ELIZABETH AND ESSEX - A Tragic History by Strachey, Lytton

New York, 1928, Harcourt Brace, first US regular edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6 1/2 x 9 1/2, VG/VG- condition (former owner's book pate on front paste down, dj price clipped , light chipping and light soiling to tan dj ), 296 pages, illustrated. ........................................ Six years after his "Queen Victoria" made the writing of biography a new art, Lytton Strachey turns to England's golden age and creates from the enigmatic figure of the Virgin Queen a passionate, lonely, hesitating woman, moulded by her superb intellect and by the long use of power into a majestic symbol of sovereignty....................... It is Mr. Strachev's accomplishment to have given life to this image of regality, to have found a woman under the piercing eyes, the red dyed hair, the huge hoop and ruff, the powdered pearls, the spreading gilded gauzes.Through this drama of the conflict of the crown with the powerful group who sought to revive feudalism, a drama made poignant and personal by Elizabeth's love for Essex, there move the renowned figures of the age: hunchbacked, subtle Robert Cecil; magnificent 'Walter Raleigh ; Francis Bacon, all tortuous intellect; sage Burghley; a host of men and women who glitter in the limelight. Robert, Earl of Essex, stands steadily there, proud, blundering, ardent, until the handsome head which Elizabeth had loved so long came to the block.A noble book which will eventually be read by every one for its brilliance, its scholarship, and its humanity.