The Letters Of Dorothy Osborne To William Temple
£20.00
Publisher
At The Clarendon Press.
Place
Oxford
Date
1959
Synopsis
Edited, by permission of sir edward parry and of his publishers messrs. sherratt and hughes, ltd., and messrs. j. m. dent, ltd., by g. c. moore smith. reprinted.
Item Description
Large 8vo. 9 x 6 inches. li + [i] + 330 + [2] pp. Bound in navy cloth, gilt, with blind stamped borders enclosing device on front board, in price clipped dust wrapper. Some foxing of page edges and front flyleaves; otherwise a very good clean copy. Loosely inserted: two photographic prints, including portrait of Temple. Illustrated by 5 black and white plates (one folding facsimile), including portrait frontispiece, by genealogical tables, and by diagram in text. Decorated by publisher's device on title page. One of several editions of this famous courtship correspondence, in this case preserving the original spelling and punctuation. The main sequence contains 77 letters written 1652-54, preserved in the British Library (Add MS 33975), written by Dorothy Osborne (1627-95) who was prevented form marrying Sir William Temple (1628-99) for seven years. Temple, 1st baronet, with an Anglo-Irish background, was a diplomat serving Charles II, who took part in diplomatic missions involving the Dutch, including the marriage of Princess Mary to the Prince of Orange in 1677. In later years he employed the young Jonathan Swift as his secretary. The letters have been edited by George Charles Moore Smith (1858-1940,) literary scholar who was professor of English at the University of Sheffield and its predecessors, 1896-1924. The first edition was published 1628.
[Stock No. 29477]
