Hannah Woolley: The Queen-like Closet 1675 ? The Women's Library TWL 641.5 WOL
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Cavendish Bentinck Library
The Cavendish-Bentinck Library was founded by Ruth Cavendish-Bentinck, a socialist and active campaigner for women's suffrage throughout her life. Born in 1867, the illegitimate daughter of a kitchen maid and the Viscount St Maur, Ruth Cavendish-Bentinck had an aristocratic upbringing and married Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck in 1887. In 1909 she established the Cavendish-Bentinck Library as a subscription library for suffragists and remained actively involved with the Library's operation when it was taken over by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in 1918 and by the Women's Service Library, now the Women's Library, in 1931. Ruth Cavendish-Bentinck died in 1953.
The Cavendish-Bentinck collection contains many pre-1850 books, pamphlets and periodicals. It includes early advice literature for women as well as first editions of Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf and the Brontës. The periodical holdings include The Lady's magazine 1760-1839 and The Englishwoman's domestic magazine 1852-1879. Cookery and household management books include Hannah Wolley's The Queen-like closet, 1675, and Mrs Beeton's Book of household management, 1861. The collection is also strong on material relating to the suffrage campaigns, including many rare pamphlets.
New material was added to the collection until the 1950s. It is now stored in closed stacks. The Cavendish-Bentinck collection is catalogued on The Women's Library's online catalogue and volumes can be ordered by completing a Collections order slip and consulted in the Reading Room. Due to the age and fragility of most of the material in the Cavendish-Bentinck collection no photocopying is permitted.
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