MEMOIRS OF LADY HAMILTON WITH ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES OF MANY OF HER MOST PARTICULAR FRIENDS AND DISTINGUISHED CONTEMPORARIES

London, England: Printed for Henry Colburn, Public Library, Conduit-Street, Hanover-Square, 1815. Leather-bound. Good Plus. Octavo. Full contemporary polished leather, boards double-ruled in gilt. Spine rebacked and re-laid, showing two chips where leather absent. Hinges simply strengthened. 8vo. Portrait frontis (after Romney), title page, 4pp, 399pp. On front free endpaper is written in ink, in a contemporary hand 'This book was bought up immediately on publication by Lord Nelson and his friends, and none are to be found at the Booksellers in London in 1816'. Light toning throughout. Below portrait, in small italic script is written: "Published April 12, 1815 by Henry Colburn, Conduit Street". Opposite Preface is printed: "B. Clarke, Printer, Well-street, London". Pages clean, binding tight.

The text presents a generally unflattering portrait of Emma Hamilton, claiming that 'Nelson was deceived by female artifice'. Recommended by the Encyclopedia Britannica. as a reference. An astonishing book, damning Nelson's mistress by innuendo and class origin. Very revealing of the aristocratic ambivalence and snobbery of the period. The book begins, '..nothing should be said of the dead, but what is good. never could have been intended.. to cover in oblivion the deeds of those who have endeavored to loosen the foundations of amorality by their principles, or to render vice attractive by their example. Dame Emma Hamilton (Born Emma Lyon -- 1765-1815) Emma embarked on a passionate affair with Admiral Lord Nelson, but risked her security and social status in the process....They had one surviving child between them -- Horatia Nelson, born 29 January 1801, and though both Nelson and Hamilton were married -- they were married to someone else. Together they concocted an elaborate deception to keep the truth of Horatia's parentage a secret from their (marital) spouses. After Lord Admiral Nelson's death at Trafalgar, Lady Hamilton's fortunes never recovered from the tragedy, and - following a period in debtor's prison - she died in self-imposed exile in Calais in 1815. (Cobbled sources).