Berkeley Grantley Fitzhardinge Leech Illustrator (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. First Edition. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1854. First edition. xi,[i],415,[1]pp. With hand-coloured frontispiece and three etched black and white plates by John Leech. §The author's brother MAURICE BERKELEY's (1788-1867) copy with his bold ink signature to front free endpaper. There was bad blood between the disputatious Grantley Berkeley, sportsman & bully, and his siblings. In his 'Memoirs' (1865), he dredged up the dubious circumstances of his mother's 1795 marriage to the Earl of Berkeley - a secret marriage amidst allegations that the Earl had actually bought his bride from her elder sister. Grantley Berkeley's motive appears to have derived from little more than a desire to antagonise his brothers, who responded with a printed denial in the form of the 1866 pamphlet 'Reply to Some Passages in a Book entitled "My Life and Recollections, By the Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley." By the Other Surviving Sons of the Late Earl and Countess of Berkeley' : a pamphlet generally attributed to Maurice Berkeley, only. Nineteenth-century ink ownership name regrettably erased from head of title-page to the point of illegibility; the residue of the name looks of similar date to Maurice Berkeley's signature and may have been that of another family member (this is speculation). Several facetious manuscript comments to text in pencil or blue pencil, and one in ink, in one or more nineteenth-century hands. The annotator(s) clearly read the text with a closely critical eye and one is probably Maurice Berkeley. Rebound in black late nineteenth-century half calf, slightly cropping one of the manuscript annotations (see illustration), pebbled cloth boards (latter showing some discolouration), gilt lettering and decoration (title misspelled on spine). Some general light internal soiling and occasional foxing. Loosely inserted is a slip of paper with pencilled note in one of the same hands, mentioning a sporting painting 'The Death of the Fox' depicting Earl Fitzhardinge, the Hon. Craven Berkeley, and others, seemingly left at a framer's. Touch of rubbing to covers and short external split to 1 cm. of external upper joints - hence the top of the spine is a little fragile and needs gentle handling, but covers otherwise perfectly sturdy. A good, sound copy. Signed by Author(s).…