Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education.

London: T. Cadell and W. Davies,, 1806. A later edition of More's definitive work on women's education, with a female aristocratic provenance. It was presented in 1811 by Aphia Witts (1743-1840), Baroness Lyttelton, to Lady Juliana Annesley (1797-1868), with a morocco gift label on both front pastedowns; the binding was likely commissioned by Lady Lyttelton for presentation. Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education was first published in 1799 and became one of the most widely read and enduring works of the genre, being reprinted 11 times between 1799 and 1811. The leading bluestocking of her generation and an influential evangelical reformer, More was one of the major opponents to Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which advocated for women's political rights. More "never approved women's education as an alternative to women's responsibility as wives and mothers. She deplored an education that prompted women 'to study philosophy, and neglect their families to be present at lectures in anatomy'. She declared that she would never read Mary Woolstonecraft's Rights of Woman, and lamented that 'so many women are fond of government... because they are not fit for it'" (Burwick, p. 33). "More's concepts of women's roles and education held up the domestic ideal while also advocating for a cultural shift. Her desire for a broader women's education was progressive within her era and was, in fact, the primary argument advanced for women's education in post-revolutionary America" (Hobson, p. 17). Provenance: tipped in on the front pastedown of vol. I is a receipt from the Dublin Foundling Hospital for abandoned children, recording that the book was received on the admission into the institution of a child named Hanna Moore (her name perhaps echoing the author of this book). The receipt is signed by Reverend Annesley Bailie - register and paymaster at the hospital, and likely a relative of Juliana's husband. It appears that Lady Juliana was involved in charitable activity to support orphans; remarkably, Lady Aphia was too, as she is recorded among the governors of the Orphan Working-School in Hoxton, East London, in 1769. Two volumes, octavo (192 x 118 mm). Contemporary red straight-grain morocco, spines with gilt-tooled raised bands, gilt lettering and gilt and blind floral decoration in compartments, covers bordered with elaborate blind and gilt rolls of interlacing lines and flowers, squared floral tools to corners, board edges and turn-ins tooled in gilt, blue endpapers, edges gilt, blue silk bookmarkers. Gilt bright, top edges a little dust toned, couple of minor marks to leather, a few spots of faint foxing to initial leaves in vol. I, otherwise clean and fresh. A lovely set, attractively bound. Frederick Burwick, A History of Romantic Literature, 2019; Amanda Hobson, "Hannah More" in Feminist Writings from Ancient Times to the Modern World, 2011.