[HAYLEY (William): - A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Essay on Old Maids. By a Friend to the Sisterhood.

London: Printed for T. Cadell..., 1785. FIRST EDITION. 3 volumes. 8vo, 178 x 110 mms. pp. [iii] - xix [xx blank], 261 [262 blank]; [ii], 250; [ii], 255 [256 blank], attractively bound in full contemporary calf, ornate gilt borders on covers, neatly rebaccked with spine richly and ornately gilt in compartments, black leather labels laid down, marbled edges and end-papers; lacks half-titles, some very slight flaws to binding but a very good to near fine set. John Johnson, the editor of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley (1823), records that "Never was a book projected and written with more guileless or more benevolent intentions, yet a host of prudes and hypocrites railed against it, as immoral and irreligious.... Conscious of his pure intentions in composing the essay, he only smiled at the mistake of those rigid ladies who reviled the production as indecent and irreligious; and he exulted in the warm applause of several most accomplished and candid members of the sisterhood, who regarded and extolled it as an elegant and moral performance, that truly deserved, not the censure, but the thanks and the esteem of their society." In their article on William Hayley (1745-1820), the Oxford DNB notes that among his anonymously published works was his "Essay on Old Maids (3 vols., 1785) -- which, although deemed 'indelicate' (Bishop, 90) and affronting many, sold well". The DNB is silent on the connection between William Hayley and the dedicatee of this three-volume treatise: the pioneering woman poet and classical scholar Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), who, unmarried and, at this time, 68 years of age, was herself in the category under discussion.

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