Susanne Schulz-Falster Catalogue Ten - Schulz-Falster Rare Books

213 MILL, John Stuart. The Subjection of Women ... Second
edition. London, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869. £120
8vo, pp. [iv], 188; original ochre cloth, blind stamped and lettered in
gilt on spine, corners and head and tail of spine slightly bumped;
ownership inscription in ink on half title; a good copy.
Second edition, published the same year as the Wrst. The Subjection of Women
was written in 1861, shortly after the death of Mill’s wife, but not published
for another eight years. The inXuence of his wife upon it was great, and
Mill, who idealized her, wrote in his Autobiography: ‘all that is most striking
and profound [in The Subjection] belongs to my wife’ – it has in fact
been argued that the book was basically written by her.
Mirabeau’s Library
214 MIRABEAU, Honoré Gabriel Riquetti de. Catalogue des
Livres de la Bibliothèque de feu M. Mirabeau l’Ainé, don’t la vente
se fera en l’une des salles de l’hôtel de Bullion, rue de J. J. Rousseau,
le Lundi 9 Janvier 1792 et jours suivans, à quatre heures de relevée.
Paris, Rozet Libraire ... Belin junior... 1791.
[bound with:] Mémoire du Comte de Mirabeau, supprimé
au Moment meme de sa Publication par ordre particulier de
Monsieur le Garde-des-Sceaux, [n.p.], 1784. £1200
Two works in one volume, 8vo, pp. [iv], xxvi, 440, i.e. 434, [1];
pagination irregular, but complete (pp. 41 to 49 omitted), bound
without the price list which is sometimes found bound in; [iv], xx, 180;
contemporary half green crushed morocco, Xat spine ruled in gilt, two
gilt-lettered spine labels; a very good copy.
First edition of both works. Mirabeau’s library catalogue is here bound together
with his Memoire, which documents his acrimonious separation and
later divorce, highly controversial at the time and the cause for an extended
legal debate.
Mirabeau (1749–1791), son of the great economist, was one of the central
Wgures of the French Revolution, a great speaker and even more inXuential
politician. When his father’s library went up for sale in 1789, he decided to
begin collecting books, and with great determination embarked on forming
a collection which was meant to be a documentation of the history of printing.
The library of BuVon, the famous naturalist, he bought en bloc, thus
providing a strong representation of books on natural history, science, medicine
and biology. The auction catalogue presents the titles within subject
categories, and economics and political economy is well represented, including
titles by LeTrosne, Adam Smith, Cantillon, and Savary. This copy is
bound as originally issued, without the separately issued author index and the
price list, both of which were published later and are rarely present.
I. Blogie II, co. 18; Krieg, Bibliotheca Bibliographica, 410; Taylor, Book Catalogues,
pp. 145–146; II. Cioranescu 45202.
French ‘Departements’
susanne schulz-falster rare books catalogue ten
215 MIRABEAU, Honoré Grabriel Riquetti de. Plan de Division
du Royaume, et Réglement pour son Organisation. Imprimé par
ordre de l’Assemblée Nationale. Paris, Baudouin, 1789. £300
8vo, pp. [ii], 26; paper a little spotted and browned; uncut and mostly
unopened; recent boards.
First edition of a proposal by Mirabeau relating to the reorganisation of the
administrative system of France. French administration was to be rationalized
and a strict division into eighty-one departments of equal size, subdivided
in communes and cantons was proposed. Mirabeau accused the
drafting committee of excessive ‘geometrism’ and argued instead that a
more sensible unit would be population rather than simple geographical
extent. He suggested the formation of 120 departments. Eventually a compromise
was reached, France was divided into eighty-three departments, of
roughly equal population size. This reorganisation has remained in place
with only small modiWcations to the present day. It abolished the old provincial
distinctions, and clearly put an end to the Ancien Regime.
Berkeley, dated in Bib Nat. 3.XI.1789.
Freedom of the Press
216 MIRABEAU, Honoré Gabriel Riquetti de. Sur la Liberté de la
Presse, imité de l’Anglois, de Milton. Londres, 1788. £450
8vo, pp. 66; entirely uncut in the original wrappers; corners frayed, and
edges a little dust-soiled; faint damp-stain lower corner of Wrst two
leaves.
First edition of Mirabeau’s pamphlet on the freedom of the press, based on
and in the tradition of Milton’s Areopagitica: A speech for the liberty of
unlicens’d printing. Published on the eve of the French Revolution, this
pamphlet came at the height of a campaign for greater freedom of the press
sparked oV by Malesherbes, the former directeur de la librairie who did
much to soften censorship of books.
Cioranescu 45152; see R. Darnton & D. Roche, Revolution in Print, the Press in
France 1775–1800, 1989, pp. 50–66.
The Role of Women in Wartime
217 MORARDO, Gasparo. Quali esser Debbano le Donne in
Tempo di Guerra. Torino, Michelangelo Morano, 1794. £450
8vo, pp. 62, [2] advertisement; title vignette; paper a little browned and
spotted; contemporary buV stiV wrappers; shelf label to upper wrapper;
a Wne copy.
First and only edition of a curious publication outlining the role of women
in wartime. Morardo, a noted political Wgure, maintains that in wartime