The Mental Magazine: or, Young Lady's Repository of Arts and Sciences

Dublin: A Stewart, 1801 First edition. The present work "was first intended for the instruction of young ladies [the author] had the honor to educate. The questions on scripture, astronomy, heathen mythology, and heraldry, are all taken from the best authors; and an attempt made by some alterations, to reduce the language to the level of youthful capacities…[Y]oung minds receive stronger impressions of instructions, conveyed under the semblance of amusement, than from the most serious precepts," (preface). The work, which is staged as a conversation between a young pupil and a teacher, also covers geography, classical Greek and Roman history, European (truncated) history, law, and government. . Contemporary quarter red calf over marbled boards. . Twelvemo. Frontispiece. With an epigraph by Hannah More on title-page. Wear to extremities and chipping to head of spine. Contemporary ink signature (Elizabeth Catherine Shaw) to front flyleaf. A child's pencil scribbles to preliminary blanks. Foxing and toning, mostly to first and last few leaves. A good copy of a rare educational work. We could not locate much information about Sarah Ashe in the sources available to us, including dates. The preface to the present work notes that she intended to publish a history of Rome, but The Mental Magazine appears to be her only published work. (Inventory #: 17500)