Letters to His Son

These letters, written in the mid-eighteenth century by Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, to his illegitimate son Philip, and published after the earl's death in 1774, are a course in worldly education. Chesterfield instructs the young man in languages, history, and the art of pleasing in courts and drawing-rooms: dress, conversation, tact, the management of women, and how to rise without seeming to grasp. Paris, Leipzig, and the diplomatic circuit are the implied classrooms. The tone is cool, specific, and anti-pedantic. The book is a manual of manners and ambition in letter form, not a private family chronicle or a novel.

Quarter bound in black buckram, Cockerell marbled paper boards. Pale grey endleaves. Mottled grey slipcase.