Olympia-2015

MANUSCRIPT LETTER ON THE AMERICAN PRISON SYSTEMSWITH THE FIRST FRENCH EDITION OF FRY’S SKETCH44. [FRY, Elizabeth, née Gurney]. [Autograph manuscript letter addressed toElizabeth Fry regarding prison reform]. Hampstead, April 2 nd , 1839.[with:]FRY, Elizabeth, née Gurney. Esquisse de l’origine et des résultats des Associationsde femmes pour la réforme des prisons en Angleterre, suivie de quelques conseilspour l’organisation des associations locales. Paris, Librairie d’education de Didier,1838.Manuscript on paper, folio, pp. [ii]; written in French in brown ink in a neatnineteenth-century hand, 46 lines in total, folded twice, completely legible and ingood condition; tipped inside the book: large 8vo, pp. [iv], 331, [1 blank]; with 2engraved plates with architectural plans for female sections of prisons and onetypographic folding chart; occasional faint foxing, a couple of contemporary inkmarks in the margins in the second part, but a very good copy, uncut in theoriginal publisher’s printed wrappers, spine ends a little worn, one or two spots.£1500Manuscript letter discussing the Auburn and Pennsylvania prison systemssent to Elizabeth Fry by an unnamed but intimate correspondent whoaddresses her a ‘ma chère soeur’. Elizabeth Gurney Fry was one of the mostremarkable philanthropists, campaigners and reformers of the nineteenth century.This document is a very early witness to the immediate reaction in England to the1839 report of the Boston Prison Discipline Society: a momentous event whichchanged the perception and acceptability of solitary confinement as a meansof retribution and reformation. Tipped inside a very good, uncut copy of the rarefirst French edition of the Sketch of the origin and results of ladies’ prisonassociations, first published in English in 1827; this French edition contains theimportant addition of an unpublished 1838 letter by Elizabeth Fry, and lengthyobservations by the translator.OCLC finds no copies in North America; COPAC lists a sole copy in the UK (BL).