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2 leaves [title page, contents], 432 pp, 1 leaf of ads. Original cloth. Torn and frayed at top of spine. Tears along joints. Corners of covers bent. Cloth rubbed. Good. NOTE ABOUT PHOTOS: I can email more photos of the binding, upon request. The photos show the title page, part of the contents page, the beginning of the article on p. 80 and the end of the article on p. 100, where the name of Anna Blackwell appears. First Edition. This volume contains a twenty-page-long letter to the editors of The English Woman's Journal, dated Feb. 14th, 1858, from Anna Blackwell about her sisters Elizabeth and Emily (but mostly about Elizabeth). Anna Blackwell was the oldest of the Blackwell children (Elizabeth was the third oldest, and Emily the sixth oldest). To my knowledge, this is the most detailed biographical account of Elizabeth Blackwell up to 1858 (she received her M.D. degree in 1849). It does not appear to be well-known. But it is cited in the most recent biography of Eliabeth Blackwell: "Upon her return to England, Barbara Bodichon and Bessie Parkes founded a monthly magazine, the English Woman's Journal. The second issue, published in April 1858, included an extensive profile of Elizabeth and Emily, written with sororal pride by the Blackwell family journalist, Anna. Citing Queen Elizabeth I and the Huntress Diana as Elizabeth's models, Anna filled her account with the kind of hyperbole usually accorded a folk hero: how teenaged Elizabeth had proved her prodigious physical strength by hoisting a skeptical (and protesting) male visitor in her arms for three laps around the parlour; or how she had severely restricted her diet at medical school, so as to remain pale of countenance no matter how trying the anatomy lesson. . . . [Anna] was careful to correct the 'very general; misapprehension' [p. 80] that her sisters were American. As true daughters of Bristol, Anglophile Anna averred, Elizabeth and Emily had been 'incapable of resorting to the system of puffing and self-vaunting so much in vogue among our transatlantic cousins' [p. 94]. Their success earned the hard way, Anna suggested, would be all the more lasting" (Janice P. Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell, p. 211). This very article about Elizabeth Blackwell was the original inspiration for Elizabeth Garrett to consider a career in medicine. Having read the article, she attended lectures by Elizabeth Blackwell in London in March 1859 and then the two Elizabeths met: "One member of Elizabeth s audience responded with particular earnestness. Elizabeth Garrett . . . had read Anna's profile of the medical Blackwell sisters in the English Woman s Journal [offered here]. Inspired by the thought of 'something definite & worthy to do,' Garrett attended each of the three lectures with growing interest, attention that was reciprocated once Barbara Bodichon introduced the two Elizabeths. 'Last night I saw a Miss Garrett who very much pleased me--a young lady who is quietly forming her determination to study medicine,' Elizabeth reported to Emily. 'I think she has the pluck to take it up.' Garrett was not nearly as decided as Eizabeth assumed--' remember feeling very much confounded & as if I had been suddenly thrust into work that was too big for me,' the young woman wrote--but to her own surprise, the study of medicine suited her. Six years later, she would become the first woman in Britain to qualify as a doctor" (Janice P. Nimura, The Doctors Blackwell, p. 219). A good introduction to the English Woman's Journal is Janice Schroeder, "On the English Woman's Journal, 1858-64", which can be accessed for free online. Seller Inventory # 17267
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Bibliographic Details
Title: "Elizabeth Blackwell." In: The English ...
Publisher: London: Published by The English Woman's Journal Company, Limited, at Their Office 14a, Princes Street, Cavendish Square (W); and for The Company, by Piper, Stephenson, and Spence, Paternoster Row, August 1858.
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good
Edition: 1st Edition
