Looking Forward by Clara Codd, Signed (1 results)

First edition, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "With kindest greetings, Clara M. Codd". In Looking Forward, the suffragette and theosophist wrote optimistically about humanity's chances to create a new and improved social order following the destruction of the First World War: "We stand on the threshold of the dawn of a new life" (p. 44). Codd (1876-1971) was born to a middle-class family in Devon and spent her early twenties in Switzerland, where she worked as a governess, costume model, and musician. Throughout the 1900s, her egalitarian perspective and desire for positive change drove her to join the Theosophical Society, the Social Democratic Federation, and the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). In the early 1910s, she was offered work as a travelling lecturer by the Theosophical Society, beginning in India. Although Looking Forward acknowledges the destruction caused by the First World War, Codd believed that the industrial and commercial developments that it motivated, such as telegraph wires and steamships, "linked this round globe into one as never before" which would help to realize "humanity's essential unity". She also believed the war had taught people "the entire interdependence of individuals, classes, nations" which in turn would encourage them "to think in terms of common human need and happiness" (pp. 56-7). Octavo (191 x 115 mm). Original blue cloth, spine lettered in blue, title to front cover in white and blue. Spine toned and slightly leaning, extremities rubbed, endpapers toned and a little foxed: a very good copy.