1898. 8vo, pp. [xiv] ‘Commendations from Eminent persons’ and advertisement, [ii] portrait of the authoress (retaining tissue guard), [iii]-264, [18] advertisements, [2] blank; first leaf adhered to front endpaper with 4cm vertical tear at lower margin, portraits printed on differing paper stock and all somewhat browned and stained, with further light browned and foxing throughout, some corners turned down; original plum publisher’s cloth, upper cover lettered in blind, spine lettered in gilt, head and tail of spine bumped and worn, surfaces scuffed and lightly soiled, joints and extremities rubbed and lightly worn. First edition, seemingly later variant issue, of this popular advice manual, the work of the noted educationalist and social reformer Mary Wood-Allen, and published as part of the ‘Self and Sex Series’ commissioned by Sylvanus Stall (1847-1915), the proprietor of the Vir Publishing Company, and who authored a number of volumes in the series aimed at a male readership.
‘Its Self and Sex series commenced publication in 1897 and included not only Stall’s several contributions to this genre, but the works of such authors as Emma Drake, Mrs. Adolphe Hoffman, Frederick A. Rupp, Hans Wegener and Mary Wood-Allen’ (Atwater 3312).
‘Wood-Allen divides her treatise into three parts. The first is devoted to topics typical of women’s physiologies of the 19th century, i.e., food, sleep, “tight clothing,” exercise, bathing, etc. Part II is devoted to the diseases of women, e.g., those arising from the “artificialities of civilized life”, menstruation disorders, the “solitary vice,”, poor posture, etc. Part III discusses love, courtship, “the gospel of heredity”, etc. What a young woman ought to know is the companion volume to Slyvanus Stall’s What a young man ought to know’ (Atwater 3859).
In her work ‘The diseases of virgins: green sickness, chlorosis and the problems of puberty’, Helen King highlights one particular area of concern for the social purity movement - that of dancing. Wood-Allen notes that it is ‘a pleasant and graceful exercise’ (p. 187), but that it should be done only in the correct social locations and circumstances. ‘If dancing could be conducted in the daytime, out of doors, among well-known home friends and companions, in proper dress, and with no round dances, there would be much to commend, and little to condemn’ (p. 74).
In the present issue, which has a variant half-title, the work begins with a series of commendations for the work by leading social reformers, most accompanied by a portrait. Of the 10 figures cited, eight are leading female commentators: Lady Henry Somerset; Mrs Laura Ormiston Chant; Mrs May Wright Sewall; Mrs Mary Lowe Dickinson; Mrs Matilda B. Carse; Mrs Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Mrs Helen Campbell; and Mrs Lillian M. N. Stevens, together with the Rev. F. B. Meyer and Charles N. Crittenton. Further testimony is given by Margaret Warner Morley and Elisabeth Robinson Scovil. The present issue includes additional advertisements at the end of the work.