The Widow Bedott Papers - with an Introduction by Alice B. Neal

Brown cloth on boards with elaborate blind stamped geometric decorations to front and rear and gilt lettering and botanical decorations, somewhat faded, to spine. Book is mostly tight, square, relatively sharp-cornered and free of major flaws, other than 20 page signature in middle slightly loose, general wear to boards, and minor foxing to first few pages. The first volume of the posthumously published collected satirical sketches of France M. Whitcher (aka Miriam Berry) (1814-1852), whose series "The Widow Bedott's Table-Talk" was originally published under the pen-name "Frank" in the "Saturday Gazette and Lady's Literary Museum" from 1846 to 1850. A second volume of her works, "Widow Spriggins, Mary Elmer, and Other Sketches," was published in 1867 with an introduction by M.L. Ward Whitcher. Whitcher was one of the first female American humorist and this collection contains sharp critiques of the social conventions of the early 19th century.