DIARY AND NOTES OF HORACE TEMPLETON, ESQ, LATE SECRETARY OF LEGATION AT —. Complete in Two Volumes.

First edition, first printing. Two volumes. Finely bound in nineteenth century full dark green morocco, the spines uniformly faded to lighter brown. With five raised bands, gilt decorated compartments (lettered in gilt to two), front and rear boards triple-ruled in gilt, inner dentelles elaborately decorated in gilt. Burgundy endpapers. Upper edges gilt. Half titles to both volumes. The publisher's original gilt-lettered green cloth spine panels bound to the rear of each volume. In near fine condition, the bindings square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Very lightly spotted to fore- and lower page block edges, occasionally to the margins of a few pages, and to the binder's blanks front and rear. A handsome set.

Although Lever was wittily scathing of his anonymously published novel cast in the form of a diary, his feelings about the work were clearly complicated. In a letter to Alexander Spencer, written in Como, October 19, 1847, he reports that "I have now half written, and part printed, the affair called 'Horace Templeton', for which, being anonymous, I will only receive at first £250—being, I greatly fear, about £240 above its value. But I felt it easy on my conscience, as my name—such as it is—remains safe. There are, I hope, some things in H. T. you will like. You who know me well will see how much of the real man has oozed out, and how impossible it has been to make the confessions of a diary purely fictitious." The eponymous Horace Templeton, Lionel Stevenson writes in his study of Lever, is "suffering from an incurable illness, is travelling to Italy in the full expectation of dying there. His journal is made up of descriptions of travel, comments on contemporary politics, and fragmentary romantic episodes recollected from his earlier life. [Lever] described it aptly as 'a local habitation to accommodate my stray sheep withal'. [...] The autobiographic element is recognizable in the itinerary—Paris, Brussels, Baden, the Tyrol, Lago di Como, Florence—and in such specific passages as a description of dining in company with Alfred de Vigny, and a bitter denunciation of the gambling at Baden-Baden." (Lionel Stevenson, 'Dr. Quicksilver : The Life of Charles Lever', London: 1939) (Sadleir 1403).