COBBE, Frances Power.

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Essays on the Pursuits of Women: Also a Paper on Female Education. First standalone edition of a collection of writing on issues facing women in 19th century Europe, first published in Fraser's Magazine and Macmillan's Magazine. The essays cover several areas of concern for the author, including workhouses, education, and especially the social status of single women, whose lives "should neither be aimless for themselves, nor valueless for [God's] creatures]" (p. vi).Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904) was a self-taught intellectual and philanthropist. Born in Ireland, her lack of faith led to a strained relationship with her religious family, and she moved to Bristol in 1858. Visits to workhouses focussed her interest in women's rights, and from the late 1850s onwards she published and spoke regularly on the topic. Whilst Cobbe respected loving marriages, she came to deplore "marriages of interest" (p. 63) that women felt obliged to enter, identifying such alliances as the cause of many societal ills. She believed that remaining happily single should be promoted as an alternative: "Women should have other aims, pursuits, and interests in life beside matrimony". Cobbe never married, but lived with her partner Mary Lloyd from around 1864 to Lloyd's death in 1896.The publisher, Emily Faithfull (1835-1895), was a founding member of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women and employed female compositors at her press.

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