Lot 48•
MORRIS (WILLIAM) News from Nowhere, NORAH DUVAL'S COPY, SIGNED BY 1910; and another, EMILY DUVAL'S COPY, SIGNED BY HOLLOWAY PRISONERS
Ending from 20 November 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, Knightsbridge£1,000 - £2,000
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MORRIS (WILLIAM)
News from Nowhere, NORAH DUVAL'S COPY, inscribed to her by Hugh Franklin on front paste-down ("To Norah Duval in Aylesbury Prison from HAF 7/5/12") and SIGNED BY 24 FEMALE PRISONERS on the rear endpapers, spine restored with loss to label, damp-staining to lower cover, light wear, 8vo, Longmans, 1910—HIGGINSON (THOMAS WENTWORTH) Common Sense About Women, EMILY DUVAL'S COPY, signature on title-page of Joseph Mazzini Wheeler (1850-1898, atheist and freethought writer), inscribed on half-title "The Countess of Buchan, from W.H. Eyre. Jan. 1. 1884" and "Winson Green Prison/ Birmingham 1912. March/ Emily D. Duval", newspaper cutting "Prison Governor's Breakdown" pasted on half-title and dated in ink July 8th 1912, light spotting and toning, publisher's gilt and blind-stamped cloth, rubbed, spine bumped and slightly faded, 8vo, W. Swan Sonnenschein, 1882 (2)
Footnotes
TWO EMILY AND NORAH DUVAL ASSOCIATION COPIES, ONE PRESENTED BY SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGNER HUGH FRANKLIN AND SIGNED BY HOLLOWAY PRISONERS.
Two volumes connected to mother and daughter suffragettes Emily and Norah Duval. The first was presented to Norah by her future brother-in-law Hugh Franklin (1889-1962). He was one of the few men imprisoned for militant pro-suffrage activity. In February 1913 he was arrested after hiding out for two months in Henderson's book shop on the Charing Cross Road, known as the 'Bombshop', after setting fire to an empty rail carriage. During his nine months' imprisonment he went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed over 100 times. In March 1913 he became engaged to Norah's sister Elsie, who was imprisoned in Holloway and, when both were released under the Cat and Mouse Act in April, the couple fled to Brussels where they remained until the outbreak of war. They married in 1915 but she died in 1919 from influenza. In May 1912, when this book was inscribed, Norah was serving a four-month sentence in Aylesbury where she too went on hunger strike, and was forcibly fed.
The second volume was used by Emily Duval during one of her several prison sentences, this one six months in Winson Green Prison, Birmingham, given for window smashing in Regent Street. There she went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed before being sent to a nursing home and subsequently released. In addition to the inscriptions, the half-title also has a newspaper clipping pasted in concerning the 'breakdown' of James Scott, the governor of Holloway Prison who was forced to retire on health grounds ('the Suffragist prisoners... had caused him much worry and anxiety').