[Rarebooks] fa: THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN - INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with some other 19th-century British literature,  
auctions ending Sunday, Feb. 7. Details and images can be found at the  
URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340
OR
http://tinyurl.com/yhk74ma

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A., CA USA


Charlotte Smith: Rural Walks: In Dialogues. Intended for the Use of  
Young Persons. London: T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1800. Fourth  
edition. Vol. II only (of two). PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED on the  
front free-endpaper: "From Lady Eleanor Butler & Miss Ponsonby to T.  
B. Parker / J. Parker / M. Parker / L. S.[?] Parker."

THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN: Lady Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and the  
Honorable Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1832) scandalized and fascinated the  
late-Georgian world by "eloping" from their upper-class Irish families  
to set up house together. In 1780 they settled in the Welsh village of  
Llangollen, where they lived inseparably in "delicious Retirement" for  
nearly fifty years, sharing bed, books, correspondence, and long  
walks. They were regarded with something like horror by proper society  
and with something like awe by many of the leading figures of the  
time. Their cottage, Plas Newydd, received visits —often more like  
pilgrimages — from the likes of Edmund Burke, Lady Caroline Lamb (a  
distant cousin of Sarah Ponsonby's), Josiah Wedgwood, Stéphanie de  
Genlis, the Duke of Wellington, Anna Seward (who wrote "Llangollen  
Vale" on her visit) and William Wordsworth (ditto his "Sonnet Composed  
at Plas Newydd"). Lord Byron, too, admired them: in a letter in 1807,  
he invoked their constancy to characterize — inaccurately, as it  
turned out — his enduring love for the Cambridge choirboy John  
Edleston: "We shall put Lady E. Butler, & Miss Ponsonby to the  
Blush...", and he later sent them an inscribed copy of The Corsair.  
Famous in their own time and almost legendary since, the Ladies have  
been hailed as pioneering feminists and lesbians by later generations  
(though the nature of their physical relationship has never clearly  
been established), and their names have become synonymous with the  
ideal of "romantic friendship."
THE PARKERS: It seems clear that the Parkers to whom the book was  
presented were the children of Thomas Netherton Parker and Sarah  
Parker of Sweeney Hall, Oswestry, Shropshire, just 12 miles distant  
from Llangollen. The Parkers were friends, visitors and correspondents  
of the Ladies for many years. Thomas Netherton Parker (1772-1848),  
Oxonian, magistrate, "gentlemen writer" and later mayor of Oswestry,  
helped design the monument to the Ladies and Mary Caryll, their long- 
time servant and friend, in St Collen’s churchyard. His wife Sarah (d.  
1833) corresponded regularly with the Ladies (see the National  
Archives catalogue of the holdings in the Denbighshire Record Office,  
Llangollen Museum Mss.), exchanging books, sending them her daughter  
Mary's watercolors, etc. It was to Sarah Parker that Ponsonby boasted  
of receiving the inscribed Corsair from Byron mentioned earlier: "May  
we not be proud?"

 From a separate volume, obtained from the same source and with an  
inscription identical to this one except that it is dated, we know  
that this book was presented "about 1810 or 1812," at which date the  
Parker children would have been just the right ages to be given a work  
"intended for the use of young persons." The first name in the  
inscription, "T.B. Parker," is, we believe, Thomas Browne Parker, the  
eldest son of Thomas and Sarah (née Browne), who died in 1833, aged  
36. Second on the list ("J.") is John, the future Rev. John Parker  
(1798-1860), vicar of Llanyblodwel, dean of Llangollen, and amateur  
botanist, architect and artist, with over a thousand drawings in the  
National Library of Wales. We're unable to identify the fourth and  
presumably youngest child on the list ("L.S."?), but the third name,  
"M. Parker", is particularly noteworthy.

This is MARY PARKER, the future Lady Leighton, Thomas and Sarah's  
third child and eldest daughter, who would have been 11-13 years old  
at the time of the book's presentation. Judging by the number of  
references to her in books about the Ladies, as well as in the Ladies'  
own correspondence, young Mary was a recurring and significant  
presence in their lives. There is in fact a book dedicated entirely to  
their relationship (Megan Ellis: Mary Parker (Lady Leighton) and the  
Ladies of Llangollen, 1948). Mary was a gifted amateur artist all her  
life; she made numerous sketches and watercolors of the cottage and  
garden at Plas Newydd and, as we have seen, her mother shared these  
early works with the Ladies. Most importantly, she produced what is  
believed to be the only portrait of the Ladies made while they were  
alive — executing it, apparently clandestinely, ca. 1825 (see image  
below).

It's uncertain (to us, at least) whether the inscription was written  
by one of the Ladies or by one of the Parkers (the children's mother  
Sarah, perhaps?), but in any case: a scarce presentation copy from  
this reclusive couple, and one with a remarkable and evocative  
association.