Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

Translated from the swedish. (miss bremer's tales).

Item Description

Small 8vo. 5 x 3.25 inches. [viii, including 1 pp. publisher's advertisement] + 188 pp.; The Bondmaid, iv + 72 pp., including 8 pp. publisher's catalogue, New Books for 1845. Separate half title and pagination for The Bondmaid, which is written as a drama. Bound in original brown cloth, gilt, boards with blind stamped borders, enclosing gilt block of woman feeding poultry; spine gilt tooled with main title, Miss Bremer's Tales. All edges gilt. A little wear to extremities and occasional scattered foxing, but otherwise a very good copy. Early signature on front pastedown. Illustrated by engraved frontispiece and title. Two titles from the author's Scenes from Everyday Life series of novels. Frederika Bremer (1801-65) was a Finnish born Swedish social worker writer, traveller and feminist, who successfully extended women's rights in Sweden. Her realist novels became very popular abroad, becoming more widely known after German translations appeared, and she was called the Swedish Jane Austen. This English translation was probably by Mary Howitt (1799-1888) and was one of several English version published from 1843 onwards, this attractive Allman imprint (containing seventeen pages of notes) being very rare.