THE REMINISCENCES AND RECOLLECTIONS
OF CAPTAIN GRONOW
BEING ANECDOTES OF THE CAMP,
COURT, CLUBS, AND SOCIETY
1810-1860

VOLUME II

WITH ETCHED AND AQUATINT ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES BY
JOSEPH GREGO

JOHN C. NIMMO: LONDON
1889

Limited edition, number 438 of 870.

Rees Howell Gronow (1794 – 22 November 1865) was a Welsh Grenadier Guards officer, an unsuccessful parliamentarian, a dandy and a writer of celebrated reminiscences.

In 1812 he received a commission as an ensign in the 1st Battalion 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, and was sent with a detachment of his regiment to Spain. In 1813 he took part in the principal military operations in that country, and in the following year returned with his battalion to London. Here he became one of the dandies of the town.
Wanting money to equip himself for his further services abroad, he obtained an advance of £200, and going with this money to a gambling-house in St. James's Square, he won £600, with which he purchased horses and other necessaries. Sir Thomas Picton then took him out to Flanders as an honorary aide-de-camp and was subsequently present at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. He entered Paris on 25 June 1815. From this period until 1821 he continued with his regiment in England, and then retired from the army.

For many years after this he resided in London, mixing in the best society. In later years he took up his residence in Paris, where he was present during the coup d'état of December 1851. His name is chiefly remembered in connection with his volumes of reminiscences, which was first published in 1862.

He relates his personal experiences, as in his account of the state of Paris in 1815, the condition of society in London in his own time, and the doings of the court of Napoleon III, his testimony is to be relied on, but his second-hand stories and anecdotes of persons whom he did not know are of lesser value. Whether reliable or not, his narrative is invariably lively and entertaining.

27 x 18 cm. xii + 343 pp + tissue guarded frontispiece & 11 plates in duplicate, one on plate paper, proofs before letters, and the other on Whatman paper, with title, and coloured by hand.

Very good + condition, cloth on spine has some short splits at the head and creasing at the base. Some light foxing, mainly to rough cut page edges. Some offsetting from colour plates to tissue guards, otherwise clean and tidy, binding firm, all plates present in both states. Volume 2 of 2 only.
The best edition, scarce in original cloth.