Mary Daly (2 book set) signed by Mary Daly with an inscription to the donor.

Feminist philosopher Mary Daly 1928 -2010) fought repeatedly with Boston College from 1966 to 2001 over her controversial books, her status as a professor and her freedom to reserve some classes for women only. Raised Roman Catholic but prevented by Catholic colleges from studying philosophy, she instead earned a doctorate in English in the U.S. then two more, in philosophy and theology, in Switzerland. Ironically, Jesuit-run BC then hired her to teach. Influenced by thinkers ranging from Thomas Aquinas to French feminist Simone de Beauvoir to Virginia Woolf, she developed a sweeping analysis of “patriarchy” as the root of women’s oppression and of all social ills in which people are treated as objects. After her first book, The Church and the Second Sex (1968), she rapidly moved from “reformist” to “radical, post-Christian” feminist. Women operating on patriarchy’s boundaries, she wrote, can spiral into freedom by renaming and reclaiming an ancient woman-centered reality that was stolen and eradicated by patriarchy.

Gyn Ecology-The Metaethics of Radical Feminism autographed by Mary Daly
Mary Daly's  Intergalactic Introduction explores her process as a Crafty Pirate on the Journey of Writing Gyn/Ecology and reveals the autobiographical context of this "Thunderbolt of Rage" that she first hurled against the patriarchs in 1979 and no hurls again in the Re-Surging Movement of Radical Feminism in the Be-Dazzling Nineties.   484 pages, paper 

Pure Lust-Elemental Feminist Philosophy authography by Mary Daly 
As in Gyn/Ecology (1979) Daly delights here in word-play--the title itself is double-edged. ""For it Names not only the 'thrust of the argument' that assails women and nature on all levels. . . but also the way out--the vigor, eagerness, and intense longing that launches Wild women on Journeys beyond the State of Lechery."" On Daly's journey, there's considerable fun and refashioned philosophy as she enthusiastically guides us past patriarchal obstacles (foregrounds) toward her three realms of Archespheres, Pyrospheres, and Metamorphospheres. Tightly-argued, it's not: rather, ""In keeping with the tradition of Methodicide, this book is a work of studied errata. . . ."" It is based primarily on women's experiences, and secondarily on texts from Aristotle to Arendt. And it is bitingly perceptive, as when Daly reviews the male flight from lust into asceticism, calling up examples from St. Jerome to T. E. Lawrence. Or when she warns against false mothers held up as pseudo-archetypes--including the Papal Great Mother John Paul Two. It enables her to find and create her own Code."" Worth the decoding--especially for those looking for fresh insights into patriarchal society and inspiration as to feminist alternatives.   473 pages, paper, 1992