The Mental Magazine: or, Young Lady’s Repository of Arts and Sciences.
Dublin: A Stewart, 1801. First edition. The present work “was first intended for the instruction of young ladies [the author] had the honor to educate. The questions on scripture, astronomy, heathen mythology, and heraldry, are all taken from the best authors; and an attempt made by some alterations, to reduce the language to the level of youthful capacities…[Y]oung minds receive stronger impressions of instructions, conveyed under the semblance of amusement, than from the most serious precepts,” (preface). The work, which is staged as a conversation between a young pupil and a teacher, also covers geography, classical Greek and Roman history, European history, law, and government. Frontispiece. With an epigraph by Hannah More on title-page. Wear to extremities and chipping to head of spine. Contemporary ink signature (Elizabeth Catherine Shaw) to front flyleaf. A child’s pencil scribbles to preliminary blanks. Foxing and toning, mostly to first and last few leaves. A good copy of a rare educational work. Contemporary quarter red calf over marbled boards. Twelvemo. iv, 186 pp. Item #17500
We could not locate much information about Sarah Ashe in the sources available to us, including dates. The preface to the present work notes that she intended to publish a history of Rome, but The Mental Magazine appears to be her only published work.
OCLC records only one copy (National Library of Ireland).
Price: $950.00