EDWARD VIII.

£8,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph letters signed to Freda Dudley Ward, reflecting candidly on the death of his brother. The future Edward VIII writes to his mistress with shocking indifference to the death of his epileptic brother, Prince John, expressing gladness that the "more of an animal" boy had passed and regretting only that the mourning would interrupt his partying.Freda Dudley Ward, a married English socialite, was Edward's mistress from 1918 to 1929. Winston Churchill observed in 1927, "It is quite pathetic to see the Prince and Freda. His love is so obvious and undisguisable" (Ziegler, p. 89).Edward was then visiting military divisions in Europe. On 17 January 1919 he writes enclosing "the teeny calendar which is now thine": a copy of the "Bond Street" Calendar for 1919, inscribed by him with a sequence of first letters of words from a poem they admired. He comments on rumours he was engaged to Lady Cynthia Curzon, and states that he is headquartered in a former chemical factory.The second letter, dated 18 January, finds him exulting that "I'm nearly through now, only a church parade tomorrow morning & then goodbye-ee to this filthy Rhineland & all these - - Huns!". He did not yet know that Prince John, aged 13, had died that day following a seizure. John had suffered from epilepsy since childhood and spent his final years in seclusion at Sandringham; his condition was made public only after his death.In the next letter, dated 20 January, Edward had heard the news: "I'm in a fever, belove

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.