The memoirs and speeches of James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave, 1742-1763 / edited with an introduction by J.C.D. Clark

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1988. First Edition. Hardback. Near fine copy in the original gilt-blocked red cloth. Slightest suggestion only of dust-dulling to the spine bands and panel edges. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. Provenance: From the library of Eric George Hatfield Moody with his personalized bookplate to front pastedown.; 8vo 8"" - 9"" tall; 340 pages; Physical description. : xii, 340 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Notes: Includes index. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: List of illustrations; Preface; List of abbreviations; Textual conventions; Introduction; 1. The court society; 2. The family background; 3. The political career of James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave, 1741-1763; 4. The publication of the memoirs; 5. The historical influence of the memoirs; 6. The text of the memoirs; Index. Summary: The Memoirs of James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave (1715-63) rank with those of Horace Walpole and Lord Hervey as classics of eighteenth-century political literature. They have an additional significance as a record of the momentous political crisis of 1754-7, which heralded the break-up of the early Hanoverian party system and laid the foundations for the pattern of alignments of the last half of the century. Waldegrave's Memoirs, first published in 1821, played a major part in the development of the Whig interpretation of the English past by apparently providing evidence in support of the Holland House thesis of a new royal absolutism, devised at Leicester House in the 1750s and implemented on the accession of George III in 1760. In an important introduction, Dr Clark unravels the nineteenth-century historiographical misconceptions of this problem and shows how Waldegrave's text was misused for polemical Whig purposes. Subject: Waldegrave, James Waldegrave, Earl, 1715-1763. Politicians - Great Britain - Biography. Great Britain - Court and courtiers - Biography. Great Britain - History - George II, 1727-1760 - Sources. Great Britain - Politics and government - 1727-1760.