OLIVER CROMWELL

London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1901. Fourth Edition. 220 x 140 mm. (8 3/4 x 5 1/2"). viii, 510 pp.
Very pleasing deep brown pebble-grained morocco by Bumpus (signed on the front turn-in), covers ruled in gilt and black with scrolling fleuron cornerpieces, raised bands, spine with compartments outlined in black and gilt, gilt-ruled turn-ins, all edges gilt. Frontispiece portrait of Cromwell after the painting by Samuel Cooper. Spine very slightly sunned, the frontispiece and half title with minor foxing, but an extremely pleasing copy, the text very clean and fresh, and the attractive binding lustrous and showing virtually no signs of use.

First published in 1900, this is an important biography of one of the most controversial of English leaders, written by the universally respected British Liberal statesman, writer, and newspaper editor John Morley (1838-1923). Composed after very considerable research and with great care, Morley's work expands upon the biographies of C. H. Firth and Samuel Rawson Gardiner, but with a somewhat more disparaging lens. It is generally sympathetic, but critics of the account suggest that Morley's own political concerns at a vexing time in British politics seem to color his portrait of Cromwell in a negative way that is unwarranted. The book was first published in October of 1900, and this, the fourth edition, was released in January of the following year. Our copy is a particularly attractive one, in an elegant yet restrained binding by the distinguished Bumpus bindery..