The Rational Dame; or, Hints Towards Supplying Prattle for Children

Item Details

London, Printed and sold by John Marshall,, 1806, Leather backed boards.

Early edition, Very good

Twelvemo. [5], xxii, [23], 24-119 pp. Index. Engraved frontispiece and nine plates, each containing several illustrations.

Original color marbled boards with red roan spine, stamped in gilt. Contemporary ink inscriptions on front flyleaf. Some fading and shelf wear to boards and spine, including small puncture to third of spine. Hinge cracked but sound. A very good copy.

An early edition. The first edition was printed in 1786. However, all early editions are rare.

Ellenor Fenn (nee Frere, 1743-1813) was a British writer of children’s books and an advocate for female education who used the pseudonyms “Mrs. Lovechild” and “Mrs. Teachwell.” When her husband John Fenn (1739-1794) was knighted in 1787, she became “Lady Fenn.” Her most popular book was Cobwebs to Catch Flies (1783) and a copy of it was in the royal nursery during her lifetime. During the course of her career, she wrote numerous primers, grammar books, and spelling books. The Rational Dame is a work of natural history for children and contains information about animals, reptiles, and insects, many of which are illustrated in the plates. In the Preface, Fenn writes, “It is my ambition to have my little volume be the pocket companion of young mothers when they walk abroad with their children: it is my wish to assist them in the delightful talk of forming in those children an habit of amusing themselves in a rational manner during their hours of leisure ‘to look from nature, up to nature’s God’” (pp. x-xi). 

A fine and early example of Lady Fenn’s work that illustrates her philosophy about children’s books: “There is no need for invention, the world is full of wonders”).

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