Female Pipings in Eden

(n. p.): Peter Davies Limited, 1933. First edition. 8-3/4 inches x 6 inches. viii,296pp + frontispiece. Orange cloth stamped in gilt to spine, dark orange top stain, in cream dust jacket printed in black with orange border. Light bumping to spine ends and corners; spine gently cocked; slight gutter break between pp 208 and 209 and between pp 256 and 257; minor occasional foxing. The scarce dust jacket in remarkably nice condition, with only light toning and bumping to ends of spine panel; light soiling and rubbing. Original "8/6" price to front flap. Very Good. Very Good dust jacket.

The uncommon first edition of this book, which was withdrawn from circulation in February 1934 after complaints by Christabel Pankhurst that private letters from her deceased mother, women's suffrage leader Emmeline Pankhurst, to Smyth were printed without the family's permission. Christabel then gifted the copyright of the letters to Smyth, and the book reissued the same year with a different dust jacket and a printed explanation and public apology by Smyth.

Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was a composer of a variety of musical formats, ranging from works for piano to orchestral works and operas, and was the first woman musical composer to be awarded a knighthood by a British monarch. Combative, independent, and bisexual, she struggled against the prejudices facing women in her field, with critical reception of her works often either deeming them too masculine and forceful for a woman, or, if delicate and "ladylike," not as adept as similar works by her male counterparts. In 1910 she saw Emmeline Pankhurst give a speech on women's suffrage and enthusiastically joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), eventually serving two months in Holloway Prison for her involvement in a militant WSPU action to throw stones at and break the windows of the homes of politicians who opposed women's suffrage. Smyth's work in the suffrage movement also provided her the political perspective to reframe the opposition she faced from men for being a "woman composer" and see it for the entrenched political and social problem it was, which she hoped the attainment of women's suffrage would go some way towards ameliorating.

Scarce in commerce, particularly in the dust jacket.