About this Item
typescript remboîtage, with manuscript additions, seemingly unpublished put together with extraordinary care on the 1722 Congress of Cambrai professionally rebound in a late eighteenth century or early nineteenth century full calf binding, top edge gilt, spine gilt, label to spine reads Congress of Cambrai, slightly chipped. No author given. It is difficult to date, but it would seem reasonable to suggest that it was put together as a project during the middle of twentieth century perhaps a little earlier. The original binding has the armorial bookplate Sir Wm. Purves Hume Campbell, Bart with the motto Of that Ilk in capitals to front pastedown, original marbled endpapers retained. Title page made with a mock medieval collage reading Beit Known that here i[s] told the Doings of Com[p]aney of merrie Lords and sun[d]ry Great people in ye yeare S[e]venteen-[h]undre[d] and T[w]enty-Two Wherefore, haste ye to read Herein, followed by 307 numbered pages, typed to recto only, remainder blank. Typing is extremely neat, with no corrections, occasional overslips pasted in. Tipped in are twenty reproduced portraits of figures from the treaty negotiations on contrasting paper, each preceded by a carefully written full-page caption with highlighted capital letters. In more detail: title page, 11 numbered pages hand-written detailing contents. Typescript begins with the introduction (six pages), then three pages manuscript followed by a pasted eighteenth century arms of His Excellency Alexander Lord Polwarth, Ambassador to the Congress of Combray. The narration continues with detailed extracts from contemporary sources in French and English, including unpublished letters (particularly between Polwarth and Lord Whitworth), with occasional neatly written supplementary biographical pages in manuscript. An interesting and well-written historical account (including for example, letters describing the unmasking of a page boy as a spy), seemingly unpublished, equally extra-ordinarily well presented. A remarkable artifact. £345.
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