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13¼" x 10". Full leather, gilt title to front board, thin card leaves. 19 handwritten and illustrated pages. Very good due to moderate wear to boards; internally near fine with a hint of dust soiling. This is a gorgeous and strikingly illustrated genealogy commissioned by a 25 year-old New York socialite not long after the loss of her well-known father as well as her marriage to a British military officer. Ruth Moore was born in Brooklyn around 1874 and was the daughter of John Godfrey Moore. John Godfrey was a major industrialist during the Gilded Age and was best known for successfully suing the United States government in 1893 to stop the new income tax act, ultimately delaying it by 20 years. He died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1899, leaving Ruth with half of his massive estate. Ruth married Arthur Hamilton Lee soon after her father's death in 1899. With Ruth's inheritance, Arthur was able to retire from the military in his early 30s, and start a very successful political career in Britain, being elected to the House of Commons in 1900. Arthur also maintained a robust correspondence with President Theodore Roosevelt. The couple later donated their country estate Chequers in 1917 to the British government for use in perpetuity by successive prime ministers. Arthur became Viscount Lee of Fareham, a member of the House of Lords, and Ruth became a Viscountess until her death in 1965. The genealogist was a woman, Miss M.L. Hawley, and we are unable to find anything about her. The artist, W.H. Abbott, ran a business in New York called "The Bureau of Heraldry," and published Heraldry Illustrated in 1897. This book begins with an elaborately designed title page in ink and watercolor and Moore's family is traced back to 1653. Included among the handsomely written data are 30 heraldic crests in ink and watercolor. They are as large as five inches by three inches and many are heightened with gold and/or silver. All leap off the page while colorfully representing the following families: Andrews, Bidwell, Bissell, Capron, Champernowne, Cutts, Denison, Dodge, Dyer, Filley, Fitch, Garfield, Goodhue, Griswold, Green, Howland, Littlefield, Millet, Newberry, Parish, Phelps, Pinney, Ridley, Stoughton, Thayer, Tracy, Tuttle, Wadsworth, Warham, Wilson. Simply stunning.
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