This calf-bound copy of Part of Lucian Made English from the Originall, translated by Jasper Mayne, contains several inscriptions from the same female owner. The first—”Elizabeth Mallory Her Booke (1694)”—is written upside-down on the frontispiece verso. The rear recto flyleaf has a similar inscription, and a third inscription reads “Eliz: Welles Her Booke” in what appears to be the same hand. Beneath, Elizabeth has written a line of verse: “One minnit gives Invention to Destroey / Whatt to Rebuild would A whole Age Imploy.” Says bookseller Charlie Unsworth, “This comes from William Congreve’s play The Double-Dealer, which was first produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in November or December of 1693 and first appeared in print the following year.” Congreve’s play was reprinted in over a dozen editions between 1694 and 1791, so it would be interesting to see if any of the surviving copies have Welles’s inscription!
The book also contains the early inscriptions of Thomas Hartopp and Ralph Welles, and the bookplate of Charles Whibley (1859–1930), a writer and acquaintance of T.S. Eliot.
Source: Book offered for sale on AbeBooks by Unsworth’s Antiquarian Booksellers, 12/13/2018. Images used with permission.
Early Modern Female Book Ownership 