The Feminine Mystique.

FRIEDAN, Betty.

Item Number: 3912

New York: W. W. Norton, 1963.

First edition of the author’s classic work. Octavo, original half cloth. Signed by Betty Friedan on the title page. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light shelfwear. First editions are rare, especially signed.

The Feminine Mystique begins with an introduction describing what Friedan called "the problem that has no name"—the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. It discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being happily married with fine children. "[The Feminine Mystique] now feels both revolutionary and utterly contemporary. Four decades later, millions of individual transformations later, there is still so much to learn from this book. Those who think of it as solely a feminist manifesto ought to revisit its pages to get a sense of the magnitude of the research and reporting Friedan undertook" (Anna Quindlen).