London: Richard Philips, 1803. First edition. Six volumes, twelvemo. xxvi, 238, *169-*238, 239-316; [2], 404, [1, blank]; [2], 444; [2], 504; [2], 527, [1, blank]; [2], 476 pp. Contemporary half polished calf over marbled boards. Hinges expertly repaired. Some edgewear, some wear to spines, some minor foxing to preliminaries, and some uniform toning to a few gatherings due to inconsistent paper quality. Small hole to leaf C12 in vol. IV with loss to two letters. Small numerical stamp at head of volumes four and five. Bookplate of James A. Coulter to each upper pastedown. A Very Good set, largely clean throughout and presenting very well.

Inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Hays determined to write a history of women more diverse than the popular depictions of femininity. Female Biography therefore cuts a wide swath through history, educating readers – primarily young women – on the cultural impact women have had on politics, education, art, and literature so that they may escape narrow definitions of submissive womanhood. “My pen has been taken up in the cause, and for the benefit of my own sex…to excite a worthier emulation, the following memorial of those women whose endowments or whose conduct have reflected lustre upon the sex is presented more especially to the rising generation who have not grown old in folly, whose hearts have not been seared by fashion…Every character has been judged upon its own principles.” In the volumes that follow, Hays presents the lives of women from Zenobia and Cleopatra, to Elizabeth I and Mary of Scotland, to Sor Juana de la Cruz, to Margaret Cavendish and Anne Clifford, with the goal of motivating her readers to consider what qualities they might seek to emulate. Very Good (Item #7793)