Various Pictoral Representations of Deborah Samson

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Completing the Artifact Inventory

Tidbits from the course artifact inventory assignment.

Beginning info on Herman Mann’s The Female Review

Question: When, where, and by whom was your text first printed?

Answer: Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton first printed the novel in Dedham Massachusetts in 1797.

Question: How often was your text reprinted? List all of the reprints using MLA citation style. Do not confuse dates of publisher’s/printer’s birth and death with reprint dates.

Answesr: According to Worldcat and the National Union Catalog, it was reprinted four times.

- Mann, Herman. The female review. Life of Deborah Sampson, the female soldier in the war of the revolution. 2nd ed. Boston: J.K Wiggin & W.P. Lunt, 1866.

- Mann, Herman. The female review. Life of Deborah Sampson, the female soldier in the war of the revolution. 2nd ed. New York: W. Abbatt, 1916.

- Mann, Herman. The Female Review : Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution. Boston: Ayer Company, Incorporated, 1978.

- Mann, Herman. The Female Review Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution. New York: New Library P.Net, 2003.

Blog Thoughts: I was surprised at how few printings exist of this text. Davidson just made it sound so delicious that I expected it to be a relatively popular text. Davidson though does talk about the low number of subscriptions The Female Review had comparably to other earlier texts like Charlotte Temple. It is likely that because of low subscription that printers didn’t believe they could make a profit out of the text. This may have also be a text that was not well received to an extent because of its themes.

Question: What was the actual size of your novel in inches or centimeters? (That is, consider it as a material object.) What information can you find about its physical presence? Do you think it was expensive or inexpensive?

Answer: The actual size of the text is 17cm. According to the Evans database, the original text is leather bound with “intaglio” prints.

Blog Thoughts: When researching these aspects of the text I found myself wishing I could the actual original text. The opportunity to study this text digitally is an amazing testament to evolving scholarship but I cannot help but wonder what I am missing in some ways by not being able to see the actual physical book.

Question: View the original title page using the digital database or microfilm. What is included there?

Answer: The original title page has a portrait of Deborah Sampson (the main character) in an oval mirror that is embellished with an eagle and swords. It also has the name Deborah Sampson under the portrait. Under the name is written who the text was published by, but the name is difficult to read.

Blog Thoughts: I was so intrigued by the militant images surrounding the portrait of Deborah. While she did dress like a man to participate in the military, I still expected a highly feminine visual representation. Once I read the book, it may be clearer. It makes me think about the Disney representations of Mulan. Despite being a powerful woman that goes into the military by cross-dressing Disney always represents her as highly feminine.

Question: What miscellaneous front matter exists?

Answer: After the title page there is a page that has the complete title of the novel and a brief description of the text. Following the textual description, there is an explanation of the appendix followed by the printing information. The following page (not numbered) includes a dedication from the author to the reader about the purpose of the novel. The next page has merely the sentence “Published According to Act of Congress”.

Blog Thoughts: The thing that most stood out to me in these first couple of pages was how long the title was. The title morphs into a description of the actual text. It also almost sounds like a sales pitch to me when read aloud. It reminds me of modern books descriptions that we find at the back of our books. It’s just enough information to get the reader interested in the text. It’s interesting to see how those tools to allure readers still exist in different manifestations.

Who was Deborah Samson?

During the course of this blog I will be completing a research project about Herman Mann’s The Female Review. Mann’s text is his biographical interpretation of the life of Deborah Samson, a Massachusetts citizen that dressed like a man in order to participate in the American Revolutionary army.

There is some controversy among Samson followers in relation to Mann’s biography, arguing that Mann’s account is highly fictionalized and thus a misrepresentation. Since the actual person Deborah Samson and Mann’s account of her intrigue me, one of the things my blog will be exploring is Mann’s text in connection to the actual person.