A rare first edition copy of Jane Hume Clapperton’s “virtually unobtainable” first book, a treatise blending social Darwinism with George Eliot (coiner of ‘meliorism’), Harriet Martineau and Mary Wollstonecraft, amongst others (Crawford, 1999).
Jane Hume Clapperton (1832-1914) was a Scottish philosopher, social reformer, suffragist and associate of the Legitimation League and the Men and Women’s Club. Her first book, Scientific Meliorism and the Evolution of Happiness (1885), was, according to the author, a “synthetic arrangement of ideas that are not original, but the common property of the age” (‘Preface’). While Clapperton’s use of evolutionary theory and eugenics was not original, her account is distinguished by its conjunction “with a radical critique of contemporary sexual relations,” as well as by her advocacy for communal living and municipal socialism (ODNB). Clapperton viewed education, and particularly sex education, “as pivotal to the political, economic, and legal advancement of women”. Scientific Meliorism was well received and influenced contemporaries such as Australian author, fellow social reformer and suffragist, Catherine Helen Spence.
Opened in 1885 (the year of publication), the Fraser Institute was the first free library in Montreal, named after and funded by a bequest from the prosperous local businessman Hugh Fraser.
Elizabeth Crawford (1999) The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A reference guide, 1866-1928.