Ashgrove Farm, or a Place for Everyone

Undated but circa 1875 (and definitely not the first edition of 1866, which was illustrated). 160, 32pp.  Brown decorated cloth with small pictorial onlay, gilt decorations to spine.  All edges gilt.  Waxed endpapers. 16mo.  Boards are heavily worn and darkened, rubbed all round edges, scuffed and marked.  Presentation inscription, dated 1881, on front free endpaper.  Endpapers marked and spotted. Final page of publisher's catalogue torn away over top corner.  Some spotting and minor marks throughout.  Heavily shaken but holding. A didactic work regarding community life on a rural farm for younger readers, once popular but now very hard to find in its original editions.  C E B was Charlotte Elizabeth Bowen (1817-1890), the wide of the long-time rector of St Mary's in Chester.  She began writing for children in the 1850s.  Ashgrove Farm was her fourth children's fiction boom. Her 22nd and last novel was Battle and Victory: The Story of a Painter's Life, published in 1882.