The Nun of Kenmare: An Autobiography. by Cusack, Sister Mary Francis - 1889

Ireland cmfpc Cusack, Mary Francis Clare, Sister, 1830-1899 (The Nun of Kenmare). The present case of Ireland plainly stated; a plea for my people and my race. Fifth edition. New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1882, 414, lvp, illus, pub ads. Pages are browned and somewhat brittle, dry. The tissue guard for the frontispiece is mostly gone. Overall, not a bad copy. $20.00 Box A 128

London and Dublin: Burns & Co. / M. H. Gill & Son, 1881. First Printing. Hardcover. Good. 8vo, publisher's red cloth gilt, good to very good, light wear to binding, small abrasions along front joint, spine a bit faded, strain line to front inner hinge, contents very good. Uncommon. Sister Mary Francis Cusack and Mother Margaret, "The Nun of Kenmare," was first an Irish Anglican nun, then a Roman Catholic nun, then a religious sister and the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, and then an Anglican (or possibly a Methodist). By 1870 more than 200,000 copies of her works which ranged from biographies of saints to pamphlets on social issues had circulated throughout the world, the proceeds from which went towards victims of the Famine of 1879 and helping to feed the poor. An independent and controversial figure, Cusack was a passionate Irish nationalist, often at odds with the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1881. Hardcover. Very Good. Hardcover ( 5 X 7.5 ) in brown boards with embossed bordering and decorative front cover with gold gilt titles & designs in very good condition, clean tan end papers with rear inner hinge starting, book plate of Vermont Historian Leonard Twinem (Twynham) inside front board, only markings are pencil underline to six titles in the front index , inscription dated 1903 in front, 181 pages

Hodder & Stoughton London 1891. First UK edition. Decorated dark blue cloth, photo portrait frontis, appendix, 403pp. Cloth edge-worn, hinges cracked, cloth bubbled rear panel, binding a little shaken o/w just good. Australian Tax on Low Value Imported Goods (LVIG) exempt.

New York: D. & J. Sadler & Co., No. 31 Barclay Street, 1885. Fine binding in the original full leather blind stamped and decorated in gilt. Covers with original metal protective edges and with metal clasp to secure the book shut. Illustrated with engravings. All edges are bright gilt gauffered with an elaborate repeating design. Old expert rebacking with the original leather spine strip laid down and newer endpapers. A beautiful and handsome binding. Several interesting pieces of related ephemera are loosely laid in. Margaret Anna Cusack (1829 -1899), also known as Sister Mary Francis Cusack and Mother Margaret, was a 19th-century Irish writer, social activist and founder of a religious congregation of women dedicated to peace. She wrote and published over 80 books, articles, musical works, plays and poetry. She organized a famine relief fund that gained her fame as the "Nun of Kenmare." In 1884, she founded a new religious congregation, St. Joseph's Sisters of Peace, whose… Read More