Essays on social topics

Westminster: The Roxburghe Press, n.d.. Hardcover. 126p. hardcover, very good, frontispiece portraits of the author and her husband, boards still bright. Claflin, the sister of Victoria Woodhull, started as a medium and quack healer, but with the backing of Cornelius Vanderbilt, she and her sister opened the first woman-run stock brokerage on Wall Street in 1870. They published a newspaper (Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly) that promoted women's equality and dove into sensitive topics; after publishing accusations of infidelity against the famous preacher Henry Ward Beecher, the ensuing legal troubles led the sisters to leave for England in 1877. In 1885 Claflin married Francis Cook, the Viscount of Monserrate, and soon took the title of Lady Cook. This book is dedicated to her husband, mentioning his support in the present tense, which suggests that it was published before his 1901 death. This collection of essays addresses such topics as the "ideal woman," moral issues in marriage, free love, and other topics of particular relevance to women. Several editions of her collected essays are known, of uncertain priority. NAW 652-655p; Hymowitz & Weissman, 164-168p.