NELSON, Horatio, Viscount Nelson (his copy).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

"Biographical Memoir of the Right Honourable Lord Nelson of the Nile" [extracted from a copy of the Naval Chronicle]. Signed by Nelson on the front free endpaper ("Nelson & Bronte"), struck through apparently by him, and with a note below in his hand: "This book to my knowledge does not belong to me". Nelson wrote this sketch of his life for the Naval Chronicle while his ships were repairing at Minorca in 1799.A slip mounted on the same page draws attention to a pencilled annotation on pae 187, where, against the entry for a present received from the Parliament of Ireland for service in the Mediterranean, someone, perhaps Nelson, has written "never received". This is part of a list of "Presents for Lord Nelson for his Services in the Mediterranean", of which Nelson expert Martyn Downer remarks: "By issuing this statement, it appeared that Nelson was seeking to price his victory in monetary terms. It was not behaviour likely to impress his monarch, fellow officers or superiors at the Admiralty".Provenance: Mawdesley of Lancashire, with contemporary armorial bookplate on front pastedown. This is presumably a member of the Nelson family of Mawdesley in Lancashire; John Gribbel of Philadelphia (1858-1936), businessman, industrialist, and philanthropist, with his bookplate on front and rear pastedowns, his sale Parke Bernet, New York, 22 January 1941 (a pencilled note on the front pastedown reads: "bought from Maggs Bros", and there is a bookseller's catalogue slip on the frontisp

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