Item #48615 Memoirs of Edward Vaughan Kenealy. Arabella KENEALY, Edward Vaughan Keanely.

Memoirs of Edward Vaughan Kenealy.

London: John Long, 1908. First Edition. Hardcover. Large 8vo. 304pp. Navy cloth with gilt titling to upper board and spine, frontis, b&w plates, gilt top edge. Index. The memoirs of her father, Edward Kenealy, by the late-Victorian writer, physician, and anti-feminist Arabella Kenealy. Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy (1819 - 1880), was a barrister whose overly zealous defense of Arthur Orton, the infamous Tichborne claimant, ultimately led to his disbarrment. He was an eclectic scholar with an erratic temper, possibly inflamed by illness, who was once jailed for punishing one of his step children with excessive severity. A prolific writer, Kenealy published a large number of poems, including translations from a large number of languages, with which his critics unkindly suggested he was unfamiliar. He is now most widely remembered for his massive "The Book of God - The Apocalypse" series published between 1867-1870. This comprised three huge volumes of extraordinarily unconventional theology, in which he apparently deigned himself to be "The Twelfth Messenger of God" and charted a descent from Genghis Khan. Madame Blavatsky seemingly thought highly of him, citing his work several times in "The Secret Doctrine." His daughter, the author of the present work, seems to have been every bit as eccentric as her father: she wrote a truly odd work called "The Human Gyroscope" that contained some very strange sexual theories, and is now pilloried for preaching the dangers that excessive exercise and education would pose to the woman's principal vocation of motherhood. This copy has the ownership name of Walter Pulitzer (1878-1926), on the front free endpaper. Walter Pulitzer was the nephew of Joseph Pulitzer (after who the famed Pulitzer Prizes are named) and was himself an author and publisher, for a time being President of Pulitzer Publishing Co. Cloth a bit darkened and lightly rubbed overall, corners and spine ends a bit bruised and chafed, spine sunned with a few tiny tears at upper end. Pages lightly browned, still overall a clean VG copy. Item #48615

Price: $100.00