Elinor Fulton

Boston: Whipple & Damrell, 1837. Stated First Edition. Small Octavo. 15cm. Stab bound, with no evidence of ever having been in wraps or a binding. 144pp. The title page and last leaf form the covers for this volume, so there is some light soiling and spotting to both leaves, with some old, flattened creasing and discoloration to the final leaf; internally clean and fresh, ownership signature to title page, strong and solid, with a little dogearing to the lower front corner. A very good copy of a volume that really had nothing to assist in its survival thus far.

The sequel to Hannah Lee's bestselling "Three Experiments of Living" which by the time of the anonymous publication of this work was well into its 18th printing or more. "Elinor Fulton" also ran to multiple editions, following on from the earlier works gentle and woman-oriented 'guide to navigating married life' theme which was pushed into public focus by the financial collapses of 1837 and the bubbling and roilings of the women's emancipation that was to come. The book dealt with a fictionalized demonstration of a married couple living within, and beyond, their means, and how careful domestic financial management was actually the key to happiness in marriage and life. Actually Lee's fourth published work, but her first novel in 1830 "Grace Seymour" seems to have disappeared without contemporary notice. A contemporary signature to the title page appears to all evidence to be that of Elizabeth Ropes Orne, of the enormously influential New England Orne family, who married and allied themselves closely with the Ropes, the Baldwins, the Tappan family, and the Cushings - which effectively made them little less than New England wealthy aristocracy on a par with European great houses. Elizabeth died of consumption at the age of 24, in the Ropes mansion (now part of the Peabody Essex Museum), where her room is preserved in its contemporary state. She was a correspondent of William P. Upham, the Salem Witch Trials authority, which makes sense for a woman born in Salem, and is memorialised as an intelligent, imaginative, and creative young woman.