CUSACK, M.F. An Illustrated History of Ireland: from the Earliest Period. WESTPORT HOUSE COPY WITH THE EARL OF ALTAMONT BOOKPLATE

With historical illustrations by Henry Doyle. With coloured half-title and three folding maps. London: Longmans, Green, 1869. Octavo. Third edition. pp. [vi], 671. Bound in contemporary full green morocco. Covers elaborately tooled in gilt with a blind floral roll enclosing in the centre a gold shield with a harp, surmounted by a crown and legend wrapped around shield ‘Lege totum si vis scire totum’ (Read the whole if you wish to know the whole). Spine divided into six panels by five gilt raised bands, title in gilt on brown morocco label in the second, the remainder tooled in gilt to a centre-and-corner design. Splash-marbled endpapers; green and red endbands. All edges marbled. Armorial bookplate of Ulick Earl of Altamont and his wife Agatha on front pastedown. Repair to maps. A very attractive and desirable copy.

Margaret Anne Cusack (1832-1899) social activist, feminist, writer was born into an aristocratic background in Dublin. She became an Anglican nun in London, later (1858) converting to Catholicism. She joined the Poor Clares, taking the name Mary Francis, in Newry and afterwards spent some time working in the famine-stricken region of Kenmare, County Kerry where the fund she founded for the destitute peasantry raised £20,000. A woman before her time she was misunderstood and reviled and became embroiled in quarrels with the hierarchy in various parts of Ireland.

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