Welcome to this second installment in my three-part essay series on new editions of 17th-century women writers. This second essay discusses Alice Eardley's edition (2014) of an unusual, uncanonical literary manuscript attributed to Lady Hester Pulter of Broadfield Hall, Hertfordshire. The Pulter manuscript is a bound book (8" x 5") of 168 inscribed folios ~ poetry, "emblemes" (emblem poems), and an unfinished prose narrative on sexual violence. The book was acquired by Leeds University Library in 1975 at Christie's sale of the property of Sir Gilbert Inglefield, architect and Lord Mayor of London (1967-1968). But due to a cataloguing error, the book languished, unused and unappreciated, for two decades; it was saved from obscurity by an alert scholar in 1996. Since its recent discovery, Pulter's book has excited much attention from book historians and literary specialists. Calling herself "the nobel Hadassas" (Hebrew, "Esther"; variant, "Hester"), Pulter writes in a domestic vein as a mother of fifteen children; she also writes as an ardent Stuart royalist. But the best of her work exists in a wholly different dimension, as when she explores the astral plane of comets, planets, and (yes) extraterrestrials ("Mee thinks I play at football withe the stars"). It was this thrilling attachment to other worlds and meta-realities (the New Astronomy) which evidently saved Hester Pulter from debilitating depression. This essay will also discuss Eardley's editorial methodology and challenges as she transferred a dedicated body of writings from the manuscript medium into quite another: print. A Gallery of Images is included. Displayed here, alongside the top board of Pulter's book, is a contemporary woodcut of the curious Su creature of Patagonia, praised in Pulter's ["Poem 57"]. < Click here for essay. >
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![<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/148a7ca4-9746-44c9-a75e-86229b6f10d2.png "<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.")
![<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/863855a8-4b41-4512-b168-a4a3eab5d6a6.png "<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.")
Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
17th July 2025Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.Forum Auctions
Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
17th July 2025Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000. -
Sotheby’s
Geek Week
2-17 July | New YorkSotheby’s, July 17: Album Containing Four Signed Photographs of Albert Einstein, With Eleven Additional Einstein Photographs, From His Journey to Japan Aboard the S.S. Kitano Maru, 1922. $20,000 to $30,000.Sotheby’s, July 17: Fred Freeman. Illustration of the Channel Tunnel’s British Portal (Presumably at Folkestone), ca. 1958. $5,000 to $7,000.Sotheby’s, July 17: Wolfgang Kurt Hermann Panofsky Group of Awards. Pief Panofsky's 1961 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, National Medal of Science, Enrico Fermi Award, and Others. $8,000 to $12,000.Sotheby’s, July 17: Seymour Cray; Cray-3. Manuscript Cray-3 Logbook, 1989-90. — The Only Significant Cray Manuscript to Come to Auction. $20,000 to $30,000.Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.