First American Edition. Philadelphia : Birch and Small. 1807. 3 vols., 8vo, pp. vi, (2), 488 ; (4), 510; (4), 512. BA., p. 31061

First published in London in 1803 by Mary Hays, famous for her relationship with Mary Wollestonecraft , this collection of female biographies is now considered as the very first major reference of women, for women, and written by a woman. The work includes approximately 290 women from the classical period up to the 17th century. In the work, Hays offers an introduction of her own appraisal of the lives and works of feminists before Wollstonecraft. She includes Joan d'Arc,Mary Astell, Aphara (sic) Behn, Anne Boleyn, Antoinette Bourignon, Anne Bradstreet, Susanna Centlivre, Mary Chapone, Sarah Fielding, Katherine Phillips, and many more

8 3/4" x 5" 1/4 leather hardback with marbled boards. Shelf wear and rubbing to the leather with some scrapes and loss of material. 5 raised bands. Gilt title on brown in gutter 2, gilt author and volume number on black in gutter 4. Spine and all boards are complete and attached.

Page edges are marbled on all three sides. Stationer's book plate in bottom right inside cover of all three volumes (W C Rogers and Co Stationers 26 John Street New York). Some foxing throughout volumes 2 and 3.

Vol. 1 510 pages. FFEP and title page are seperated from the binding in this volume. Page 485 through 488 (2 leaves) have stuck together at one time and now has closed tears on binding side.

Vol. 2, 512 pages. Page 101 has 1 1/2" book repair tape on border.

Vol. 3 488 pages.

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Mary Hays (1760-1843) was a feminist and radical born in London. Hays met Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792 and William Godwin provided counseling as she worked on her Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796). Her views and her depiction of her own unrequited love made her a favorite target for savage reactionary abuse She defended Godwin in The Monthly Magazine 1796-7 and her Appeal to the Men of Great Britain in Behalf of the Women, 1798 deplores perpetual babyism and urges vocational training and financial independence [Her] Female Biography treats heroines before Wollstonecraft, whom Hays tended on her death-bed and praised in obituaries[Blain p. 504].

Her work, Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796) is probably her best-known work. The novel draws on the experience of her affair with William Frend, and may also have elements of her relationship with Godwin. The heroine falls in love with a penniless man Augustus Harley, and offers to live with him as his wife, without getting married. She is rejected and then turns to Mr Francis, a character based on Godwin. They exchange philosophical letters, but in the end he advises her against becoming too emotional. The critical response to the novel was divided along political lines. Free love is seen to be aligned with social and domestic repression is shown as upholding the political order.

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