Julia Kavanagh Woman in France 1850 Antique Half-Leather Books Two Volumes
Julia Kavanagh Woman in France 1850 Antique Half-Leather Books Two Volumes
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Two blue-cloth volumes with blue-black leather at the spine and corners sit together the way a matched set should, the gilt fleur-de-lis ornaments catching light the same way they did in 1850. Julia Kavanagh's survey of the women who shaped pre-Revolutionary France, her best-known work according to contemporaries, published by Smith, Elder in London in the same year Charlotte Brontë's publisher brought it out. Both volumes carry the armorial bookplate of John Dawson Mayne, Advocate-General of the Madras Presidency, Privy Council member, and author of the definitive text on Hindu law, a man who lived to 88 and read seriously his entire life. Eight steel-engraved portrait plates across the two volumes, Pompadour, du Barry, Marie-Antoinette, Madame Roland among them, each one printed with the fine line quality that steel engraving does better than any other method.
Both bindings are structurally sound with tight hinges throughout. The blue-black leather at the spines and corners shows age-appropriate surface wear and some fading, consistent with 175 years of use. The blue cloth boards retain good color. Gilt spine lettering and fleur-de-lis ornaments remain legible and present on both volumes. The marbled endpapers are intact with some edge wear at the corners. The text blocks are tight with light foxing on the title pages and to some preliminary and terminal leaves, as visible in the photographs. Portrait plates are present and complete across both volumes, with minor foxing on the tissue guards and plate pages. Period manuscript annotations appear in ink on the rear endpapers of at least one volume. The armorial bookplate of John Dawson Mayne is present in both volumes. A partially legible period inscription appears adjacent to one of the portrait plates. Overall a good, complete set with honest wear and significant documented provenance.
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