Some Letters About Napoleon, Hobhouse 1816. These two books are titled “The Substance Of Some Letters, Written By An English Resident At Paris During The Last Reign Of The Emperor Napoleon. With An Appendix Of Official Documents. In Two Volumes”, printed by T. Davison at Lombard-street in Whitefriars for Ridgways and published by Ridgways in London in 1816, and based on the dates and the errata page at the end, they are first editions. The books were actually written by John Cam Hobhouse (1786 - 1869), an English politician and diarist, also known as the First Baron Broughton, and this is his account of the Hundred Days, which marked the period between Napoleon's return from exile on the island of Elba to Paris on March 20, 1815 and the second restoration of the Bourbon King Louis XVIII on July 8, 1815. The two books showed Hobhouse’s strong dislike for the Bourbons and his sympathy for Napoleon; this caused some offence in England and France, and the French translation was seized by the government and both translator and printer were imprisoned. He wrote a couple of other political pamphlets later on and was arrested and imprisoned in Newgate for going out of bounds with his thoughts, and this only increased his popularity with the public, and after he got out of prison, he ran for Parliament and was elected. He was good friends with Lord Byron, too, and after the poet's death in 1824, Hobhouse proved his will, which means he demonstrated to the court that the will was signed by Byron and witnessed by two other people, and he took care of the funeral arrangements for Byron afterwards as well. Both volumes are 3/4 bound, with four raised bands, five gilt-ruled compartments with black labels and gilt titles and gilt incised decorations on the spines, marbled covers, beige endpapers with the bookplate of Eugene J Escolas Sr on the front paste-downs, “Wm B James” is inscribed at the top of the title pages, both books are stamped “Souers de Sainte-Anne, Noviciat, Marlboro, Massachusetts” on the front endpapers and on the title page in Volume I, and the books have a library pocket at the rear. The first volume has an eleven-page preface (v - xv) and 490 pages of text, while the second volume has 243 pages of text, then seven more pages called “Additional Notes on the Letters”, which run from page 247 to page 255, then a long 133-page Appendix, followed by the errata leaf for both volumes at the end. The books are 8vo. and measure 8 3/8 x 5 1/2 in. wide, the bindings are tight and the pages and text are pretty clean, with occasional offset here and there and a few light brown spots in the margins, light rubbing on the spines and at the tips, and the library pockets are neat and clean and don’t detract from attractiveness of the books. A rare first edition set by an English author who was not afraid to speak his mind. #179 #1537