i.e. 279] pages. Spine rather dried, somewhat rubbed and cracked; some light rubbing to the edges of the boards; a bit toned; a very good copy. Item #19903

With the half-title reading, “Printed for the Subscribers. Third Improved Edition.” The Irish-born slaver-turned-abolitionist here gathers a series of miscellaneous essays and verses on the status of women; he includes a short chapter on the perils of fiction, though he offsets this somewhat with a three page collection of biographical sketches of “Contemporary Female Genius,” 24 authors ranging from Barbauld to Burney, with a note as well of Miss Herschell [sic]—though on first glance, Branagan does not seem to have found any speciments of American female literary genius. First published in New York in 1807 and Philadelphia in 1808; the reasons for the optimism to publish at this much later date this subscription edition remain (to this cataloger at least) unclear, though may have something to do with lapse of copyright; this would have been an early production from the press of Francis Wyeth (1806-1893), published shortly after he had graduated from Jefferson College and taken over the press from his father, John Wyeth. (See the online Pennsylvania history website of historian Norman Gasbarro, which cites Wyeth’s obituary.) American Imprints 32462.

Price: $250.00

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