Item #2358 [FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana. SOR JUANA Ines de la Cruz.
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana
First edition of the first Feminist Manifesto written in the New World

[FIRST FEMINIST MANIFESTO OF THE NEW WORLD, 1700]. Fama y Obras Posthumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana

Madrid: Ruiz de Murga, 1700. First Edition. Small 4to (204 x 146 mm). Bound in contemporary Spanish sprinkled calf, red spine label (extremities somewhat rubbed but perfectly sound). 71 ff. including title-page printed in red and black + 210 pp. + 3 ff. Signatures: [pi]² [par.]⁴ 2[par.]⁴ 2[par.]⁴ 3[par.]⁴ 4[par.]⁴ 5[par.]⁴ 6[par.]⁴ a-c⁴ 7[par.]⁴ 8[par.]⁴ 9[par.]⁴ 10[par.]⁴ *⁴ 2*⁴ 3*⁴ 4*⁴ (+ 1 f. Advertensia, as in the Princeton copy) A-Z⁴ Aa-Dd⁴. (H2 wrongly signed "H3"). Title in red and black; initials; head and tail pieces. The engraved portrait of Sor Juana is here present in facsimile on old paper, OTHERWISE COMPLETE. Faint waterstaining to pp. 121-160 in outer fore-margin (not objectionable), the paper stock strong and clean. Preserved in a protective blue cloth case, leather label. Item #2358

FIRST EDITION of "the first statement in this hemisphere to argue a woman's right to study and teach and learn." (Peden / Stavans). This is, of course, Sor Juana's magisterial and justly celebrated "Respuesta a Sor Filotea" which appears here on pp. 8-60. This highly important proto-feminist treatise had circulated in manuscript for five years before it was published here for the first time in the Posthumous Works of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, who remains one of the most enduring figures of colonial Mexico.

Our copy is certainly the best that has come on the market in the last decade: it is preserved in a contemporary Spanish binding, and the paper stock is fresh, crisp, and unspoiled.

¶ Sor Juana (1651-1695) is one of the greatest Mexican authors, and was a leading literary and intellectual figure not only in Latin America but also in Spain. She has been described by modern scholar Arturo Torres-Ríoseco as "the last great lyric poet of Spain and the first great poet of America." In her own lifetime, she was known as “The Phoenix of Mexico” and "The Tenth Muse" (witness the title-page of the present volume). More recently she has been described as “America's first feminist” (Julie Greer Johnson). Between 1669 and 1690 Sor Juana built one of the largest libraries in the New World, an immense collection which consisted of approximately 4,000 volumes.

¶ Sor Juana was reprimanded in 1690 by the Bishop of Puebla for her “excessive” interest in secular learning. She replied with the incomparable “Respuesta a Sor Filotea,” the celebrated defense of women's right to intellectual freedom and learning. The autobiographical “Respuesta” appears in print for the first time in the present volume (pp. 1-60).

THE “RESPUESTA A SOR FILOTEA”:

¶ Background: in 1690, a letter written by Sor Juana criticizing a well-known Jesuit sermon was published without her permission by someone using the pseudonym “Sor Filotea de la Cruz.” Accompanying Sor Juana’s letter was a letter from “Sor Filotea” (actually the Bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz) criticizing Juana for her comments, and for the lack of serious religious content in her poems. But there was nothing "sisterly" about the Bishop’s message, which urged Sor Juana to give up writing and devote herself entirely to religion.

¶ Sor Juana’s reply was the now famous “Respuesta a Sor Filotea,” a remarkable work in which she gave a complete resumé of her life, character, literary preferences, and of a program of self-mortification that she had been practicing. More significantly, the letter also contained statements in favor of "the culture of Mexican women" and "the right to dissent." Suffice it to say that Sor Juana displayed an independence of spirit that was completely unprecedented for a woman (to say nothing of a Nun) living in male-dominated 17th century Mexico.

¶ As we can expect, Sor Juana’s fervent response was the subject of even more criticism, and the Bishop and others demanded that she give up any non-religious books or studies. She continued to publish non-religious works, among them several “villancicos” (a poetic form typically sung as a religious devotional for feasts of the Catholic calendar) about St. Catharine of Alexandria, written in a more feminist than religious tone. By 1694 she was forced to sell her library, abandon scholarship, and focus on exclusively on charity, which she did. Sor Juana died of typhoid in Mexico City while nursing other nuns who fell victim to the 1695 epidemic.

¶ Juana Ines de la Cruz was born in the State of Nepantla; as her parents were not married, she was placed in the custody of his maternal grandfather. In 1667 she joined the Order of Discalced Carmelites in Mexico City, where she was free to immerse herself in her intellectual and literary interests. She owned a library of about 4,000 books and became a great scholar of literature, philosophy, theology, astronomy, music and painting. She wrote plays, essays and Christmas carols, but is best known for her lyric poetry, and of course the “Respuesta.”

¶ The high esteem in which Sor Juana was held is reflected in the "Panegíricos" dedicated to her by poets from Spain and New Spain. The preliminary texts contain sonnets in praise of Sor Juana ("Phoenix of America"), "Decimas," Acrostics, and other poetic compositions written by 42 different poets. These tributes were collected by Juan Ignacio de Castorena y Ursúa, and here published for the first time (five years after Sor Juana's death) in the present volume. Castorena, the rector of the University of Mexico and bishop of Yucatan, was a fervent supporter of Sor Juana. In this volume, he included several previously unpublished documents, notably the "Protesta de la fe" (p. 125) and of course the "Respuesta a Sor Filotea." In addition, this volume contains - for the first time in print - the second most important source for our understanding of Sor Juana's life, namely the biographical narrative written by the Jesuit priest, Diego Calleja (see preliminary text leaves 2[para]2 - 4[para]4). While Octavio Paz claims that Calleja’s work suffers from an emphasis on supernatural signs, or, "legend contaminating history, Christian marvel dissolving prosaic reality,” its significance cannot be under estimated.

¶ Not all copies of the first edition contain the engraved portrait of the author, e.g. the copies at the Beinecke Library Yale and the British Museum. The latter copy was acquired in 1872, and came from the library of Joachim Gomez de la Cortina, Marquis de Morante (1808-1868), a provenance of the greatest distinction ("Catalogus librorum doctoris D. Joach. Gomez de la Cortina, March. de Morante," Madrid, 1854, lot 1824). Nonetheless, the present copy contains a good facsimile of the portrait, printed on old paper, which is bound following the title-page.

¶ Rare in commerce: the Rare Book Hub database, which as of this writing contains more than 12 million records in the Rare Book Transaction History, records only FOUR copies of this first edition that have ever been offered at auction, including the one we bought and immediately sold to a North American institution in 2022. It was preceded by that which sold at Swann in 2021 (disbound and re-inserted into vellum binding from a completely different book, nonetheless realizing $81,250 including buyer's premium). Fifty-two years earlier, in 1969, a copy sold at Christie's New York (lacking the portrait). The only other copy we have been able to trace at auction was in the Charles Burr Todd copy which was sold in 1910 by Merwin Clayton Sales Company (lacking the portrait). NB: The "Fama y Obras Posthumas" (vol. 3 in the collected works of Sor Juana's writings) that appeared at Swann in 2021 was the NOT the 1700 First Edition but the Barcelona 1701 second edition; nonetheless the set realized $50,000 including buyer's premium, even though vol. 2 lacked one leaf. We bought the present copy in 2017 and (once again) sold it immediately, this time to a private collector from whom we bought it back, and offer it by means of the present catalogue.

¶ References: Alden & Landis, European Americana no. 700/149. Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana no. 2013. Sabin 36815. JCB (1675-1700) 416, Henriquez Urena, "Bibliografia de sor Juana Ines de la Cruz" in: Revue hispanique, XL (1917), pp. 161-214, no. 30. Sabin 36814 (does not mention the portrait). Peden / Stavans (ed.). “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Poems, Protest, and a Dream. Selected Writings.” Translated with notes by Margaret Sayers Peden; Introduction by Ilan Stavans (1997, p. v). See also Julie Greer Johnson, The Book in the Americas (John Carter Brown Library exhibition, 1988). International Dictionary of Women's Biography, p. 249. Octavio Paz, Sor Juana or, The Traps of Faith (trans. Margaret Sayers Peden, 1988, p. 64).

Price: $48,000.00

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