Printed Books & Early American Photography, including Selections from the Larry Ness Collection

8vo. (Some light spotting throughout.) Original royal blue cloth (rubbing to hinges, paper spine label worn, spine ends rubbed). Provenance: Edward, Duke of Windsor (1894-1972), formerly King Edward VIII of England (bookplate).

KING EDWARD VIII'S COPY OF HIS GREAT-GRANDMOTHER QUEEN VICTORIA'S BIOGRAPHY.

Born during the reign of his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, Edward began preparations to assume royal duties from an early age. Following the death of his grandfather, Edward VII, in 1910, these studies increased dramatically and Edward became a voracious student of royal history. By the early 1920s he had become something of a celebrity and was considered to have been one of the most photographed men in the world, not to mention its most eligible bachelor. He became king upon the death of his father in January 1936, however his relationship with American divorcee Wallis Simpson caused a constitutional crisis, however, which eventually led to Edward's abdication on 10 December 1936, resulting in his younger brother assuming the throne and becoming King George VI.

Edward's bookplate was designed by British architect and artist Philip Armstrong Tilden (1887-1956). Active during throughout the twentieth century, Tilden worked for highly prominent members of British society including Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Philip Sassoon, and Winston Churchill, with his restoration and redesign work to Churchill's country home of Chartwell among some of his best known.