WOMAN IN SACRED HISTORY: A Series of Sketches Drawn from Scriptural, Historical, and Legendary Sources

New York: J.B. Ford and Company, 1873. Hardcover. Very good. Stowe's sketches of the women in sacred history illustrate her ability to blend her own distinctively female reading of the text with insights and resources traditionally associated with the male world of the academy and church. By combining these approaches, she produces readings that sometimes challenge traditional interpretations of texts and women's roles and often encourage readers in their spiritual lives" (Marion Ann Taylor, Recovering Nineteenth-Century Women Interpreters of the Bible). Quarto: 400 p. with 25 chromolithographs after paintings by Raphael, Batoni, Horace Vernet, Goodall, Landelle, Koehler, Portaels, Vernet-Lecomte, Baader, Merle, Boulanger, and others, printed in Monrocq, from stones executed by Jehenne, Paris. Full brown morocco binding, with elaborate gilt and blind stamping, four raised bands, and decorative endpapers. The tissue guards opposite five of the chromolithographs are damaged, with a small amount of the tissue adhered to the extremities of the plate. Faint stain to the very bottom edge of the last few leaves. Period ink gift inscription and a pair of ink chop stamps to a prefatory blank leaf. The leather is a little rubbed in places; otherwise very good.