Investigation; or, Travels in the Boudoir

London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1837 Second edition, presentation copy.. Original green, blindstamped cloth. Gilt lettered spine, all edges gilt. . Twelvemo. Hand-colored engraved frontispiece, engraved vignette title-page, and eleven wood-engraved or steel engraved plates. Some wear and soiling to cloth. Sunning to spine. Bird of paradise engraving frontispiece. Light foxing on some plates. Plates throughout include tissue guards. Inscribed by the author to a friend, Mrs. John Shepard, in 1843. Autograph letter signed to the same recipient tipped onto the back end paper. Later owner's inscription, dated 1964. A very good copy. Caroline Amelia Halsted (1803/4-1848) was a historian and author. Her first book was The Little Botanist, or Steps to the Attainment of Botanical Knowledge (1835). She won the Greshman commemoration prize in 1839 for her biographical work Life of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII. It was also reviewed favorably in Gentleman's Magazine, in which she was deemed a "worthy successor to Lucy Aikin." Her most significant work was Life of Richard III (2 volumes, 1844), an impassioned defense of the last Plantagenet king. Halsted's Investigation; or, Travels in the Boudoir is an "unusual textbook" in which a girl and her mother take a domestic "grand tour" of their living room in order to learn about the origins and nature of everyday objects (Oxford DNB). In the Preface, Halsted writes, "[Investigation's] chief design...is to prove to young persons of active imaginations, that happiness and knowledge depend not...on a foreign tour; but that much valuable information may be obtained in...their own homes... (Inventory #: 17812)