The Private Correspondence of a Woman of Fashion.

Two volumes in one, half leather, corners bumped, some repair work tothe inside of the front cover, mainly good and sound. This is the author's own copy with corrections and marginal notes in her hand throughout, and most of the full names of people from the beau monde filled in, initials only having been printed (e.g. from "C" to "Creevy", "H" to "Hamilton", etc.). The author has added her name to the title of a work published anonymously, and also added details of her later book, "The Records of Real Life in the Palace & The Cottage / by the same Authoress / Saunders & Otley / Conduit Street / 1840". The book is autobiographical. A few details about the author are given in DNB under her Uncle, Robert Pigott, food and dress reformer, including the fact that she donated her archive (rather more than DNB records) to the Bodleian (MS. Pigott), the value of which is just beginning to get recognised. This unique copy is from the Library of a Franklin B. Sanborn (not th famous one, I'm told). He describes the passage in which she describes her escape for Napoleon, and mentions the presence of notes in her hand. One lengthy note by Pigott bears on the publishing history of the book: "This work was published by Cobourn [sic] & Bentley at the time they dissolved partnership - and on the same day Cobourn published in his Court Journal a satirical notice on it selecting for the subject of his abuse these details of the Waterloo afffair." (II.121) Much set in France and Belgium, some at the time of Waterloo.