Stephen, Leslie. ESSAYS ON FREETHINKING AND PLAIN SPEAKING. Longmans, Green, London, 1873 (1st edition). 8vo., cloth, 362pp. Maxwell Steinhardt's copy, with his Rockwell Kent designed bookplate on the front pastedown. Inner hinges expertly repaired with archival materials, rear board reinforced at outer hinge, else a Very Good copy of the scarce first edition. Leslie Stephen, 1832-1904, was a prolific writer, editor and biographer. He was knighted in 1902. He was the father of the writer Virginia Woolf and of the painter Vanessa Bell, and brother of the jurist and legal scholar James Fitzjames Stephen.
