Juliana Berners | The Gentlemans Academie, 1595, early modern female authorship

Dame Juliana Berners

The Gentlemans Academie: Or, The Booke of St. Albans. Containing three most exact and excellent Bookes; the first of Hawking, the second of all the proper termes of Hunting, and the last of Armorie: all compiled by Juliana Barnes, in the yere from the incarnation of Christ 1486. And now reduced into a better method, by G[ervase] M[Arkham]. London: [Valentine Simmes] for Humfrey Lownes, 1595

3 parts in one, 4to (186 x 130 mm), additional section titles to parts 2 and 3 but with continuous pagination and signatures, 116 woodcut coats-of-arms, contemporary paneled speckled calf with gilt morocco title label, housed in modern brown morocco pull-off case by Riviere, lacks final blank, A4 with loss to inner margin, gilt rubbed and with skillful restoration to ends and joints, minor loss at tail of spine

First edition of Gervase Markham's epitome of the 1486 edition by Dame Juliana Berners, sister of Lord Berners, and Prioress of the Nunnery of Sopwell, Hertfordshire. With separate titles to the "Treatise of Hunting," and "The Booke of Armorie," the work is scarce and much of the author's life remains a mystery.

The present edition was never reprinted and is listed by Collier in his "Rarest Books in the English Language."

PROVENANCE:

Mathew Pomeroy: erased early-seventeenth-century ownership inscription at foot of title-page, with accompanying motto "Be it known until all men"; "Beresford": ownership inscription on title page, recording the purchase of the book for 6 shillings in London, 1696; John M. Schiff, sold Sotheby's New York, 21 July 2022, lot 1019

LITERATURE:

Schwerdt 2:12; STC 3314