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HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

329 & 331 PEARL STREET.

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the

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INSCRIBED

TO THE

Men of America;

WHO SHOW, IN THEIR LAWS AND CUSTOMS, RESPECTING

WOMEN,

IDEAS MORE JUST AND FEELINGS MORE NOBLE THAN WERE EVER

EVINCED BY MEN OF ANY OTHER NATION:

MAY

"WOMAN'S RECORD"

MEET

THE APPROVAL OF THE SONS

OF OUR

GREAT REPUBLIC;

THE WORLD WILL THEN KNOW THE

Daughters are Worthy of Bonour.

(V)

BRITIS

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

EACH century has its peculiar tide of thought; the highest wave bearing onwards, as ocean tides bear the tossed bark to land, the human race into the promised harbour of millennial peace.

The ninth wave of the nineteenth century is the Destiny of Woman.

Within the last fifty years more books have been written by women and about women than all that had been issued during the preceding five thousand and eight hundred years. Far the greater portion of works concerning the female sex has been published within the last twenty years. Since the idea of this "Woman's Record" occurred to me—just three years ago to-day - a dozen or more of these books have appeared. Among them are "Noble Deeds of Women," "Mothers of the Wise and Good," "Heroines of the Missionary Enterprise," ” “Woman in America," "Woman in France," and "Woman in all Ages and Nations." Three of these works are by men; thus showing that a deep interest in this subject pervades society. Each work has its peculiar merits, but no one is satisfactory, because none contains the true idea of woman's nature and mission; therefore each work has only made my own seem to me more necessary.

Does this frank confession appear like vain boasting? Pray examine my book before deciding against me. At any rate, it has cost me three years of hard study

and labour to make it.

The Publishers, all must own, have done their part nobly. The series of Engravings furnish a gallery of Portraits that, besides their usefulness in stamping on the mind of the reader a more permanent impression of each individual character thus illustrated, furnish an interesting study to the curious in costume and the adept in taste.

Then, the Selections afford an opportunity of judging the merits of female literature; the choicest gems of thought, fancy, and feeling are here treasured, sought out from works in different languages, and brought together in the uniform design of a perfect Cyclopædia of reference and comparison as regards woman and her

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