Up for auction a Hand Written Letter From 1883 by Author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward.   This item is

certified authentic by Todd Mueller and comes with their Certificate of

Authenticity.

ES-5171

Elizabeth

Stuart Phelps Ward

(August 31, 1844 – January 28, 1911) was an early feminist American author and intellectual who challenged

traditional Christian beliefs of the afterlife, challenged

women's traditional roles in marriage and family, and advocated clothing reform for

women.In

1868, three years after the Civil War ended, she published The Gates

Ajar, which depicted the afterlife as a place replete

with the comforts of domestic life and where families would be reunited—along

with family pets—through eternity.In her 40s, Phelps broke convention again

when she married a man 17 years her junior. Later in life she urged women to

burn their corsets. Her later writing focused on feminine ideals and women's

financial dependence on men in marriage. She was the first woman to present a

lecture series at Boston University. During her

lifetime she was the author of 57 volumes of fiction, poetry and essays. In all

of these works she challenged the prevailing view that woman's place and

fulfilment resided in the home. Instead Phelps' work depicted women as

succeeding in nontraditional careers as physicians, ministers, and artists.Near

the end of her life, Phelps became very active in the antivivisection movement. Her

novel, Trixy, published in 1904, was constructed around the

topic of vivisection and the effect this kind of training had on doctors. The

book became a standard polemic against experimentation on animals.