AIKIN, Lucy
 
Memoirs of the Court of King Charles the First. Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, Paternoster-Row, London in 1833.
 
Description
 
Maria Edgeworth association set, acquired by her directly from a Book Society, with her acquisition inscriptions.
Octavo. 2 volumes, complete set.
Original publisher's quarter tan calico grain book cloth, drab paper boards, spines with printed paper labels. Completely uncut and untrimmed.
Chipping and abrasion to paper spine labels with partial loss of text, spine cloth faded and rubbed with small splits at joints, corners bumped and worn with board exposed, occasional internal spotting. An entirely unsophisticated copy in the original trade binding.
Acquired by Edgeworth from the Book Society. Inscribed on the front board of volume I: ‘Society 13th Year / From Oct 5th 1833 / No 12’.
Both volumes bearing Maria Edgeworth’s ownership signature. Signed on the title pages of both volumes, ‘Maria Edgeworth’ and on the front paste down of volume I, and bearing her penciled shelf marks, ‘Library D - 4’ and ‘D.4’ on the front paste downs of both volumes.
Bearing her ink inscription on the front free endpaper of volume I, partially obscured by an early paper reinforcement strip but fully legible via backlighting, ‘Miss Edgeworth wishes to keep the book.’
Second edition, an exceptional association set linking two major figures of early nineteenth century female intellectual culture.
Lucy Aikin (1781–1864) was among the foremost female historians of the nineteenth century, celebrated for her thoroughly researched court histories of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs. Her work represented a significant challenge to the male dominated field of British political historiography.
Maria Edgeworth (1767–1849), the pioneering Anglo-Irish novelist and educational theorist, was a contemporary of Aikin. The two authors moved within the same dissenting and literary circles, frequently corresponding via mutual contacts such as Dr. Peter Holland and Sir Henry Holland.
The present set demonstrating its transition from a commercial circulating library to Edgeworth’s private collection. The inscription on the front board establishes that the set entered a provincial Book Society on October 5, 1833, immediately upon publication. The inscription on the front free endpaper, fully revealed through backlighting, records Edgeworth's formal request to permanently purchase the volumes out of the society's circulation.
The corresponding alphanumeric cataloguing marks ‘Library D - 4’ confirm its subsequent placement within the library at the Edgeworth family estate in Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland. Association copies directly linking major contemporary female authors of this period, complete with physical evidence of their acquisition provenance, are rare to market.