Woman in Her Various Relations: Containing Practical Rules for American Females

New York: William Holdredge, 1851. First Edition. Small octavo (17cm.); publisher's red decorative gilt-embossed cloth, all edges gilt; viii,[9]-319,[1]pp.; engraved frontispiece and added chromolithographed pictorial title page. Moderate wear and soil to boards, spine rather faded, two gatherings proud, occasional soil to textblock, contemporary gift inscription to front flyleaf, else a Very Good, still bright and sound copy. Forms part of the publisher's Fireside Series. Uncommon handbook for the well-to-do American woman. "We are living when the allotments and responsibilities of Woman, in her own *appropriate* sphere, should be brought before the mind in their true *weight* and *importance.*" Significant portions of the work relate to hosting dinners and social gatherings as well as making calls and receiving callers. However, the author also tends to the baser instincts, warning the reader in a one-page chapter on profanity, "The very use of profane words stimulate and nourish *bad passions*" (p. 284). Another chapter relates to Women's Rights, quickly followed by a chapter on "Woman in Male Attire": "Woman, if she is rightly educated, and is what every true-minded female will be, has enough of her own inherent delicacy and modesty to debar her *forever* from dressing in the attire of the opposite sex" (p. 305).…