PASSION FLOWERS

Howe, Julia Ward. PASSION FLOWERS. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1854. First edition, in unrecorded color. Original blue cloth, spine extra gilt. Her first book, published in an edition of 1,000 copies, that caused a lot of chatter upon publication and reached a third edition the same year. Nathaniel Hawthorne said she "ought to have been soundly whipped" for publishing it. Howe's frank and personal airing of her marital grievances is what upset proper Bostonians, especially her poem "Mind Versus Mill-Stream" which was a razor-sharp metaphor for a typical Victorian man's unrealistic expectation of finding an obedient wife he could control. Howe's husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, nearly twenty years her senior, demanded that she revise her poems for any future editions (and resume their marital relations which had ceased the previous year). That did not happen, and she went on to pen "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." This copy belonged to New England poet, Lucy Larcum, and is inscribed: "Lucy Larcum, From E. J. H., Waterbury, Conn., March, 1856." The poem that created the uproar is unmarked by Larcum, but the poem immediately following has one stanza marked in pencil. Larcum knew something about mill-streams, having worked as a mill girl for ten years before gaining fame and influencing views toward women in nineteenth century America, and writing an account of her childhood that is still read today. BAL 9409 (noting other colors, but not blue). Costbooks 46c. (Inventory #: 23625)