• Title: Vale of Cedars
• Author: Grace Aguilar
• Publisher: D. Appleton and Company
• Estimated year of printing: 1884 

Notes:

Inscription: “For Winnie.  A Christmas gift from her Mother. 1885”

Grace Aguilar (1816 – 1847) was an English novelist, poet, and writer on Jewish history and religion.  She began writing during childhood, but most of her works were only published posthumously.  By the time she was twelve, she had written a drama, Gustavus Vasa, which has been lost.  Her first published work was a collection of poems, The Magic Wreath of Hidden Flowers, which was published anonymously in 1835.  Each poem is a riddle with clues to the name of a particular flower.

Aguilar’s productions are chiefly stories and religious works dealing with Jewish subjects.  In her religious writings, her took a defensive attitude, apparently aiming to equip English Jewish women with arguments against conversionists. She encouraged knowledge of Jewish history and the Hebrew language.

This book, Vale of Cedars, or the Martyr: A Story of Spain in the Fifteenth Century, was written in 1835 but not published until 1850, three years after her death.  This was her most popular Jewish tale — a historical romance focused on a series of trials that test the capacity of Marie, the Jewish heroine, to withstand attempts to undermine her Jewish identity.

The publisher, D. Appleton and Company, published its first book in 1831 and continued publishing until 1924, when it merged with other publishers to become Appleton-Century-Crofts.  Appleton is notable for having published the first American editions of several popular English books, including Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and Aguilar’s books.

Historical context:

When this book was published in 1884, Chester A. Arthur was President of the United States.  The Washington Monument was completed this year, and it would  be just a few more years before the Statues of Liberty would be dedicated in 1886.