We continue our report on how we spent the $10,000 gift we received from the Woman’s Educational Society, celebrating several works of literature by women authors. (More in the next post.)

Charlotte Brontë (publishing as Currer Bell). Shirley. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1849. First edition. “Triple decker” (three volume set), beautifully re-bound in half leather.

bell hooks. And There We Wept. Los Angeles: Published by Gloria Watkins / Golemics, 1978. This unpaginated poetry chapbook is bell hooks’s first book. Her next book, Ain’t I a Woman, addresses problems of race and class within feminism.

Ann Radcliffe. The Mysteries of Udolpho: A Romance. London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1794. Second edition, in four volumes. (This second edition appeared the same year as the first.) Bound in half-calf over marbled boards. Radcliffe is widely considered to be the mother of the Gothic novel, and Jane Austen references Udolpho repeatedly in her Gothic satire, Northanger Abbey.

Alice Walker. The Color Purple. Illustrated by Brad Teare. Norwalk, Connecticut: Easton Press, 2000. Originally published in 1982, Walker’s novel has been made into a film, a Broadway musical, and this “collector’s edition,” part of the subscription series “Great Books of the 20th Century.” We look forward to comparing this edition (green with gilt) with the first edition (in jacket).

The Moss Rose. New York: Leavitt & Allen, [ca. 1855]. Gift book containing Mary Shelley’s “Sisters of Albano” along with stories and poems by many other women authors. Decorative binding, all edges gilt.