House & Hearth 1891 Harriet Prescott Spofford 19th-Century Gender Roles Women

Description: Title: House and Hearth.Author: Harriet Prescott SpoffordPublisher: Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.Publication Date: 1891, First EditionFormat: Hardcover.Length: 303 pagesSize: approximately 4 3/8" by 6 3/8"Description: Although the title of this hard-to-find book might suggest it is a woman’s guidebook on home-making and house-keeping, the author offers a critical view of 19th-century gender roles. According to Wikipedia, “Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) was an American writer of novels, poems and detective stories. One of the United States's most widely-published authors, her career spanned more than six decades and included many literary genres, such as short stories, poems, novels, literary criticism, biographies, and memoirs. She also wrote articles on household decorative art and travel as well as children's literature.”Cover design: According to Metropolitan Museum of Art, which curates a copy of this book in their book binding art collection, this cover was designed by Alice Cordelia Morse. “A leading New York late nineteenth century book-cover designer, Morse studied at the Woman’s Art School of the Cooper Union, then under John La Farge before working for Louis C. Tiffany as a painter and designer of stained glass. In 1887 she began to concentrate on book-covers, fulfilling eighty-three commissions for New York commercial publishers by 1905. Complementing the text, she chose imagery ranging from classical, to Renaissance, Celtic, Arabic, Gothic, Rococo, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. For this woman's guidebook on home-making and house-keeping, Morse created an Art Nouveau image centered on a laurel wreath that signifies the accomplishments to which women aspired in the late nineteenth century. The cover is bound in straw-colored, diagonal-rib reversed cloth and the front cover is stamped with a full-cover design in brown, peach, and gold.”Condition: The binding is intact, although there is some weakness. The cover is faded, soiled, bumped, and worn. There is some loss of the cloth covering where the front board meets the spine (see photo). The interior is clean. The pages have some age-toning.

Price: 45 USD

Location: Lee's Summit, Missouri

End Time: 2024-10-21T15:59:03.000Z

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