Uncivil Liberty : An Essay to Show the Injustice and Impolicy of Ruling Woman Without Her Consent.

Princeton, MA: Cooperative Publishing Company, 1870. 8vo (233 x 145mm), printed brown wrappers. 23 pp., with 3 pp. ads (including inside of rear cover).

Biographer Martin Henry Blatt describes Heywood (1829–1893) as "a leader among nineteenth-century American individualist anarchists," whose "dedication to liberty, free speech, nonviolent struggle, the rights of working people, and women's emancipation inspired many" (ANB). Originally planning to enter the ministry, Heywood was inspired to dedicate his life to social reform after he came into contact with William Lloyd Garrison and other radical abolitionists in the late 1850s. In 1865, he married Angela Fiducia Tilton, whose advocacy for the rights of working women and concern for the economic, social, and political plight of all women doubtless had a significant impact on her husband's radicalism. In this pamphlet, he criticizes the institution of marriage, offers a general argument for women's rights, and advocates forcefully for women's suffrage. This work was reprinted several times in the 1870s, and Heywood went on to write other works aimed at the achievement of social, economic, political, and sexual equality between men and women.

Denoted "Twentieth Thousand" on the front cover, but we have found no evidence of an earlier publication date and believe this is actually the first edition.

CONDITION: Good, lightly soiled, some splitting and loss to paper at spine, but sound.