John Harvard Ellis. Lord Brougham : considered as a lawyer. Boston : publisher not identified, 1868.
We’ve made an interesting discovery at the Riesenfeld Center this week: an extra-illustrated biography of Lord Brougham. Also called grangerising, after James Granger who published a Biographical History of England with blank leaves for the purchaser to use as he or she wished, extra-illustrated books are ones in which owners have added content such as portraits, clippings, and other documents. The owner of this particular book has tipped in (glued) a published bibliography of Brougham’s work, several of his obituaries, a letter of advice he wrote, and a cartoon. Several of these additions have a hand-written date entered next to them.
The volume has several inlaid plates of portraits of the main cast of characters in the divorce trial of Queen Caroline and King George IV. Lord Brougham is best known for his defense of Queen Caroline in this trial. The author describes Brougham’s defense as “the most powerful argument which he ever made....It was the great forensic triumph of his life, and deserves to be placed among the most successful of the impressive and elaborate productions of the leaders of the English bar.” Caroline was acquitted, but led a very short and unhappy life, nonetheless.
One of our favorite aspects of working with rare books is discovering these “extras” previous owners have added!
