How it Feels to be the Husband of a Suffragette. By Him. Illustrations by May Wilson Preston.
New York: George H. Doran Company, [1915]. First edition. The copyright dates given in the present work are 1914, by the Ridgway Company, and 1915, by George H. Doran Company. However, the Ridgway Company never actually published this work and there are no earlier editions before the present Doran edition. With five full-page illustrations and one half-page illustration. Some rubbing to lettering and onlay. Otherwise, a fine, bright copy of a book that is scarce in commerce. Publisher’s tan paper-covered boards with white lettering and pictorial paper onlay. Octavo. 63 pp. Item #17515
The present work takes a tongue-in-cheek but ultimately sympathetic view of the suffrage movement, including militant suffragists, and highlights the positive aspects of being married to a suffragist. The author also takes a measured by ultimately positive approach to Emmeline Pankhurst: “She’s a bit trying at times, isn’t she? But, after all, she probably hasn’t been in jail any oftener than Saint Peter, and possibly no more than John Bunyan. I once had the pleasure of sitting at dinner in her company…through it all ran an undercurrent that here might be one of the great women of history, brooding over her life-work,” (p. 55).
May Wilson Preston (1873 – 1949) was a magazine illustrator; suffragist; impressionist painter; and one of the founders of the Woman’s Art Club, the first women’s fine art organization in the United States. Preston rose to prominence as one of the leading magazine illustrators in the United States after training under James Whistler and William Merritt Chase, and went on to illustrate two stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was also the first woman member of the Society of Illustrators. We could not locate any information about the author of this work.
Price: $600.00