DIX, Gertrude

The Girl From The Farm

Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1895. First Edition. First printing (American issue; published simultaneously in Great Britain by John Lane). 12mo (18cm). Decorated green cloth; 208pp + 4pp publisher's ads; cover and title page decorations by Aubrey Beardsley (who designed all the books in this series). Cloth on spine is darkened, with gilt dulled but legible; text is quite fresh, clean and unmarked. Faint pencil ownershp signature of a Hanna [?] Eakin to front endpapers. In all, a pleasing, Very Good copy. Published as "Keynotes Series" no.14.

An exemplary (if rarely remarked-upon) work of fiction from the British "New Woman" movement of the 1890s, a genre that reached its apotheosis in 1894 with Ella Hepworth Dixon's The Story of a Modern Woman. Dix (1867-1950) was a Brixton-born Socialist, free-love advocate and member of the Fabian Society; following a brief literary career in Great Britain that culminated with her best-known novel, The Image Breakers (1900) she emigrated to California in 1902, later marrying fellow socialist emigré Robert Nicoll. The Girl From the Farm, Dix's first published novel, introduces many of the themes that animated her later work, especially her strong commitment to socialism and her advocacy for women's economic, sexual, and social autonomy. Like many of the titles in John Lane's Keynotes series – which presented work by little-known writers who, for better or worse, tended to remain unknown – this one is uncommon, not widely-held in institutional collections and infrequent in commerce. WRIGHT III:1550.

Price: $650.00

Go Back