A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG WOMAN. 8vo. (4), 382 pp, (4), plus added steel-engr. title-page and four plates (of which three are crudely hand-colored). Including divisional half-titles. Bound in contemporary calf with gilt trim, rebacked at an early date with remains of original spine laid on. Persistent dampstain to lower corner throughout text, otherwise a very good copy. Very rare first edition of this collection of four didactic novels encouraging young readers to pursue careers in the arts – engraving, painting, sculpture, and music respectively. In Valérie ou La Jeune Artiste, for example, Ulliac Trémadeure explores contemporary social attitudes towards female artists, as well as the process by which young women were trained in an atelier, could attempt to make a living, and if successful became teachers themselves. As Finch notes, while “the value and joy of creativity are stressed…. Ulliac Tremadeure is also anxious to prove that the woman artist can be morally good”. In Léon, ou le Jeune Graveur and Prosper, ou le Jeune Sculpteur, she stresses the advantages of such practical professions, but also serves to inform her readers about the intricacies of eg. both the copper engraving and lithographic processes. “Valerie and her widowed father live in poverty, but he decides she should be a painter; uneducated himself, he wants to give her the opportunities he missed. The art-master tells him Valerie has remarkable talent; this fills him with joy, and he is henceforth kinder to her… The art-master urges her and her fellow-pupils to put aside ‘feminine’ concerns: ‘Young ladies…. understand this: the woman who wants to be an artist while busying her mind with frills and furbelows will never be an artist in the noble sense of that word’ (pp. 44-45). But Valerie for a time succumbs to the blandishments of her coquettish cousin Héloise, ‘and now the woman’s character triumphed over that of the artist; Valerie was nothing but a vain girl, in love with clothes’ (pp. 66-67). However, she does keep up her art, and is advised to try painting on porcelain. This is not ‘real’ art (as against, say, oil-painting), but the woman who employs her for her porcelain decoration suggests she start with saleable work: ‘resign yourself to turning out things that are often beneath your talent’… Valerie’s father and art-master regret that she is sacrificing that aspect of her studies which could have contributed to the development of ‘a fine talent’. But she perseveres, earns money through hard work which leaves her no leisure (a sacrifice beyond the understanding of her wealthier cousin), and eventually comes back to painting, acquiring her own pupils…” (Finch, Women's Writing in Nineteenth-Century France, pp. 102-103). In Léon, ou le Jeune Graveur, the recently-widowed Madame de Mézières sends her 10-year old son Léon to live with his uncle in the city. Here, Léon becomes acquainted with, and dreams of studying under M. Derbigny, the great artist-engraver. On Sunday evenings Madame de Mezieres reads to her son from the lives of painters, engravers, and sculptors, and one day Léon works up the courage to apply to M. Derbigny’s atelier for a job as an apprentice. In one episode, for example, he drops one of his master’s unfinished copper plates, his mother takes the blame, and he is forced into a lengthy explanation of the engraving process (pp. 130-144) so his mother understands why the matter is so severe. Many of Trémadeure’s (1794-1864) novels for children seem to have survived poorly. She was an intriguing figure in the 19th century French literary scene, earning a living from her work and penning editorials, for example, on women’s emancipation in the Journal des Femmes and the Conseiller des Femmes. Several of the individual novels in the present work were also issued separately in 12mo format in the same year (each very rare in census); of the present 8vo work, we find copies recorded only at the BnF and Princeton. Later editions are also uncommon in census. * Cf eg. Isabelle Pannier, “Sophie Ulliac Trémadeure: les contradictions de la vertu”, Romantisme, no 77 (1992), p. 33-36.