Pages inédites sur la femme et la guerre. Livre d'or dédié avec sa permission à Sa Majesté la reine Alexandra ... au profit des orphelins de la guerre en France by Various Authors (see the description). Mary MELLOR, editor - 1916

Working Women of WWI / Queen Alexandra:

[New Pages on Women and War; Livre D'or Dedicated with Her Permission to Her Majesty Queen Alexandra ... For the Benefit Of War Orphans In France]

Large 4°. [4 pp.] blank, original front wrapper with black gold and silver lettering and ornaments, 211 pp. printed text and facsimiles of manuscripts, with one page with hand-coloured stenciled roses, [4 pp.], original back wrapper, [4 pp.] blank, illustrated frontispiece with guards, interleaved portrait if queen Alexandra with hand-coloured stenciled roses in margins, with guards, interleaved 31 bland and white and colour mounted images with guards. Red crushed Morocco with gilt debossed monograms and royal insignia, spine with raised bands and gilt decoration and lettering, portrait of queen Alexandra on front doublure, Moiré ("watered") silk free endpapers, 7 dark red silk loops attached to various chapters, gilt edges. Original signature and number by the editor on the bottom of the second page.

(minor scuffing to the corners of the binding, crack in the upper part of the front joint, silk free endpapers partly detached from the paper with tiny tears, front silk endpaper with light water-staining in the upper part).

A luxurious publication dedicated to the working women of WWI, with contributions by the public figures from all over the world, comes from the library of Alexandra of Denmark, Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress of India, to whom the project is dedicated. Our book is one of the 25 examples printed on the luxury Japanese paper and is signed by the editor Mary Mellor.

This luxurious book with 33 images and texts by 102 authors from all over the world is a result of an ambitious project by Mary Mellor on the women, involved in WWI. The project was made under a patronage of 37 women, mostly with noble titles, and 18 men.

The book is dedicated to queen Alexandra of Denmark (1844-1925), Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress of India from 1901 to 1910. The money from the sale went to a charity for the orphans of the war.

The work was printed in 1000 examples on Rives wove paper and in 25 examples on imperial Japanese paper.

Our example is from the special series of 25 books on Japanese paper. It is hand-numbered with 16 and hand-signed by the editor Mary Mellor on the bottom of the second page. The binding with royal insignia and a portrait suggests, that the example belonged to queen Alexandra's library.

The Authors

For the project the editor Mary Mellior, herself actively involved in the war, addressed dozens of influential authors, artists, diplomats and noblemen and noble women from all over the world to write their short attributions on the subject of the role of the women in the war. The result was this magnificent collage of thoughts, short stories, poems and sheet music by some of most famous personalities of the beginning of the 20th century, which were published as transcriptions or facsimiles of the manuscripts.

The authors, including 30 women and 92 men, who participated their texts for this project in French and English language, came among others from France, England, United States, Canada and Russia.

Among the names, which contributed texts, poems and songs in forms of letters for this book are:

- Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 –1936), an English author,

- Auguste Rodin (1840 –1917), a French sculptor,

- Robert de Montesquiou (1855 – 1921), a French dandy,

- Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859 – 1927), an English author,

- Marcel Prévost (1862 – 1941), a French author

- Pierre Loti (1850 – 1923), a French novelist,

- Robert Baden–Powell (1857 – 1941), the founder of the Scout movement,

- Juliette Adam (1836 – 1936), a French author and feminist,

- Lena Ashwell (1872 – 1957), a British actress, who was first to organize large–scale entertainment for troops,

- Gertrude Atherton (1857 –1948), an American author,

- Mary Mackay (nom de plume Marie Corelli, 1855 – 1924), an English novelist,

- Grace Julia Parker Drummond (1860 – 1942), a Canadian clubwoman and philanthropist,

- Anne–Marie Gleason Huguenin (1875–1943), an Canadian writer, journalist and editor,

- Maria Vérone (1874–1938), a French feminist and suffragist,

- Annie Vivanti (1866 – 1942), a British–born Italian writer,

- Alfred Lévy (1840 –1919), a Chief Rabbi of France immediately before and during World War I,

- Milenko R. Vesnić (1863 – 1921), a Serbian diplomat,

- Henry Jackson van Dyke Jr. (1852 – 1933), an American author and diplomat,

- Paul Adam (1862 – 1920), a French novelist

- and several other female and male authors, actors, opera singers, diplomats etc.

The stenciled hand-made ornaments in the shape of roses on the title page and in the margins of the portrait of queen Alexandra were drafted by Madeleine Lemaire (1845 – 1928), a French painter of genres and flowers. She was called the Empress of the Roses by the French dandy Robert de Montesquiou.

References: OCLC 465033743, 14060232 (some on microfilms), 457625150