"Paradise of Dainty Devices" Mlle. Ruel's School

May 11, 2022

Rare Books Documents Photos and Artwork

Lot 157

"Paradise of Dainty Devices" Mlle. Ruel's School

Estimate: $80 - $120

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Sale #9 248

Rhetoric Class of ’94, Mlle. Ruel’s School, NYC. “A Paradise of Dainty Devices,” by the Rhetoric Class of ’94…. L.C. Baker, Professor of Rhetoric. [New York City: printed by G.H. Dickson’s Sons & Co., for] Mademosielle Ruel’s School, 26 East 56th Street, [undated but 1894?]. Square octavo (7 3/8 x 5 3/4in; 187 x 146mm). Pp. [1-]6-105[-106,] I-III[-IV]. Original red cloth, covers blocked in gilt, patterned endpapers, gilt edges (staining to upper cover, spine slightly soiled, front inner hinge cracked).

Very rare – Brown University have a copy, otherwise unrecorded. A mixture of short prose pieces and verse, internal evidence suggests that there were just eight members of Professor Baker’s rhetoric class: examples of the work of each are published here using ‘nom-de-plumes’. Included are some quite revealing poetic sketches of the classmates are amongst the entries: ‘Boston’ by ‘Van Flic’ (‘A Psyche knot adorns the head / Where burns poetic flame…’), ‘Pshaw’ by ‘Boston (‘A sunny face, / A winning grace, / A head that curls entwine…’), etc. Their classmates: Dido, Meredith, Vernon, Donovan and Hooker. The title is ‘borrowed’ from a popular Elizabethan anthology of verse, first published in 1576. OCLC 21732601.

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