BR TO W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. / WARDER NORTON, [MAY 1936]
BRACERS 47152. MS. Norton papers, Columbia U.
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A. Duncan

1This book consists of selections from the journals and correspondence of Bertrand Russell’s parents, Lord and Lady Amberley, with introductory chapters by Bertrand Russell and explanatory notes by him and Patricia Helen Russell.

Both the Amberleys were born in 1842; she died in 1874, he in 1876. They developed from Whiggism and orthodoxy to radicalism and free thought; he was for a short time in Parliament, but lost his seat, in 1868, because he favoured birth control and was said by political opponentsa to favour infanticide. They knew almost everybody of importance in England, and also the most eminent Americans. “Mr. H. Longfellow, the poet” figures repeatedly in the diary. They stayedb with Emerson after going to Concord N.H. by mistake. Their daughter was called after Lucretia Mott. Queen Mary’s grandmother, the Duchess of Cambridge, attacked Lady Amberley at a garden party with the words: “I know you, you are the daughter in law but now I hear you only like dirty people and dirty Americans. All London is full of it; all the Clubs are talking of it. I must look at your petticoats to see if they are dirty.” Lady Amberley’s mother comforted her by saying she always heard the Duchess was a “coarsish old woman”.

The journals and letters give a very complete picture of the social life of the ‘60’s. Queen Victoria, foreign Empresses; the Shah of Persia; trade union leaders and officials of the First International; Carlyle, Mill, Herbert Spencer, Mazzini; Landseer and Burne Jones and “young Mr. Sullivan, who, I hear, is a very clever composer”; the Pope and Cardinal Manning — these and many other notables appear in their private capacities. In addition to the picture of society,c the story of the Amberleys’ short lives is very interesting and moving from a novelist’s point of view.

Table of Contents.
Chap. I. The Stanleys of Alderley
II. The Russells
III. Kate Stanely’s childhood and youth
IV. Amberley’s early boyhood
V. Harrow
VI. Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Travels
VII. Courtship
VIII. Marriage to the end of 1865
IX. 1866
X. 1867 and early 1868
XI. The South Devon Election
XII. 1869
XIII. 1870
XIV. 1871
XV. 1872
XVI. 1873–4
XVII. Death of Kate, Rachel, and Amberley.

• 1

  [document] Some parts of the microfilm are difficult to read. The microfilm itself may improve some passages of this transcription.

Textual Notes

• a

  by political opponents inserted

• b

  stayed after deleted indecipherable word

• c

  picture of society above deleted social interest