Letters to His Son by the Earl of Chesterfield, on the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, in Two Volumes

xvi, 408; xi, [1], 435, [1] pp. 8vo. This edition includes topical headings and a special introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh, as well as six plates (photogravures from paintings). "Eugenia Stanhope, the impoverished widow of Chesterfield’s illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope was the first to publish the book Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774), which comprises a thirty-year correspondence in more than four hundred letters. Begun in the 1737 and continued until the death of his son in 1768, Chesterfield wrote mostly instructive communications about geography, history, and classical literature, -with later letters focusing on politics and diplomacy- and the letters themselves were written in French, English, and Latin, in order to refine his son's grasp of the languages. As a handbook for worldly success in the 18th century, the Letters to His Son give perceptive and nuanced advice for how a gentleman should interpret the social codes that are manners. Samuel Johnson said of the letters "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master" as means for getting on in the world as a gentleman. Despite having been an accomplished essayist and epigrammatist in his time, Lord Chesterfield's literary reputation today derives almost entirely from Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774) and Letters to His Godson (1890), books of private correspondence and paternal and avuncular advice, which he never intended for publication." ABOUT THE AUTHOR: "Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield PC KG (22 September 1694 – 24 March 1773) was a British statesman and man of letters. A Whig, Lord Stanhope, as he was known until his father's death in 1726, was born in London. After being educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he went on the Grand Tour of the continent. The death of Anne and the accession of George I opened up a career for him and brought him back to England. His relative James Stanhope, the king's favourite minister, procured for him the place of gentleman of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales." - Wikipedia