Well, I think the jig is up. Both Fiona and Dave seem to have it now, so I'll divulge.
(Ooh, that *was* a subtle clue -- "the face that launched a thousand ships!" In retrospect now, I realize that the "sweetie" hint went completely over my head. Methinks Dave had it already at that point, but I was too dense to make the connection!)
Indeed, the ravishing author in question was Helen (the face that launched a thousand ships) Churchill Candee -- the apparent "centerpiece" of "our coterie", as described by Colonel Gracie in his memoirs.
The work itself is "How Women May Earn a Living", published in 1900. (The only word actually omitted by those ellipses in the dedication quote was "women", which I thought might make it too obvious.)
So here's that link, courtesy of Cornell University Library:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/Hunter/hunter.pl?handle=cornell.library.cdl/cdl431&id=1
Cornell has individually photo-reproduced the pages of *several* of their more fragile holdings, in order to avoid any further deterioration of the original texts (which are now sequestered). The "up" side of this innovative approach, of course, is that it makes the reproductions almost universally "borrowable" online.
Good show, mates! Enjoy.
Cheers,
John
