[Rarebooks] fa: MEMOIRS OF JOHN EVELYN - Presentation Copy from SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY w/ ALS - 1818

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 31. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/dtprkkur

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


John Evelyn; William Bray (ed.): Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, Esq. F.R.S. Author of the "Sylva," &c. &c. Comprising his Diary, from the Year 1641 to 1705-6, and a Selection of His Familiar Letters. To which is subjoined, the Private Correspondence between King Charles I and his Secretary of State, Sir Edward Nicholas, whilst His Majesty was in Scotland, 1641, and at other times during the Civil War; also between Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, and Sir Richard Browne, Ambassador to the Court of France, in the Time of King Charles I and the Usurpation. The Whole now First Published, from the Original Mss. In Two Volumes. London: Printed for Henry Colburn, 1818. FIRST EDITION. Two volumes, 4to (31 cm), in full contemporary polished calf decorated in gilt and blind (by Setchel), marbled endpapers and page edges; with eight engraved plates, two of which are folding, and one folding pedigree (complete).

Presentation copy from SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY, with two tipped in signed autograph letters, one from Romilly himself to the books' recipient, his brother-in law, John Garbett Walsham, whose engraved armorial bookplate adorns the front paste-downs of both volumes. This letter, written by Romilly from Cowes on the Isle of Wight, where his wife was convalescing from a long illness, is dated Oct. 7 1818, the year of the work's publication: "My dear Garbett, There ought to be at Russell Square among some Pounds of Books which have come from the Book binders Evelyn's Memoirs. It is intended as a present to you if you will do me the favor to accept it... They appear to me to be very entertaining. If[,] contrary to my expectation[,] they should not have been brought[?] home I will be much obliged to you to desire Thomas who took them to be bound to go to the Bookbinder (Setchel) to enquire why he has not yet sent them..." Romily ends the letter: "...my dear Garbett, that you and my dearest Anne may soon be restored to good health is my most anxious prayer... Sam[ue]l Romilly." Tragically, Romilly's "dearest" wife Anne died on October 29, and days later, on November 2, 1818, less than a month after sending this letter, Romilly slit his own throat and died in his home on Russell Square. The recipient of the books, Garbett Walsham, didn't have long to enjoy them either, dying in the following year.

Samuel Romilly (1757-1818) was one of the leading reformist figures of late-Georgian England. A barrister with "an unequalled knowledge of the criminal law," a Member of Parliament, and a former Solicitor General, he was a staunch opponent of the slave trade and fought tirelessly for the rights of criminal defendants and for the amelioration of the draconian sentencing practices of the time, advocating, for example, the abolishment of capital punishment for minor crimes. Romilly was related to the books' recipient by marriage, his wife Anne being the eldest daughter of Francis Garbett and Elizabeth Walsham, of Knill Court, Hertfordshire. John Garbett Walsham was Francis' and Elizabeth's only son, making him Romilly's brother-in-law. In his will, Romilly named Garbett Walsham an executor of his estate and guardian of his children, but as noted above, he scarcely survived Romilly long enough to fulfill those duties.

The second letter here, written more than fifty years later, is from a descendant of Romilly to a descendant of Garbett Walsham. Dated "Huntington Park, 11 Sept. 1870," and addressed to Sir John Walsham, Bart. (Garbett Walsham's grandson, the 2nd baronet, British diplomat, envoy to China, Romania, etc.), the letter is signed simply "Romilly." This is most likely Sir Samuel's son John, 1st Baron Romilly (1802-1874). In the letter, Romilly proposes a visit to Walsham's home by himself and his two daughters (plus maid and manservant), and grows quite sentimental at the prospect: "I long to see you, I long to see Knill [Walsham's estate], I long to awaken in my children the feelings & sensations[?] that I feel when I think of Knill..."

Adding to the books' intriguing provenance is the later penciled ownership inscription of Catherine D. Phillips, "from her Father, Christmas 1923." Caroline Phillips, the daughter of James Drayton and Charlotte Augusta Astor, was the "well-traveled and well-read" wife of the American diplomat William Phillips, who served under both Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as Woodrow Wilson, and saw high-level service during World War II as ambassador to Italy, personal representative of FDR in India, special advisor to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, etc. A serious bibliophile, Caroline established an extensive and well-appointed library at "Highover," the Italianate mansion she and her husband built in North Beverly, Mass., on an estate designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. The house burned to the ground in 1968 (dramatic photos of "Highover engulfed in flames" on the Historic Beverly website evoke the fate of Manderley in Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca) and the estate is now part of the J. C. Phillips Nature Preserve. Curiously, a similar fate befell the books' first home: Knill Court was destroyed by fire in 1943 and the ruins abandoned. So: caveat emptor.

The bindings are undoubtedly those originally ordered by Samuel Romilly and mentioned by him in his letter ("Setchel" presumably refers to Henry Setchel & Son, booksellers, bookbinders and occasional publishers, located in Covent Garden at the time). The front joints of both are cracked and tender, with one board held only by the cords, but otherwise they've aged remarkably well, with only some very modest rubbing and edge-wear. The contents show some occasional light spotting, most noticeably to the margins of the plates, else very clean and sound.