Prince charlie and his ladies

London: Cassell and Company, [1934]. [8], 296pp. With a (misbound) photographic frontispiece. Extra-illustrated with 40 engraved plates (two coloured). Bound by Bayntun in contemporary gilt-tooled red half-morocco, red cloth boards, T.E.G. Very minor shelf-wear. Marbled endpapers, red morocco bookplate of W. A. Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey to FEP, scattered spotting. A handsomely bound, profusely extra-illustrated copy of the first edition of Compton Mackenzie's (1883-1972) account of the female influences on the life of Charles Edward Stuart (1720-1788), 'the Young Pretender'. The extra illustrations are predominantly portraits of notably historical figures including, author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, Italian dramatist Vittorio Alfieri, and Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald. William Alfred Westropp Foyle (1885-1963), bookseller, co-founder of the eponymous bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Following his purchase of the former medieval monastery of Beeleigh Abbey in 1943, Foyle built an extensive personal library. In July 2000, following the death of his daughter and successor Christina, the library was dispersed at Christie's over three days, at the time being the most valuable English private library ever to be offered in Britain or on the Continent. Those books that remained with the family were sold by Dominic Winter Auctioneers in 2023 following the death of Foyle's grandson Christopher. . First edition. 8vo.