Omnibuses. (An essay by Mary Leman Grimstone published in Tait’s Edinburgh Journal, 1836)

A$70 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Edinburgh : William Tait, 1836. Four pages small quarto (260 x 160 mm), disbound from Tait s Edinburgh Journal (pp 335-38), printed initials M.L.G. at the foot of the text; fine. English writer and feminist Mary Leman Grimstone (1796-1869) wrote what are arguably the first two Australian novels. These were her second and third novels, Louisa Egerton: A Tale of Real Life (London, 1829) and Woman s Love (London, 1832). Louisa Egerton was written largely on Mary s voyage out to Van Diemen s Land in 1825-26, and was completed in Hobart, while Woman s Love was written entirely in Hobart, prior to her return to England in 1829. This short essay by Mary Leman Grimstone, Omnibuses , published in 1836 in Tait s Edinburgh Journal (a liberal literary monthly founded in 1832 by William Tait but under the editorial influence of feminist writer Christian Isobel Johnstone), is a piece of bitingly sharp satire on the different behaviours of the various social classes who ride as passengers in horse-drawn omnibuses still a new phenomenon in Britain s urban centres. From ADB online : Mary Leman Grimstone (1796?-1869), author and feminist, was born either in England or in the German city-state of Hamburg, one of at least five children of Leman Thomas Rede, bibliographer of early Americana. Two of Mary s brothers—Leman Thomas Tertius Rede (1799-1832) and William Leman Rede (1802-1847)—won esteem on the London stage, and two sisters—Lucy and Louisa—shared some of her literary skill. Mary publishe

• Binding: Hardcover

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