"THE FATES SAID TO THEM BE KINGS OF TALENT, BUT NOT OF TALENT ENOUGH" (THOMAS CARLYLE): THE STUARTS, 1902, ONE OF ONLY 175 COPIES

(MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS) FOSTER, J.J. The Stuarts. Being Illustrations of the Personal History of the Family (Especially Mary Queen of Scots) in XVIth, XVIIth and XVIIIth Century Art. London: Dickinson's, 1902. Two volumes. Folio (10-1/2 by 15 inches), full period-style red morocco, raised bands, gilt-decorated boards and spines, top edges gilt, uncut. $4500.

Signed limited first "Edition de Luxe," number 100 of only 175 copies signed by the author, with two hand-colored frontispiece portraits, over 90 folio plates (two hand-colored), and numerous in-text illustrations.

"In the following pages an attempt is made to illustrate the characters, the persons, and some of the surroundings of the principal members of this ill-fated house; and, incidentally, of their friends and foes, from the days of James V. of Scotland down to those of Prince Charles Edward, in whose person the Stuarts may be said to have made their last appearance as a political force." While these handsome folio volumes are focused on portraiture, the plates also include maps, scenes, and document facsimiles. Issued the same year in London and New York in both trade and limited editions. As issued with occasional plates bound out of order. Armorial bookplates of Collingwood Lindsay Wood. Born in 1830 in County Durham, England, he lived for much of his life at Freeland House, Perthshire, Scotland, and died in 1906. Early owner signatures dated 1918 on half title of Vol. I.

Interior very fresh with mere trace of scattered foxing.