THE GATES BETWEEN

Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1887. 12 pp undated ads. Original blue-violet cloth decorated in brown and gilt. First Edition of this novel in which the spirit of an emotionally-detached doctor, after a sudden and fatal accident, wanders through an afterlife realm -- through "the gates between" life and death. This was the last of the author's three novels about the "Gates," regarding "life" after death, following THE GATES AJAR (1869) and BEYOND THE GATES (1883). Phelps was quite a person, obviously challenging Christian beliefs in the afterlife; the year after this book was published, in her 40s, she married a man 17 years her junior (at which point she added the last name Ward). She urged women not only to burn their corsets but also to become physicians, artists, whatever (she was the first woman to present a lecture series at Boston University). This copy is in Blanck's binding "B" (no priority), the front cover bearing an elaborate fillet of stylized flowers (rather than a butterfly) -- though the volume has light yellow endpapers which are specified for binding "A". Condition is very good-plus (light rubbing at the extremities, spine slightly darkened). Blanck 20927.…