TROTTER, Catharine (1679--1749)
The works of Mrs. Catharine Cockburn, theological, moral, dramatic, and poetical. Several of them now first printed. Revised and published, with an account of the life of the author, by Thomas Birch, M.A. F.R.S. ... In two volumes. ...
London (Place), printed for J. and P. Knapton,, 1751.
2 vols ; 20.5 cm. (8º)
I: [18], xlviii, 455, [1] p., frontis. port.
II: [4], 192, 177--576 p.

Cockburn was the married name of the playwright and philosopher Catharine Trotter. This collection of her works includes all her important philosophical writing, with a few minor pieces, some poetry, many of her letters and one play, Fatal friendship, first performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1698. Edmund Gosse wrote about Catharine Trotter as a 'precursor of the bluestockings', in Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, vol. 34, no. 2 (1916), pp. 87--118. As a philosopher she was a follower of John Locke; the characters in her plays demonstrated female rationality and responsibility. Includes a list of subscribers in vol. I. Text and register of vol. II are continuous despite pagination.

Copy Notes Inscribed in ink on front pastedown of vol. I 6/- and on title-page 5/.

Binding C18th plain sprinkled calf, red leather spine-labels.

Reference Number 4601

Additional Names Birch, Thomas (1705--1766); Cockburn, Catharine