"A most agreeable book, forming a meet companion for the work of Miss Strickland, to which, indeed, it is an indispensable addition. The auth.o.r.ess, already favourably known to the learned world by her excellent collection of "Letters of Royal and Ill.u.s.trious Ladies," has executed her task with great skill and fidelity. Every page displays careful research and accuracy. There is a graceful combination of sound, historical erudition, with an air of romance and adventure that is highly pleasing, and renders the work at once an agreeable companion of the boudoir, and a valuable addition to the historical library. Mrs.
Green has entered upon an untrodden path, and gives to her biographies an air of freshness and novelty very alluring. The present volumes (including the Lives of twenty-five Princesses) carry us from the daughters of the Conqueror to the family of Edward I.--a highly interesting period, replete with curious ill.u.s.trations of the genius and manners of the Middle Ages. Such works, from the truthfulness of their spirit, furnish a more lively picture of the tunes than even the graphic, though delusive, pencil of Scott and James."--_Britannia._
"The vast utility of the task undertaken by the gifted author of this interesting book can only be equalled by the skill, ingenuity, and research required for its accomplishment. The field Mrs. Green has selected is an untrodden one. Mrs. Green, on giving to the world a work which will enable us to arrive at a correct idea of the private histories and personal characters of the royal ladies of England, has done sufficient to ent.i.tle her to the respect and grat.i.tude of the country. The labour of her task was exceedingly great, involving researches, not only into English records and chronicles, but into those of almost every civilised country in Europe. The style of Mrs. Green is admirable. She has a fine perception of character and manners, a penetrating spirit of observation, and singular exactness of judgment.
The memoirs are richly fraught with the spirit of romantic adventure."--_Morning Post._
"This work is a worthy companion to Miss Strickland"s admirable "Queens of England." In one respect the subject-matter of these volumes is more interesting, because it is more diversified than that of the "Queens of England." That celebrated work, although its heroines were, for the most part, foreign Princesses, related almost entirely to the history of this country. The Princesses of England, on the contrary, are themselves English, but their lives are nearly all connected with foreign nations.
Their biographies, consequently, afford us a glimpse of the manners and customs of the chief European kingdoms, a circ.u.mstance which not only gives to the work the charm of variety, but which is likely to render it peculiarly useful to the general reader, as it links together by a.s.sociation the contemporaneous history of various nations. The histories are related with an earnest simplicity and copious explicitness. The reader is informed without being wearied, and alternately enlivened by some spirited description, or touched by some pathetic or tender episode. We cordially commend Mrs. Everett Green"s production to general attention; it is (necessarily) as useful as history, and fully as entertaining as romance."--_Sun._
THE FOLLOWING WILL BE PUBLISHED IMMEDIATELY.
A NEW HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
BY ELIOT WARBURTON, Esq.,
Author of "The Crescent and the Cross." &c. 3 vols.
MEMOIRS OF A HUNGARIAN LADY BY THERESA PULSZKY.
With an Historical Introduction, by FRANCIS PULSZKY, late Under Secretary of State to the Emperor Ferdinand and King of Hungary.
2 vols., post 8vo., 21s. bound. (Now ready.)
THE LIFE AND REIGN OF CHARLES I.
BY J. DISRAELI.
A NEW AND IMPROVED EDITION, with a Preface by B. DISRAELI, M.P.
2 vols., uniform with the "Curiosities of Literature."
HISTORIC SCENES.
BY AGNES STRICKLAND.
Author of "Lives of the Queens of England," &c. 1 vol., post 8vo, elegantly bound, with Portrait of the Author.
LONDON LITERARY SOCIETY IN THE DAYS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE HENRY ROSCOE.
BY WILLIAM WEIR.
2 vols., post 8vo.
LEAVES FROM A LADY"S DIARY OF HER TRAVELS IN BARBARY.
2 vols., post 8vo.
FRESTON TOWER; OR, THE EARLY DAYS OF CARDINAL WOLSEY.
BY THE REV. RICHARD COBBOLD.
3 vols., post 8vo., with Ill.u.s.trations.
A CHEAPER EDITION OF BURKE"S HISTORY OF THE LANDED GENTRY; FOR 1850.
A Genealogical Dictionary
OF THE WHOLE OF THE UNt.i.tLED ARISTOCRACY OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND:
And comprising Particulars of 100,000 Individuals connected with them.
CORRECTED TO THE PRESENT TIME.
=A COMPANION TO ALL THE PEERAGES.=
In 2 volumes, royal 8vo., beautifully printed in double columns, comprising more matter than 30 ordinary volumes, price only _2l. 2s._ elegantly bound in gilt morocco cloth.
*** The great cost (upwards of 6000) attending the production of this National Work, the first of its kind, induces the Publisher to hope that the heads of all Families recorded in its pages will supply themselves with copies.
The Landed Gentry of England are so closely connected with the stirring records of its eventful history, that some acquaintance with them is a matter of necessity with the legislator, the lawyer, the historical student, the speculator in politics, and the curious in topographical and antiquarian lore; and even the very spirit of ordinary curiosity will prompt to a desire to trace the origin and progress of those families whose influence pervades the towns and villages of our land.
This work furnishes such a ma.s.s of authentic information in regard to all the princ.i.p.al families in the kingdom as has never before been attempted to be brought together. It relates to the unt.i.tled families of rank, as the "Peerage and Baronetage" does to the t.i.tled, and forms, in fact, a peerage of the unt.i.tled aristocracy. It embraces the whole of the landed interest, and is indispensable to the library of every gentleman.
"A work of this kind is of a national value. Its utility is not merely temporary, but it will exist and be acknowledged as long as the families whose names and genealogies are recorded in it continue to form an integral portion of the English const.i.tution. As a correct record of descent, no family should be without it. The unt.i.tled aristocracy have in this great work as perfect a dictionary of their genealogical history, family connexions, and heraldic rights, as the peerage and baronetage. It will be an enduring and trustworthy record."--_Morning Post._
"A work in which every gentleman will find a domestic interest, as it contains the fullest account of every known family in the United Kingdom. It is a dictionary of all names, families, and their origin,--of every man"s neighbour and friend, if not of his own relatives and immediate connexions. It cannot fail to be of the greatest utility to professional men in their researches respecting the members of different families, heirs to property, &c. Indeed, it will become as necessary as a Directory in every office."--_Bell"s Messenger._
DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF SAMUEL PEPYS, F.R.S., SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY IN THE REIGNS OF CHARLES II. AND JAMES II.
EDITED BY LORD BRAYBROOKE.
New and Revised Edition, with numerous Pa.s.sages now restored from the Original Ma.n.u.script, and many Additional Notes, complete in 5 vols., post 8vo., with Portraits, &c., price 10s. 6d. each, elegantly bound in French Morocco with gilt edges.
"These volumes of Pepys" famous Journal, in their present complete form, contain much attractive novelty. Without making any exception in favour of any other production of ancient or modern diarists, we unhesitatingly characterise this journal as the most remarkable production of its kind which has ever been given to the world. Pepys paints the Court, the Monarchs, and the times, in more vivid colours than any one else. His Diary makes us comprehend the great historical events of the age, and the people who bore a part in them, and gives us more clear glimpses into the true English life of the times than all the other memorials of them that have come down to our own."--_Edinburgh Review._