Women's Education: Argentina. Cartas sobre la Educación del Bello Sexo.
London: [Printed by Charles Wood] for Rudolph Ackermann, 1824.
Second edition, octavo, Palau identifies the author, referred to as "una señora americana" on the title page, as José Joaquín de Mora (1783-1864); engraved title page; single leaf of publisher's ads at the end, advertising other didactic works and other titles by Mora; bound in contemporary half red morocco and marbled paper boards, worn, 6 3/4 x 4 1/4 in.
"Mora, a Spanish liberal, was a versatile literary figure. Possessing boundless energy, wherever he travelled he founded and edited newspapers and journals, established schools, translated foreign works, wrote textbooks in several disciplines, composed poetry and drama, taught and somehow found time to dispute politics. Because of his extreme liberal position, he fled Spain in 1823 to avoid the repression of Ferdinand VII. After the fall of Bernardino Rivadavia, who first called him to South America in 1827, he lost the patronage of the Buenos Aires government, and he was also driven from Chile (where he had written the liberal constitution of 1828) following the conservative victory in 1830. In 1834 he was invited to journey to Bolivia from Peru. There, in addition to his customary spate of activities, he became secretary to General Andrés Santa Cruz, who was then in the midst of forming the Peru-Bolivian Confederation." (Quoted from Duke University's Hispanic American Historical Review's 1969 review of Jose de Mesa's biography of Mora.)
Ackermann, the publisher, dedicates this work to the Sociedad de Beneficencia de Buenos Aires, created by Argentinian president Bernardino Rivadavia in 1823, in an effort to shift the social work provided by the catholic church to the newly formed Argentine state. Founding members include influential female socialites and patriots Mercedes de Lasala de Riglos, Mariquita Sánchez, and other women interested in improving schools for girls and establishing safe hospitals and orphanages.
Rare, Worldcat locates eight copies; rare at auction.
