Manuscript notebook account of the last months of his wife Mary’s life.
1855. Hagley Hall: 1855-1857.
8vo, 69 pp. Manuscript. Bound in limp cloth, faded, especially at backstrip. Marbled edges. In very good conditon.
§ An account of the last months of Mary Lyttleton, née Gladstone, sister-in-law to Prime Minister W.E. Gladstone, compiled by her husband George Lyttleton. A very personal document and at the same time a fine example of the pious deathbed account so popular in Victorian England. According to DNB a few copies of this manuscript were made for the family, not for publication or even distribution outside the immediate family, perhaps due to sensitivity to the mental health issues of Lord Lyttelton who eventually succeeded in committing suicide. DNB notes: “Lyttelton's wife, Mary, died in 1857, exhausted by childbearing and leaving eight sons and four daughters. The third son, Neville Gerald Lyttelton, had a military career; the fifth son, Arthur Temple Lyttelton, was a bishop; the eighth son, Alfred Lyttelton, became colonial secretary; and the seventh son, Edward Lyttelton, was a schoolmaster and a cricketer. The second daughter, Lucy Caroline [see Cavendish, Lucy Caroline, under Cavendish, Lord Frederick Charles], was a churchwoman and promoter of women's education, as was the third daughter, Lavinia [see Talbot, Lavinia]. On occasion, the family fielded a full cricket eleven of Lytteltons.”. Item #106765
Price: $1,250.00