THE DIARY OF A LADY IN WAITING. Being the Diary Illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth Interspersed With Original Letters From the Late Queen Caroline and From Other Distinguished Persons.

Two volumes. Contemporary half green morocco, for Hatchards, with two raised bands and gilt titles and decoration to the spines. Top edge gilt. With eighteen black and white plates throughout, including a tissue-guarded photogravure frontispiece in each volume. A very good set, the bindings square and firm, the spines a little faded, the corners and spine tips a little rubbed. Volume one has a few small spots to the text-block fore-edge and some light foxing to the first few pages. Volume two has some spotting to the closed text-block edge and to the first few pages, the contents are otherwise clean throughout and without stamps or inscriptions. An attractive set.

A diary describing the court of the scandal-ridden but hugely popular Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821, Princess of Wales and later briefly the Queen of the United Kingdom as the estranged wife of King George IV during his regency. Caroline of Brunswick was notably supported by Jane Austen during a commission instigated by George IV known as the 'Delicate Investigation'. Originally published anonymously in 1838, the diary was later alleged to have been written, unintended for publication, by Lady Charlotte Bury (1775-1861), an aristocrat and novelist who was appointed as lady in waiting to the Princess of Wales in 1810.