Por Entre Frivolidades

Abigaíl Mejía, 1922

Mejía, Abigail. Por Entre Frivolidades. Barcelona: Hermenegildo Miralles, 1922. 19.2 cm, 232, [6] pp.; color half-title, numerous printer’s ornaments, and illus. reproducing artwork and images from other sources; in embossed pictorial cloth with Mejia’s portrait laid-in recto, marbled fore edges, decorative endpapers, rear FEP with small chip, hinges weakened, final signature tightly sewn but beginning to separate.

Pioneering Dominican feminist Abigaíl Mejía (Abigaíl Mejia Soliere, 1895-1941) founded the country’s first political organization for women’s rights (Acción Feminista Dominicana). Trained as a teacher, she was a champion of girl’s education and job training for the poor. She was also an artist, photographer, and the founding director of the Dominican Republic’s National Museum.

Born in Santo Domingo, Mejía completed her schooling in Barcelona. She lived and worked there until her permanent return to Santo Domingo in 1925. She had already developed a reputation as a gifted writer while in Spain. From the age of seventeen she published in major Continental and Dominican newspapers, including essays on Hispano-America; literary criticism; prose; and other topics that reflected her many cultural and philosophical interests.

Her first book, Por Entre Frivolidades, is a collection of these early works. Mejía writes in her prologue that it is intended for “Dominican readers, to whom my articles are addressed almost exclusively.” Each is identified with its first published appearance (Santiago, Paris, Barcelona, San Juan de Puerto Rico, etc.). They are grouped into thematic sections (“De mi tierra” and “Alma femenina”, etc.) that foreshadow the diversity of her later feminist writing, known both for its wide-ranging literary references and its sympathy for aspects of the nation-state, Christianity, and motherhood.

Scarce, OCLC finds one holding, at Notre Dame. No appearance in modern auction records.

Elegantly printed and bound at the studio of Catalan lithographer and bookbinder Hermenegildo Miralles with many of his characteristic Modernisme ornaments and designs.

SOLD