The American. [Favourite Authors, British and Foreign series, no. 32.]

Bookseller Notes

Scarce. An unauthorized edition of James's early novel, with most interesting provenance. 'Minna' was the nickname of Sarah Emily Duckworth, aunt to Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell the sister of their mother Julia Stephen's first husband, Herbert Duckworth. The sisters travelled to France with their aunt in 1896, the year after their mother's death. Duckworth was described by Quentin Bell in his biography of Woolf as 'rich, fat [...] and entirely commonplace', but she evidently merited some affection beyond being ripe for mockery she is mentioned in the early diaries of Virginia Stephen, but recurs in letters towards the end of her own life (one from Leonard to Bob Trevelyan in 1917 refers to her as a 'very sporting old lady' whom we call 'Aunt Minna', to which Virginia adds a note comparing her to a character in the Waverley novels as the possible derivation of her nickname).The two ownership inscriptions are in different scripts but both are consistent with variant styles employed by Minna Duckworth in a manuscript notebook held at the University of Victoria.