Mrs. Severn
London: Richard Bentley & Son, New Burlington Street, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen, 1889. First Edition. 3 vols., 8vo (191 x 136mm), pp. [viii], 268; [viii], 281, [3]; [viii], 269, [3]. Publisher’s smooth crimson cloth over beveled boards, lettered in gold on the front covers and spines, tan oak leaf-patterned endpapers. Publisher’s advertisements on two pages at the back of volumes two and three. Early owner initials in light pencil on the top-edges, volume two gently cocked, spines faded very slightly, light soiling and rubbing, a bright, near fine set. Carter was the author of three domestic romances, all published by Bentley. Born in Yorkshire in 1853, the daughter of Thomas Carter, a magistrate and retired silk mercer, she became friends with Ellen Gissing (mother of George Gissing) and in 1912 she published extracts from Gissing’s letters to her in Thomas Power O’Connor’s T.P. Weekly. A very scarce, and beautiful set. OCLC locates three copies. Coustillas, The Diary of George Gissing. Item #399825
At its center, the novel examines the marriage of Mr. Severn and Clothilde Hugo, a union shadowed by disparities of age, experience, and temperament. From that premise, Carter explores the competing claims of love and duty, and the social pressures that gather around a woman's past and a husband's expectations.
Price: $4,500.00