Rare Book Monthly

Articles - October - 2016 Issue

Old Books / New Editions. Part I.

- by Maureen E. Mulvihill, Guest Writer

Welcome to this first installment in my three-part essay series on new editions of 17th-century women writers. We begin with Stuart courtier and poet-painter, Lady Anne Killigrew (London, 1660-1685). Lady Anne's writings have received three (yes, three) editions in recent years, most recently Margaret J. M. Ezell's Killigrew (Toronto, 2013; cover displayed here). We shall identify the distinguishing features of Lady's Anne elegant poetry-book (1686), and its continuing value among collectors and book historians. We also shall assess the editorial practice and methodologies of the new Ezell Killigrew, and probe some unsettled issues of Lady Anne's biography and authorship. Finally, we shall muse on the likelihood of an authoritative Killigrew in future years. < Click here, for essay >  

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Posted On: 2016-10-07 21:26
User Name: mairin111

7th October 2016.
Posting for Elaine Pfeiffer, Collector. Berlin / NYC.
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Hello, everyone. So it's all eyes on Lady Anne! This essay and Ezell's "Killigrew" are impressive developments from the scholarly end of the book business. Thank you, Rare Book Hub; and thank you, Maureen Mulvihill, for this first essay in your Old Books / New Editions series. Killigrew is an attractive case of a literary novice pressed into a posthumous fame; how much she desired that fame must be sorted out. Hasn't anyone rummaged through the Killigrew and Coleraine papers by now? I don't see that they have (archival excavation must be next). She is one of the least examined of early women poets, so we are grateful for this spectacular essay and its attention to the new edition. Maureen, Harold Love's anthology of Restoration verse (Penguin) ignores several women writers, including Killigrew; and in the excellent anthology, Reading Early Modern Women (Routledge), from Helen Ostovich and Elizabeth Sauer (a brilliant gathering of illustrated 'pages'), Killigrew is under-represented with just one short, but informative, piece on her self-portrait, by Robert Evans. So it's high time that Anne Killigrew receive a new, 21st-century 'face'. Maureen's essay will advance the interests of Killigrew, the new edition, and the Other Voice series from Toronto. Thanks, also, for good information on recent book valuations for Killigrew, plus all the (necessary) images and caption notes. And I like the contexts on book history, book arts, and textual editing (and news of the book's errata). This is a significant essay, not least for its comments on the imperatives of modern scholarly editions. May it be appreciated and widely read. (A price above rubies, Maureen.) ///
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Posted On: 2016-10-08 18:17
User Name: alice185

Many thanks to Rare Book Hub and Maureen Mulvihill. An outstanding essay on Killigrew, which raises good questions about her biography and about the nature of fame for early modern women writers; extrinsic factors such as early death, social class, or activity in multiple artistic or intellectual fields could be powerful drivers of reputation. Thanks also for the comments on the nature of editing, and on the appreciation of the materiality of the original edition. Looking forward to the other essays in the series.
Alice Browne
http://blog.historians.org/2015/05/aha-member-spotlight-alice-browne/

Posted On: 2016-10-11 15:17
User Name: heldridge

Loved this piece, and the images. I'm thankful that Killigrew is getting this attention and that more is surfacing on her brief but impactful life.
D. Heldridge
Collector
San Francisco

Posted On: 2016-10-13 03:20
User Name: mairin111

Anne Killigrew & Jonathan Swift.
We are grateful to Hermann Real, co-director, Ehrenpreis Centre for Swift Studies, Münster, Germany, who, having seen my Killigrew essay, alerted me to Swift's interest in Killigrew, evidently, and the (documentable) fact that Swift's library included a copy of Killigrew's poetry-book of 1686. Many thanks to Dr Real for this important information. He also has requested an inscribed color copy of my Killigrew essay for his Archives at the Swift Centre in Germany. Interestingly, the Swift-Killigrew connection is not mentioned in three (3) recent books on Swift, by Damrosch, Mahony, and Glendinning; nor in 3 editions, to date, of Killigrew's poetry, from Morton, Hoffmann, and Ezell. So an interesting new connection for scholars to investigate. Maureen E. Mulvihill.

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Posted On: 2016-10-13 13:28
User Name: igrundy

It's great to see this kind of detailed scrutiny applied both to the work of an early modern poet and to scholarly treatments of her. Why did Anne Killigrew achieve an immediate posthumous fame which, remarkably, she has succeeded in holding onto? Other girl-poets untimely dead, whose grieving relatives printed their poems, like Grace Gethin and Mary Monck, achieved no such reputation. I'd like to think the reason is the quality of Killigrew's writing. Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles (which we are happy to see cited here) calls her "a poet of power and originality." And her painting! Thanks to Maureen Mulvihill for showing us her "Venus Attired by the Graces". This may be an apprentice work, but it is beautiful and striking. If it lived in London instead of at Falmouth in Cornwall it would surely by now grace the covers of several paperback books! And thanks for uncovering the fact that Swift owned a copy of Killigrew's poems. Now, did he buy it or did someone give it to him? And who? The trouble with scholars is that they're never satisfied. Along with the message of thanks comes the message, Give us more!

Rare Book Monthly

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