The Greville Memoirs. 1814-1860. Edited by Lytton Strachey and Roger Fulford.
London: Macmillan, 1938. 8vo. 8 volumes, set. Limited edition. One of 630 sets. First complete edition. Original red buckram, gilt. Top edges gilt. Silk marker ribbons. Spines uniformly faded and covers a little rubbed especially at the spine ends. Volume 1 appears to have been left open for some time and a faint crease runs the length of the spine. The front hinge seems to have had some repair and the first gathering is slightly proud because of this. Loosely inserted is a review of the set by Raymond Mortimer from The New Statesman and Nation of December 3, 1938. This volume has the ex libris blind stamp of Derek Gair Gibson on the fly and each volume has the tiny sticker of Hatchards on the bottom edge of the front pastedown. Contents clean. Good +. Item #6939
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (1794-1865) was an amateur cricketer, who played first-class cricket from 1819 to 1827, and a Clerk of the Council in ordinary for over forty years. The latter career and his family connections gave him privileged access to Victorian high society and its gossip which he recorded in his diary. The first publication of Greville's Memoirs caused outrage in 1874 for the intimate account of private causes behind public events and their insights into three sovereigns under whom he served. Queen Victoria (the subject of a notable biography by Strachey) was not amused. From Raymond Mortimer's review: 'This is the definitive Greville. At last we have the text entire, including not only the numerous passages suppressed by Reeve, but much that was crossed out by Greville himself, edited in most scholarly fashion with succinct notes and an invaluable analytical index. But the more we applaud this edition, the more we are bound to deplore the circumstances of its publication. Not only is the price very high, but the edition is limited to 630 copies, many of which will no doubt repose undisturbed on the shelves of collectors.' Not so, this set!
Price: £450.00