Women's Rights.- [Drake (Judith)] An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. In which are inserted the Characters of a Pedant, a Squire, a Beau, a Vertuoso, a Poetaster, a City-Critick, &c...by a Lady, first edition, engraved frontispiece of 'The Compleat Beau', title within double-rule border, variant with final line on p.148 reading "the mean Performance of", contemporary ink inscriptions to title (lightly offset on frontispiece but not affecting main image), cropped slightly shaving frontispiece, also one signature on title and head-lines of a few preliminary leaves, contemporary sprinkled calf, spine gilt, rubbed, splitting to joints, spine ends worn and chipped, lacking label, [Wing D2125A], 8vo, for A. Roper and E. Wilkinson...and R. Clavel, 1696.

⁂ The first English feminist tract, also attributed to Mary Astell but now generally accepted to be by Judith Drake, whose husband wrote the commendatory verses at the beginning. The treatise is a defence against male accusations of ignorance, vanity, enviousness etc. in women and also addresses the faults of men, particularly satirizing some of her contemporaries.