The Writings of Nancy Maria Hyde, of Norwich, Conn. Connected with a sketch of her life.
Norwich, CT: Printed by Russell Hubbard, 1816, First and only edition of Sigourney’s second published work. While OCLC lists numerous copies, copies in original boards, uncut, are rare. With dedication poem and ten page subscriber list. Perished spine with cords holding. Front joint cracked. Covers rubbed. Some foxing and toning to text, consistent with 19th century American paper. Ownership inscription on title-page reads “Charles P. Huntington.” (While several Huntingtons appear in the subscriber list, there is no Charles P.) A very good copy. Original printed boards, uncut. Twelvemo. [5], 6-252 pp. Item #18039
Nancy Maria Hyde (1792-1816) was born in Norwich, CT. An early friend of Lydia Huntley — later famous as Lydia Huntley Sigourney — the two young women opened a local school in 1811. When Hyde fell ill in 1814 the school was closed. At the age of twenty-four, she contracted a severe cold and fever and her final days were marked with paroxysms and violent convulsions. Upon Hyde’s death in 1816, Sigourney anonymously published the present work, a collection of Hyde’s writings with the addition of some dedicatory verse, to honor her friend and to support Hyde’s widowed mother.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney was a Connecticut-born poet and educator. Along with her friend Nancy Hyde (1792-1816), she opened schools for young women in both Norwich and Hartford. She was also a lifelong friend of women’s rights activist Emma Willard (1787-1870) and traveled to Europe, meeting Maria Edgeworth, Carlyle, and Wordsworth. Though her conservative husband demanded her early work be published anonymously, his business failures ultimately led her to publish under her own name. Fame and prosperity followed. Some of her best work appears in Poems (1834) and she was hailed by contemporary critics as the “female Milton.” She published (Feminist Companion to Literature in English, pp. 982-983). BAL 17616, Sabin 34125.
Price: $950.00