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Signed book from the personal library of Beatrix Potter: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. Later printing ("A New Edition with Four Illustrations"). London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1874. Hardcover, 5.5 x 7.75, 592 pages. Signed on the first free end page in black ink with her ownership signature, "H. B. Potter, Hill Top Farm, Sawrey." Autographic condition: fine. Book condition: G+/None, with minor edgewear, and the frontispiece, title page, and table of contents detached but present; the binding is otherwise sound.
Elizabeth Gaskell, who published her first novel in 1848 and who wrote the biography of Charlotte Brontë at Patrick Brontë's request, was a versatile and innovative storyteller whose works addressed the rapid societal changes that occurred throughout her lifetime. Gaskell died suddenly of a heart attack in 1865, the year before Beatrix Potter was born. Gaskell's husband, William Gaskell, was a close friend of Beatrix's father, Rupert Potter, with whom he shared interests in both the Unitarian faith and Liberal politics. Beatrix Potter developed a close relationship with William Gaskell in her youth.
‘For the whole of the 1870s, Beatrix spent her summer holidays at Dalguise in Scotland with her family, and their party included many friends of her father who enjoyed the Scottish countryside…[including] William Gaskell. For Christmas 1874, when she was eight, Beatrix knitted William Gaskell a scarf as a present, and he sent her a charming note of thanks: 'Big as I am, I know I could not have done one tenth as well. Every time I put it round my neck – which during this weather will be every day – I shall be sure to think of you.'
Beatrix was eighteen when William Gaskell died in 1884, and in her journal on June 12, she recorded her deep affection for him: 'Dear old man, he has had a very peaceful end. If ever anyone led a blameless, peaceful life, it was he. Another old friend has gone to rest. How few are left. There has always been a deep child-like affection between him and me. The memory of it is one of the past lights bound up with the old home.’
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