Charlotte Gilman Perkins Family Archive Tops Focus on Women Auction
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Charlotte Gilman Perkins
Swann Galleries’ third iteration of Focus on Women, an auction dedicated to the contributions of women to art, life, and society, brought $361,090, with literature and archives - especially those of Charlotte Perkins Gilman - among the leading items of the sale.
The sale was led by a family archive of photographs and letters of Gilman which included 45 photos of Gilman and a typed draft of the comedic play, A Pretty Idiot written by Gilman and Grace Ellery Channing. The lot brought $60,000. Also related to Gilman was a family association set of The Forerunner, a complete run of seven volumes published from 1909 to 1916, which earned $22,500.
Further archives of note included those once belonging to Fanny Stevenson which documented her travels in the American West and Vailima in Samoa ($25,000), artist Mary Beth Edelson with an archive of working files and correspondence ($7,000), and travel diaries and photo albums from Loretta Belle Tulian Eaton ($5,250).
Top-selling literature included:
- a first edition of Sojourner Truth’s Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave, Boston, 1850 ($20,000)
- Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, London, 1817 ($13,750)
- a first edition of Compendio de la Vida, y virtudes de la venerable Catharina de San Juan, Puebla, Mexico, 1692, which tells the story of Catarina de San Juan ($11,250)
- a first trade edition of Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová’s Z Mého Detství Drevoryt, Prague, 1929, the first graphic novel ever published by a woman ($7,500)
Religious text was on offer with Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible, New York, 1898, signed and inscribed by Stanton ($13,750), and the Bible translated by Julia Evelina Smith into English ($4,750). Smith was the first woman to accomplish this feat. Also of note was Louisa May Alcott’s autograph script for a performance of Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks, dated circa 1867 to 1879 ($4,750).