The History of England

A handsome, uniformly-bound, 9 volume set of first editions.

Macaulay (1800-1859) returned to England from India in 1838 and entered Parliament as a member for Edinburgh. He became secretary for war in 1839, with a seat in Lord Melbourne's Cabinet but the ministry fell in 1841 and he found the time to publish his Lays of Ancient Rome (1842) and a collection of Critical and Historical Essays (1843), before his History in 1848.

The work, much celebrated in its day, has become the archetype for the 'Whig' interpretation of history — of human progress from a benighted past to its glorious present. It focuses on the transition from the last Stuart monarch James II and VII to the co-regency and eventual reign of William III to his death in 1702, encompassing the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite risings as England's last Catholic monarch was overthrown and the Kingdom entrusted to Dutch Protestant hands.

This set is also bound with Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings, featuring his essays on Athenian orators, principal Italian writers, and the author's numerous contributions to the Edinburgh Review and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Additionally, the set also features a collection of Macaulay's speeches on parliamentary reform, education, the Church of Ireland, as well as his biographies on John Bunyan, Samuel Johnson, and William Pitt.

Four works, uniformly bound; all first editions; 9 vols; 8vo (22 x 14.5 cm); mild spotting to prelims, marbled endpapers, black and white frontispiece engraving by C. Cook in Miscellaneous Writings vol 1, daguerreotype frontispiece portrait of the author in Biographies; contemporary brown straight grain calf, double gilt fillet with gilt cornerpieces, spine gilt in six compartments with raised bands, titled in gilt, tooling in gilt, marbled edges; a handsome set.