Description:

Benjamin Disraeli ALS Containing Wiesbaden Spa Gossip: "Our Prince of Wales incog: jumped out + was soon detected by 20,000 enthusiastic inhabitants"

A 4pp autograph letter signed by British politician Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) as "D" on the bottom of the last page. Dated September 13, 1865. On bifold stationery with "Raby Castle, / Darlington" letterhead. (Raby Castle was a fourteenth-century castle in County Durham.) Expected wear including gentle paper folds. Isolated foxing and a little grubbiness along the bifold edge, else near fine. 4.5" x 7."

In 1865, Benjamin Disraeli was three years away from his first premiership. He had served as a member of the House of Commons since 1837, and was a little less than one year away from undertaking his third and final term as Chancellor of the Exchequer. MP Disraeli wrote this gossipy letter to his old friend William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale (1787-1872). The letter contains society news from the Continent, specifically the comings and goings of VIPs visiting the thermal spring spas located at Wiesbaden in Hesse, Germany.

This letter is listed as #4039 in the published collection of Disraeli's correspondence edited by Michel W. Pharand, "Volume IX, Benjamin Disraeli Letters, 1865-1867" (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Inc., 2013). See this book for further details and some interesting editorial notes.

In part, with original usage and punctuation:

"A letter from Wiesbaden tells me, that the marriage of Princess Mary with Prince Ulrich of Saxe Weimar is arranged. He is very ill-looking, stupid, + can scarcely articulate, + pennyless = + yet, it's on the whole, considered a desirable arrangement, after all that has past. A mournful end for an English princess whom many good judge thought once very handsome, + who will have a fair income - She insists upon living in London; he on the other hand, has only passion in the world; his profession; he is an Austrian soldier -

Many English; the Landsdownes, Cremornes, Alexander Lennoxes, Henry Barings are at the baths, + one day the train came in with sixteen Princes + Princesses from Rumpenheim. Our Prince of Wales incog: jumped out + was soon detected by 20,000 enthusiastic inhabitants + endless bands…"

Wiesbaden had been celebrated for its hot baths since the Roman Empire, and it had become a fashionable destination for European royalty, aristocrats, and intellectuals like Goethe, Wagner, Brahms, and Dostoyevsky by the nineteenth century.

The Prince of Wales (1841-1910), the future King Edward VII, had recently married Alexandra of Denmark in 1863. An accidental heir, the Prince of Wales's incorrigible exuberance and excesses endeared him to the people. (It is thus entirely consistent to imagine him "jumping out" of the train as Disraeli describes.) The Prince had famously traveled under cover to North America in 1860 using the alias Baron Renfrew. In 1867, the Prince of Wales would return to Wiesbaden, this time with Alexandra, who was seeking a cure for rheumatism.

The royal match extensively described by Disraeli in this letter did not exactly come to pass. "Princess Mary" referred to as Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge (1833-1897), one of George III's granddaughters and Queen Victoria's cousin. Princess Mary married another Austrian, Prince Francis of Teck, in June 1866. Their eldest child Mary of Teck would marry Queen Victoria's grandson George V.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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