[HOWE, Julia Ward] RICHARDS, Laura and ELLIOTT, Maud Howe — JULIA WARD HOWE 1819 - 1910

Boston & New York. Houghton Mifflin Company. First Edition. Two volumes in original cloth-backed boards with gilt-lettered leather spine labels. Copy #236 of 450 copies of the Large-Paper Edition with a leaf of Howe's unsigned AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT tipped in by the publisher, this example with 22 lines of over 100 words, apparently the first page of a speech she was giving to women on the subject of women's suffrage. In part: "But, when I am here to ask for justice to all the women of our community.... They are not afraid of us, but of their sex in general." Illustrated with plates and portraits, including a facsimile manuscript of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Owner's inscriptions on both front endpapers: "Elizabeth Walker Pontefract/from/Jean Charters Pontefract/June 1916." The Pontefracts were related to the Childs and Howe families by marriage; Thomas Marshall Howe, one of Pittsburgh's leading citizens of the late 19th century, was a distant cousin of Julia Ward Howe. Winner of the 1917 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Manuscript pages by Howe concerning women's rights are quite desirable.. Spine labels a bit dried and with some cracking; light wear and darkening to the covers. About Very Good, lacking the dustwrappers and slipcase