THE TABLE-TALK OF JOHN SELDEN. Queen Victoria's Half-Sister's Copy.: With Biographical Preface and Notes by S.W. Singer, F.S.A.

London: John Russell Smith, Soho Square, 1860.. Third Edition. Octavo, original textured brown cloth decorated in blind on front & rear panels, spine panel ruled and lettered in gold. 270 pp + 16 page catalogue of 'Valuable and Interesting Books, Published or Sold by John Russell Smith, 36 Soho Square, London. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Selden with tissue guard; head- and tail-pieces & attractive initial letters throughout. Small, contemporary clipping affixed to recto of rear free endpaper with an old 19th Century pin; browning to pages 148-149 from an old newspaper clipping; a few pages with edges folded. Signature on front free endpaper of Emily Gourlay, Barton Lodge; later (modern) heraldic bookplate of Gallery Poisson on front paste-down. Cloth frayed at head of spine and lightly worn along outer joints; a good, sound copy.

¶ Later edition of a work first published in 1689. John Selden (1584-1654), "the most learned person in England" in the seventeenth century, was a lawyer, an antiquarian, a member of Parliament, and the greatest expert of his day on British legal matters. The "Table-Talk" is a collection of his remarks and short essays on many topics, praised by many, including Coleridge. Emily Gourlay of Barton Lodge, Hamilton, Ontario is thought to have been the illegitimate half-sister of Queen Victoria through a liaison of her father, Prince Edward, fourth son of King George III and Isabella Hyde. Emily was born in 1817 (two years before Victoria) but her mother was married off to John Lionel Whyte to give legitimacy to the birth. "Emily White" married Colonel William Gourlay in 1850, becoming Emily Gourlay. Family legend maintains that the Whyte family was selected by the Duke of Kent to provide a husband and protection for Isabella and that in recognition of this they large plantations in Jamaica were bestowed upon them; John Whyte later sold these holdings and moved to Barton Lodge, Hamilton, Ontario. The name change was a further disguise of the Duke's and Julie's firstborn, who would have been the first heir to the throne upon the death of her uncle William IV in 1837 had her birth not been illegitimate.