History of England. by George Macaulay Trevelyan - 1926

55 Fifth Avenue New York; 19 Paternoster Row London; Toronto, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras: Longmans, Green and Co., 1926. Hardcover, red cloth boards. Good/No Jacket. Included is an ALS from Trevelyan to T. R. Smith (whose small nameplate is on the front pastedown) dated 7 May 1920 and written on a small piece of personal stationery from Pen Rose, Berkhamsted. It is a brief note acknowledging SmithŐs suggestion that Trevelyan write a history of England. Trevelyan states that he is currently working on other projects that will keep him busy for several years. In 1920, at the time of the enclosed letter from Trevelyan, Smith had recently left the editorship of the Century Magazine and taken over the editorial department at Boni & Liveright. Although he was not the only one to encourage Trevelyan in this direction, it must have been a source of satisfaction to Smith when History of England appeared some years later, and he kept the letter tucked into his own copy of TrevelyanŐs book. G. M. Trevelyan, 1876-1962, was an extremely influential professor and historian in his day, known for multiple works of English history as well as political & social biography. He came from a distinguished family of writers & historians and was committed to the idea that history has a literary and moral purpose for everyone at a time when it was primarily the domain of academics and the cultural elite. The 1926 single-volume History of England is one of his best-known works. He moved out to Berkhamsted after World War I and was probably working on British History in the Nineteenth Century (a very popular textbook for the student and general reader) when he wrote to Smith. It then took 3 years and an immense amount of work to put together History of England; published in April 1926, it quickly became one of TrevelyanŐs most successful books. While it has some flaws, it remains a massive achievement, particularly in its depiction of ordinary men & women. Also a contemporary newsclipping (poor condition) regarding a Trevelyan lecture on the Two-Party System. It was found at pages 258-9 and had slightly discolored the adjacent paper. Wear to ends & corners, spotting to back cover, spine darkened but overall solid and unmarked. 723 pages, foldout maps, index. Preface dated April 1926 Berkhamsted.