{"product_id":"compleat-woman-hgiyez1c","title":"The Compleat Woman.","description":"\u003cp\u003eSTC 7266. \u003cstrong\u003eRare.\u003c\/strong\u003e ESTC records \u003cstrong\u003eFolger\u003c\/strong\u003e (x2), \u003cstrong\u003eHuntington\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eHarvard\u003c\/strong\u003e, Newberry (x2, not 3 as per ESTC), \u003cstrong\u003eChicago\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eYale\u003c\/strong\u003e (“Imperfect”) only in the USA. The last copy recorded at auction was at Forum in 2020 and is now at the \u003cstrong\u003eAlexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand\u003c\/strong\u003e (the same copy was sold at Sotheby’s in 1991). Before that the last copy was in Maggs catalogue 874 (1961, where we stated: “…this English translation is still little known; and the possibilities of du Bosc’s influence on English thought have scarcely been noticed; in most studies of seventeenth-century education and feminine pursuits his name does not appear at all.”)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA translation of part 1 of \u003cem\u003eL’honneste femme\u003c\/em\u003e first published in Paris in 1632 and containing fifteen essays the work was revised and re-printed throughout the first part of the 17th century in France and a second and third part were subsequently published (in 1634 and 1636). The present English translation is based on the third French edition of 1635 and contains eighteen essays. A variant of this edition exists with “Witten” in the title. According to the printed STC Hodgkinson printed quires B-P and Harper the rest - the section printed by Hodgkinson is significantly more browned than the rest of the text.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn important translation of one of the first “feminist” works to be printed in England: with sections on reading, conversation, reputation, chastity, beauty and education.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Jacques Du Bosc treats women as reasonable and moral beings able to think critically, if educated, and to make moral choices on their own … Du Bosc claims, as did François de Sales before him, that pious women did not need to retreat to the convent but could participate fully in secular polite society without endangering their virtue … His honnête femme is a purely social being free from domestic cares. Thus, Du Bosc focuses his treatise exclusively on the development of women’s “intelligence” and “moral judgment.” He proposes a way for elite women to perfect the self for social interaction through the practices of reading, reflection, and conversation. In appealing to women’s reason, Du Bosc does not “prescribe laws” for women, as most writers of the period did, but reasons with them, examining the pros and cons of all aspects of social life. Following Montaigne and Marie de Gournay and anticipating Descartes, Du Bosc argues for women’s equality with men based on their shared reason and virtue” (Introduction, Wolfgang and Nell, \u003cem\u003eL′Honnête Femme – The Respectable Woman in Society\u003c\/em\u003e (2014)).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDu Bosc writes of reading: “…Reading is very requisite for Women; for since they have no lesse need of dumbe Teacher, then Princes; and that beautie as well as Royalty findes not so easily Maisters as flatterers: it is necessary to acknowledge their faults, they learne sometimes of the dead, what the living dare not tell them. It is only in books, where they may note the imperfections of the minde, as those of their face in Glasses…” (p.4)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProvenance: George Wilbraham (1779-1852), bookplate on the front pastedown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Maggs Bros.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47844093919389,"sku":"246984","price":18500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/0045\/9677\/files\/246984_2.jpg?v=1777372861","url":"https:\/\/store.maggs.com\/products\/compleat-woman-hgiyez1c","provider":"Maggs Bros.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}