Wednesday, April 26, 2023

612. Michael Field in a Collection of Books by New Women

The New Woman. With some fellow travellers and a few antagonists is the title of the second part of Phil Cohen's collection that Maggs Bros in London has issued (Catalogue 1517). The number of names unknown to me in this catalogue compiled by Alice Rowell - 490 pages - is large - it is a real treasure trove. Alice Rowell characterises the research into this collection as 'a highpoint' of her 'Maggs career thus far'.
 
The New Woman (Maggs Bros, catalogue 1517)

The majority of the collection was sold en bloc 'to an institution' (email from Alice Rowell, accompanying the e-catalogue, 19 April 2023). 

About sixty books are for sale, however, and these include a number of books by 'Michael Field': Edith Cooper and Katharine Bradley.

More than twenty pages in the catalogue are devoted to Michael Field's work, covering numbers 249 to 303, and including Bradley's first book The New Minnesinger and Other Poems (1875). There is (among the autographs) an early letter giving permission to publish one of the poems, a translation from Heine's 'The Fisher Maiden', 'with music'.

Multiple copies and multiple editions of many works are present, including deluxe and presentation copies, the whole forming a complete Michael Field collection.

The New Woman (Maggs Bros, catalogue 1517, nos. 270-280)


The four plays published by the Vale Press are all present. There is a copy of Fair Rosamund in the so-called 'flame binding' (survivor of a fire in 1899). The prospectus for this edition is also present - the prospectuses of the other three Vale Press books are absent.

The series of plays for which Ricketts designed some 'devices' is - exceptionally - complete, from Borgia (1905) to In the Name of Time (1919). 

The late poetry collections for which Ricketts designed the bookbindings are present as well: from Wild Honey (1908) to Dedicated (1914). 

The New Woman (Maggs Bros, catalogue 1517, no. 295)



There is a copy of Dedicated in the extremely rare (plain) dust jacket.