Grant. The Woman Who Did.

by ALLEN

£450 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

‘For Women’s Sake I Would Be A Free Woman’ ALLEN, Grant. The Woman Who Did. Boston: Roberts Bros and London: John Lane . 1895 8vo. Publisher’s olive cloth, floral design by Beardsley to upper board in black, spine lettered in gilt, green floral endpapers; pp. [2 (half-title, Keynotes device)], 223, [1 (blank)], [10 (advertisements)]; title-page repeating design from upper board; spine darkened and gilt text faded, joints rubbed, small loss to head of spine; tissue guard foxed; else a very good copy; old catalogue clipping adhered to front pastedown; sporadic early twentieth-century pencil annotations. First American edition, published simultaneously in Boston and London as part of John Lane’s Keynotes series, with a title-page and cover design by Aubrey Beardsley, of this progressive novel in which a Cambridge-educated, middle-class young woman defies social convention by having a child out of wedlock and raising her as a single mother. Having finished her studies at Girton, Herminia Barton moves to London on her own and falls in love with lawyer Alan Merrick, suggesting that they live together without getting married in the name of female emancipation. ‘She gives birth to a daughter, but after Merrick’s sudden death tragedy overwhelms her life with remorseless precision. Allen honestly intended the novel as a polemic on the position of women and dedicated it to his wife […] It caused a great sensation, and the public read it eagerly […] the notoriety of The Woman who Did hel

• Binding: Hardcover

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