This sensational case was, according to The Times, “the subject of general conversation throughout the country of Lancaster for several months… We do not remember any former occasion when the public curiosity was more excited.”

The plaintiff summarized the situation thus: “The declaration states, that in consideration that the plaintiff promise to marry the defendent, he, the defendent, undertook to marry the plaintiff; but that instead of doing so, he had married another woman.  The plaintiff pleads the general issue.”  The defense argued that the defendant was truly “the meanest reptile on earth” but concluded that Miss Orford had not lost much in losing her fiance to another woman.  The jury ruled on the side of Miss Orford, who was awarded a £7,000 settlement.

Aside from being an intriguing example of proto-feminism, the book has an equally intriguing association.  It belonged to book collector Francis Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861), one of the first famous female book collectors in Europe.  Currer added several pages of her own manuscript notes to the book, agreeing with the defense that, “no one can think that Miss Orford sustained any loss of happiness, by her loss of Mr. Cole.”  Currer also lists several similar cases between Mr. Cole and other local women, one of whom claimed Cole attempted to leave her at the church door, ” ‘No, no Mr. Cole, as we have got so far we will go on’, or words to that effect…As might be expected after living a short time together most unhappily, she left him…”

*2009-109.  Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Under the pseudonym “Mrs. Willett,” Coombe Tennant was welcomed into the Society for Psychic Research, and there are many accounts of her spirit communications, and of her writings, in the Society’s Journal.  Her work as a medium remained unknown outside a small circle of close friends, many also members of the Society.   This group included Gerald Balfour,  brother of the Prime Minister and a member of the Society, with whom Coombe Tennant had a lengthy affair.

*2008M-11.  Images appear with permission of the Estate of Winifred Coombe Tennant.  Images may not be reproduced without permission.

In 1950, perhaps because of Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James’s well-known interest in psychic phenomena, Coombe Tennant placed with her lawyer four locked boxes of her papers, directing that the boxes remain sealed for fifty years after her death and then offered to Harvard University. Houghton accepted this gift, and recently received this collection, which includes over thirty years of Coombe Tennant’s correspondence with Balfour, along with numerous scripts, or automatic writings, from their work with the Society for Psychical Research.  In death as well as in life, Winifred Coombe Tennant maintained a distinction between her public work as a Welsh nationalist, and her private life as a m edium.

At the request of the family, several of Winifred Coombe Tennants diaries, included in the bequest, were given to them to complete the series of diaries they hold.  A transcription of the diaries is in preparation, and after its publication it is the family’s intention to present the diaries to the National Library of Wales to join the Coombe Tennant archive there.

*2008M-11.  Images appear with permission of the Estate of Winifred Coombe Tennant.  Images may not be reproduced without permission.

*2008M-11.  Images © The estate of Winifred Coombe-Tennant.  Images may not be reproduced without permission.

The album contains twelve paintings of spring and summer flowers.

Pictured below are Lobelia Cardinalis, or Cardinal Flower, for August:

Impatiens Noli Tangere, or Touch-me-not, for August:

And Orchis Fibriata, or Fimbriated Orchis, for July:

Dwight is perhaps best remembered today as a chronicler of daily life at Brook Farm, through  correspondence with her friend Anna Parsons.  Dwight, along with her parents and siblings, lived at the Farm from 1844-1847, where she taught art and Latin.  In 1845, Dwight wrote, “I have now a plan, which I will begin to execute tomorrow, of making some little books for sale…They are to be picture books – wild flowers, birds, and I know not yet what variety…I intend to have the cover of colored Bristol-board, prettily stamped like our fans and shades.”  This album seems to be one such book, of which there are very few surviving examples.

pf MS Am 2625.  Dwight, Marianne.  Wild Flowers, 1846. Purchased with the Edward and Bertha C. Rose Acquisition Fund, the Stanley Marcus Endowment for Rare Books, and the Amy Lowell Trust.  Images may not be reproduced without permission.

McCaffrey, a Radcliffe alum originally from Cambridge, has authored over 90 works.  This collection follows the creation of the novel, originally titled “The Harper of Pern,” to its publication, and includes multiple typescript drafts with McCaffrey’s handwritten corrections, the final draft of the novel, and correspondence with McCaffrey’s editor and agent relating to the publication of the novel.  The collection also includes a first edition of the book (*2008-47).

b *2008M-6.  Purchased with the Amy Lowell Fund. Images may not be reproduced without permission.

This new four-page manuscript, most likely written ca. 1873, was probably sent to her friend and future editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, whose wife, Mary Thacher Higginson, transcribed it (the transcription is now at the Boston Public Library in the Higginson Papers). Ralph Franklin believed that the original had been sent to Higginson along with a note and three other poems (see Fr 796); but the new autograph is on different paper (watermarked “A. Pirie and Sons 1871″) than the three still in the Higginson Papers (BPL MS Am 1093 (48), (40), and (50)). Higginson also refers to this poem in a letter to his co-editor Mabel Loomis Todd (1891 May 13); this, in combination with the transcript, makes it seem probable that the present manuscript was at one time in his possession.

But how did it leave his possession? The details of the manuscript’s provenance are not yet fully established, but it seems likely that Higginson gave it to Gretchen Osgood (Mrs. Fiske) Warren (1868-1961), whom he would have known through the Museum of Fine Arts. The present manuscript, reputedly from Mrs. Fiske Warren’s estate, appeared for sale at Skinner’s in Boston on 10 November 2001.

Houghton Library holds a variant of this poem, sent by Dickinson to her sister-in-law Susan (Houghton MS Am 1118.3 (356)), which begins “The Wind begun to knead the Grass.” Now possible to view the two side by side, the manuscripts bring home to students and experienced textual scholars alike the physicality of Dickinson’s continual reworking of her poems, and her distribution of them to her friends.

The poem was written on one piece of paper folded in half. The first image below shows pages 4 and 1, and the second image shows pages 2 and 3. (Click on the images twice to see more detail.)

This version of the poem reads:

The Wind begun to rock the Grass
With threatening Tunes and low –
He flung a Menace at the Earth –
A Menace at the Sky –

The Leaves unhooked themselves from Trees
And started all abroad –
The Dust did scoop itself like Hands
And throw away the Road -

The Wagons quickened on the streets -
The Thunder hurried slow –
The Lightning showed a yellow Beak -
And then a livid Claw –

The Birds put up the Bars to Nests –
The Cattle fled to Barns –
There came one drop of Giant Rain
And then as if the Hands

That held the Dams – had parted hold
The Waters Wrecked the Sky -
But overlooked My Father’s House –
Just quartering a Tree –

*2007M-74. © The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Purchased with the Dickinson Collection Fund. Images may not be reproduced without permission.

Cole began by sending a telegram to the HMS Dreadnought, moored in Dorset, telling the crew to expect a visit from a group of North African princes.

Dressed as the “The Emperor of Abyssinia” and his attendants, the group was received by the Dreadnought’s crew, and was given a tour of the ship. The group spoke to each other in broken Latin, and shouted made-up words to show their appreciation.

Following the event, Cole sent this photograph to the Daily Mail to reveal the ruse. When the Royal Navy demanded that Cole be punished, he countered that it was they who should be punished for allowing themselves to be fooled.

In the photo of the group, Virginia Stephen can be seen, in beard and turban, on the far left. (Click on the image to see an enlarged version.)

An account of the “Dreadnought Hoax” was written by Adrian Stephen and published in 1936 by Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press. 2530 copies of the book were printed, though 1530 copies were later pulped.

Unlike earlier Hogarth publications which were handprinted by the Woolfs and decorated with unique handmade papers, The Dreadnought Hoax is rather simple, printed commercially, and decorated only with photos of the adventure. The photo above is the frontispiece.

*EC9.W8827.Z936s. Purchased with the Theodore Sedgwick Library Fund. Image may not be reproduced without permission.

Published in the mid-1820s, Musée des Dames et des Demoiselles includes six small books covered in lavender paper and packed together in a blue and gilt paper gift box. Each book covers a different area of science appropriate for delicate demoiselles: fruit, flowers, minerals, butterflies, insects, and birds. Along with a hand-colored paper onlay on each cover, each book includes a stipple-engraved hand-colored frontispiece.

Books like these encouraged women to explore the natural world. The three women pictured on the box are in motion, interacting with various items discussed in the books. (Notice, too, that the “natural” items pictured are all confined and domesticated – the birds in cages, the trees in planters, and even the butterfly about to be caught – leaving this realm of nature somewhat less wild for the “gentler” sex.)

Our copies look as if their particular demoiselle was perhaps uninterested in nature – but we were delighted to find how new they looked!

(Click on the images to magnify them.)

*FC8.A100.825m. Purchased with the Andrew Oliver Book Fund and the Melvin R. Seiden Houghton Library Book Fund.

Images may not be reproduced without permission. See our permissions webpage for details.