[Rarebooks] fa: LIFE OF THUANUS 1807 - ExLibris FRANCES CURRER, Pioneering Female Bibliophile

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending MONDAY, March 15. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/ybwplpcm

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


John Collinson: The Life of Thuanus, with Some Account of His Writings, and a Translation of the Preface to His History. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807. First edition; 8vo (21.5 cm) in early/period speckled calf, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; xx, 467, [9] pp. (index and errata bound in before the last leaf of the text); portrait frontispiece.

A life of Jacques Auguste de Thou, aka Thuanus (1553-1617), historian, diplomat, book collector and president of the Parlement de Paris in the time of Henry IV. Spine a bit rubbed, front hinge cracked but secure; offsetting (browning) from the frontispiece as usual, contents with intermittent toning and browning to the page-gatherings due to the widely varying qualities of paper used, else quite clean and sound.

Fittingly, for a biography of an eminent book collector, this copy is from the library of Frances Mary Richardson Currer, with her armorial bookplate on the front free-endpaper. Frances Currer (1785-1861), a wealthy heiress, is widely regarded as the first major female book collector; in 1836 she was described by Thomas Frognall Dibdin as being "at the head of all female collectors in Europe." Her famous library at Eshton Hall, Yorkshire, estimated at between fifteen to twenty thousand volumes, was the subject of two privately printed catalogues during her lifetime and was enthusiastically described by Dibdin in both his Reminiscences of a Literary Life, which features an engraved plate of the library, and Bibliographical Tour, which he dedicated to Miss Currer, "England's earliest female bibliophile." Contrary to her wishes, the principal part of her library was sold after her death by Sotheby's in 1862. "Miss Currer's library was chosen with a view to practical usefulness, but it contained many rarities. It was rich in natural science, topography, antiquities, and history… The books contain an heraldic book-plate, and are generally noticeable for their fine condition" (DNB). Of additional interest is Miss Currer's association with the Brontës of nearby Haworth. Rich, unmarried and with "a heart as big as St. Paul's dome and as warm as volcanic lava" (Dibdin again), she was a generous patron and supporter of local causes and charities, including the lugubrious Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge attended by the Brontë sisters, the model for Lowood School in Charlotte's Jane Eyre. It's probable that Miss Currer was the "wealthy lady in the West Riding of Yorkshire" who gave the struggling Rev. Patrick Brontë £50 in 1821, and she is the most likely candidate to have inspired the surname of Charlotte's nom de plume, Currer Bell. Additionally, the character of Mr. Eshton in Jane Eyre most likely derives his name from Miss Currer's stately home, famous throughout the West Riding and beyond. Several sources even suggest that Charlotte visited Miss Bell and her library on occasion, in which case she might have cast her eyes on this very book. Opposite Frances's bookplate is that of Mathew Wilson, her half-brother and the inheritor of Eshton Hall.