A Social Departure: How Orthodocia and I Went Around The World by Ourselves [In the Rare Dust Jacket]

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1893. Authorized Edition. Hardcover. Fine/very good. A Remarkable, About Fine, copy of this early "authorized edition" in the Publisher's original light green cloth with the front board and spine lettered in gilt and decorated in gilt and red (some pushing and rubbing to the spine ends, the board corners lightly rubbed, prior owner's note in pencil to the otherwise blank second front free endpaper) with 111 Illustrations by F. H. Townsend, in a Very Good example of the RARE NINETEENTH CENTURY DUST JACKET with the front and spine panels lettered and decorated in blue (showing some small chips and tears and with a full split at the front spine fold); Sara Jeannette Duncan's DEBUT BOOK -- which also was her most popular -- telling of her world travels with her friend, the Montreal journalist Lily Lewis. Such travel by women without male accompaniment was quite unconventional but Duncan, who was a whole-hearted feminist, embarked on the trip without any qualms and with the purpose of gathering material for a book. To help earn their own livings, both women filed stories with the Montreal Star newspaper during their travels. The book became greatly popular and the trip led to Duncan's marriage to Anglo-Indian civil servant Everard Charles Cotes who she met in India and who proposed to her at the Taj Mahal. Interestingly, the book contains the first description of the city of Vancouver to be found anywhere in fiction, and, according to her biographer, the Canadian literature expert and literary theorist Misao Dean, the book "relies on the strengths of Duncan's journalism close observation, description of manners, and wry humour while transforming the narrator's traveling companion from the sophisticated Lewis into a naive and romantic English girl." Perhaps it also be of interest to the reader to consider the book's title seems to itself indicate an assertion of feminism as Duncan and Lewis in conducting their trip as two women without male companions, thus departing from societal norms. A Near Fine to Fine copy in the RARE NINETEENTH CENTURY DUST JACKET which gives this copy additional merit.