Letters addressed to a Young Man on His First Entrance into Life

London: Printed by A. Strahan, Printers-Street for T.N. Longman & O. Rees, 1803. Third Edition. 3 vols. 12mo. Bound in contemporary tree calf with gilt ruled spines, red morocco spine labels; scuffed, joints & extremities rubbed. Joints starting to separate. Third Edition. 3 vols. 12mo. Jane West (1758-1852), poet, novelist, and miscellaneous writer, did not let her belief that a woman’s first duty is to home and hearth and husband deter her from a tremendously fecund career as a writer. According to Jane Todd, “three novels, published in the 1790s, convey the message that women should stifle their feelings in the interests of duty…” and that “her career continued into the 19th century with two conduct books, LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN and TO A YOUNG LADY (1806), five more novels, another long poem, a children’s story, a translation, and a volume of scriptural essays…The British Critic’s commendation of her second novel is typical of the praise given her by contemporaries: ‘Genius is here employed in its proper station, namely, in the defence of virtue.’” — Todd, p. 320. CBEL III 772