Memoirs of Grammont. Leather binding - 1714

Red leather binding with gilt banding and title on the spine. Gilt decorative border on both boards. All edges gilt. This First English edition is unique with latter inserts Anthony Hamilton wrote the Mémoires du comte de Gramont between 1704 and 1710 at the age of 59 to 65. This work made Hamilton one of the classical writers of France. The tone of the work, however, is now thought equivocal. By highlighting the brilliance of the London Restoration court, the book threw into relief the lacklustre nature of the exiled Stuart court. It has even been said to share something with the anti-Jacobite polemic written against the court of James II at St Germain by John Macky. The book starts with the sentence (as translated by Horace Walpole): 'As those who read only for amusement are, in my opinion, more worthy of attention than those who open a book merely to find a fault, to the former I address myself, and for their entertainment commit the following pages to press, without being in the least concerned about the severe criticism of the latter.' The work was said to have been written at Gramont's dictation, but Hamilton's share is obvious, and the book situates itself at the cross-roads between memoirs, biography, and fiction. The work was first published anonymously in 1713, apparently without Hamilton's knowledge. The first English translation is the one by Abel Boyer, which appeared in 1714. Walpole's translation is the classical one and used in many editions. It seem it has been published for the first time in 1773 at Strawberry Hill Press. Peter Quennell retranslated the Memoirs in 1930. It was published accompanied with extensive commentary by Cyril Hughes Hartmann. Antoine (or Anthony) Hamilton, comte (c. 1645 – 1719) was a soldier and a writer of literature. As a Catholic of Irish and Scottish ancestry, he fled with his family to France during the Interregnum and later sided with James II against the Prince of Orange, which led him into another French exile. As a soldier he fought in French service in the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) and then in the Irish Army in the Williamite War (1688–1690) where he fought on the losing side in the battles of Newtownbutler and the Boyne. As a writer he chose French as his language and adopted a light and elegant style, seeking to amuse and entertain his reader. He is mainly known for the Mémoires du comte de Grammont, which focusses on the time his brother-in-law Philibert, comte de Gramont, spent at the court of Charles II at Whitehall. Antoine Hamilton is mainly known for a single book: the Mémoires du comte de Grammont. After this followed some shorter works among which the four short stories: Le Bélier, Fleur d'Epine, Zénéyde, and Les quatre Facardins. Hamilton's other works In imitation and satiric parody of the romantic tales that Antoine Galland's translation of Thousand and One Nights had brought into favour, Hamilton wrote, partly for the amusement of Henrietta Bulkley, sister of Anne, Duchess of Berwick, to whom he was much attached, four ironic and extravagant contes (fairy tales): Le Bélier, Fleur d'Epine, Zénéyde and Les quatre Facardins. The saying in Le Belier, "Belier, mon ami, tu me ferais plaisir si tu voulais commencer par le commencement," passed into a proverb. These tales were circulated privately during Hamilton's lifetime. The first three were published in Paris in 1730, ten years after the author's death; a collection of his Œuvres diverses in 1731 contained the unfinished Zénéyde. An 1849 omnibus entitled Fairy Tales and Romances contained English translations of all his fiction. Hamilton also wrote some songs and exchanged amusing verses with the Duke of Berwick. In the name of his niece, the countess of Stafford, Hamilton maintained a witty correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.