1894 volume of The Portfolio Society, containing twenty-six original essays (twenty-five in manuscript and one in typescript) by contributors including Sylvanus P. Thompson, Annie Collings, Juliet Reckett, F. O. W. Smith and Samuel Davies.

344pp., 4to. 26 essays (one of them in two parts), comprising 332pp. in manuscript and 7pp. in typescript, with three full-page illustrations, and five printed pages at the start. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, in worn and rebacked blue buckram binding, with an elaborate design in the style of Walter Crane in gilt on front board, depicting a Grecian maid plucking apples, incorporating the words 'The Portfolio Socy.', a Latin motto and the date 1894. This design is duplicated in print on the recto of the first leaf of the volume, with the date '189' completed with a '4' in pencil. Bound in after the first leaf are two leaves carrying four pages of printed 'Rules' of the Portfolio Society, 'founded 1874', ending 'Adopted November, 1931'. (The essays in this volume certainly date from 1894, and the presence of the 1931 'Rules' indicates that the volume was bound up later.) Despite the printed statement in the 'Rules' that the Portfolio Society was 'founded 1874', the organisation would appear to be the same as the earlier women's writing group founded by Barbara Bodichon, of which Jean Ingelow and Christina Rossetti were members. (Regarding which, see the letter by Eleanor C. Smyth in Notes & Queries, tenth series, 1908.) The Portfolio Society was a sort of corresponding essay-writing society, in which a magazine of original manuscript essays would be sent to each member in turn, with members adding new essays to the collection, and removing their old ones. In their early days such groups appear to have played an interesting and hitherto-unexplored part in the growing women's movement, and the present volume retains a liberal flavour, with essays on the temperance movement in Norway (6), immigration (14), and the Commons Preservation Society (10). None of the essays appear to have been published. A full list of the essays follows, with one in two parts as 22 and 27. All are in manuscript except 6. Items 8, 11, 12, 14 and 22 each have title leaves. One: 'Jarrow', 7pp. Two: 'St. Bede. AD 672', manuscript illustration with explanatory note, 1p. Three: letter to 'Dear Secretary', signed 'One who loves luxury'(4pp. Four: 'Jane Austen and her Novels', 11pp. Five: 'Work', 9pp. Six: 'Local Option in Norway', typescript, 7pp., dated 29 September 1894, and ascribed in pencil to F. O. W. Smith. Seven: 'Roger Ascham's Toxophilus', 12pp. Eight: 'Inferences', 14pp., ascribed in pencil to 'Mr. Saml. Davies'. Nine: 'Concerning hats', 7pp. Ten: 'Our Metropolitan Commons & the Commons Preservation Society', 19pp. Eleven: 'A London Cameo by the Commonplace Member of the Portfolio Society', 12pp., marked as copied in December 1894. Twelve: 'A Few Words on the Waverley Novels', 14pp., dated October 1894. Thirteen: 'The Learnèd Maid', 13pp. Fourteen: 'Alien Immigrants', 17pp, including one cancelled page. Fifteen: 'A Ramble through Epping Forest', 15pp. Sixteen: 'Witches and Witchcraft', 16pp., ascribed in pencil to Annie Collings. Seventeen: 'A day in an Office of the Charity Organisation Society', 14pp., ascribed in pencil to Juliet Reckett. Eighteen: 'Leicester Square', 8pp. Nineteen: 'Belief', 7pp. Twenty: 'Philanthropy and Culture', 17pp., ascribed to 'Mr Stanfield'. Twenty-one: 'The Ancient Britons', 11pp., with 2pp. of illustrations: 'British Village at Glastonbury' and 'Decorated Pottery from the Village'. Twenty-two: 'Student Life at Heidelberg. Part I.', 24pp., including one cancelled page, ascribed in pencil to Samuel Davies . Twenty-three: 'An Easter Holiday', 12pp. Twenty-four: 'Concerning Venice & a few Venetian photographs', 24pp. Twenty-five: 'Some aspects of Social Life in the Society of Friends', 13pp. Twenty-six: 'Florists' English', 11pp., ascribed in pencil to Silvanus P. Thompson. Twenty-seven: 'Student Life at Heidelberg | Part ii. The Corps Student.', 21pp., in same hand as, which is ascribed to Samuel Davies.