Lot 229: [EVELYN, MARY.]

Mundus Muliebris: or the Ladies Dressing-Room unlock'd, and her toilette spread. In Burlesque. Together With the Fop-Dictionary, Compiled for the Use of the Fair Sex. For R. Bentley, 1690

4to, first edition, first issue, with the final blank, modern three quarter morocco, marbled boads and endpapers, pencil note "Aiken" on rear endpaper, flaw to B1 (missing small portion of lower margin and small piece at head, not affecting text)

Wing E3521; Keynes Evelyn 99

scarce.

John Evelyn's eldest daughter Mary died of small-pox at the early age of nineteen in 1685. In his diary entry from the time Evelyn recorded his grief at her passing, and gave a moving account of her virtues, intelligence and learning: "...she could compose happily, and put in pretty symbols, as in the Mundus Muliebris, wherein is an enumeration of the immense variety of the modes and ornaments belonging to the sex; but all these are vaine trifles to the virtues which adorn'd her soule". Five years after her death Mundus Muliebris was published by Richard Bentley in the present form. The preface is thought to be by her father. There are two distinct issues of the first edition, this being the first, without the hyphen after Covent in the penultimate line of the title, and without the minor corrections in reset sections A and B (see Geoffrey Keynes, John Evelyn. A Study in Bibliophily & Bibliography of his Writings).