{"product_id":"2940015764758","title":"MISS EDEN\u0026#x2019;S LETTERS","description":"INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the autumn of 1913 a Life of Lord Clarendon[1] was published, and\u003cbr\u003eamong many of his letters were a few written to him by an old friend,\u003cbr\u003eMiss Eden. It was thought that a further selection of Emily Eden’s\u003cbr\u003eletters might be of interest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was a keen politician of the Whig order, clever, amusing, critical,\u003cbr\u003ean excellent friend and a devoted sister. Her father, William Eden,[2]\u003cbr\u003ewas the third son of Sir Robert Eden, Bart., of West Auckland, Durham,\u003cbr\u003eand he married in 1776 Eleanor Elliot, a sister of the 1st Earl of\u003cbr\u003eMinto.[3] Two years later, Eden went as a Commissioner to America. He\u003cbr\u003ewas Chief Secretary in Ireland under Lord Carlisle;\u003cbr\u003eMinister-Plenipotentiary in 1785 to the Court of Versailles; in 1788\u003cbr\u003eAmbassador to Spain, and in the following year Ambassador to Holland; he\u003cbr\u003ewas given a peerage in 1789 (Baron Auckland). Mrs. Eden, from her own\u003cbr\u003eaccount, was evidently a first-rate traveller; she took great interest\u003cbr\u003ein her husband’s work, and she had a child, often amidst much\u003cbr\u003ediscomfort, in every country to which they were sent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEmily was born in 1797. Her parents were settled at Eden Farm,\u003cbr\u003eBeckenham, Kent, and her father now devoted his time to politics. Her\u003cbr\u003emother took great trouble to rear and educate her family of fourteen,\u003cbr\u003eleaving a detailed account in her Diary of their upbringing, diseases\u003cbr\u003eand marriages. Evidently her sense of humour and cheerfulness helped her\u003cbr\u003ethrough much misery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Out of fourteen I suckled thirteen. Eleven of the children had smallpox\u003cbr\u003eduring their wanderings, also cow-pox, whooping-cough, measles and\u003cbr\u003escarlet fever.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1786, Eden, who was then in Paris, wrote to his friend Lord\u003cbr\u003eSheffield: “Mrs. Eden is just returned from passing nearly a week in the\u003cbr\u003eCircle and Society of the whole Court of Versailles without feeling a\u003cbr\u003emoment’s discomposure. It is impossible to describe to you all the\u003cbr\u003eglorious attentions with which she is honoured by the Queen of France,\u003cbr\u003enot only in presents, but in what she values more, in admiration of her\u003cbr\u003echildren. She and the little Frenchman are both well, and we have now as\u003cbr\u003emany nations in our Nursery as were assembled at the Tower of Babel.”\u003cbr\u003eAnother friend also wrote:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Every report says Mrs. Eden’s Nursery is the admiration of the Court\u003cbr\u003eand the Town, that they make parties to see it, that she had made\u003cbr\u003edomestic life quite fashionable”; and there are constant allusions to\u003cbr\u003ethe Brattery, the Light Infantry, and the little Parisians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy her contemporaries Lady Auckland was known later in life as Haughty\u003cbr\u003eNell, and the Judicious Hooker. Her eldest girl, Eleanor, was Pitt’s\u003cbr\u003eonly love, but for various reasons, after a long correspondence between\u003cbr\u003ePitt and Lord Auckland, the affair came to an end, and Eleanor in 1799\u003cbr\u003emarried Lord Hobart, who became Secretary of State for War and the\u003cbr\u003eColonies in 1801, and succeeded his father as Earl of Buckinghamshire in\u003cbr\u003e1804.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLord Auckland died suddenly at Eden Farm in 1814. Lady Auckland only\u003cbr\u003esurvived him four years. Six of their daughters had married, and the\u003cbr\u003eremaining two, Emily and Fanny, lived with their elder brother George,\u003cbr\u003eand went with him to India when he became Governor-General in 1835.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom an account given of herself in a letter to one of her friends,\u003cbr\u003eEmily had profited by the education she received from her mother. She\u003cbr\u003ehad read Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_, the _Memoires du Cardinal de\u003cbr\u003eRetz_, Shakespeare, and knew a great part of the Bible almost by heart\u003cbr\u003ebefore she was eleven.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe took a strong interest in politics, but she was never happier than\u003cbr\u003ewhen living quietly at Greenwich with her brother, sketching, reading\u003cbr\u003eand gardening, and in 1835 the prospect of a five months’ sea journey to\u003cbr\u003eIndia, and being obliged to leave her sisters, friends, and interests,\u003cbr\u003edepressed and worried her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn her return to England in 1842 she published her _Portraits of the\u003cbr\u003ePeople and Princes of India_. She also wrote _Up the Country; Letters\u003cbr\u003efrom India_, edited by her niece; and two novels, _The Semi-Detached\u003cbr\u003eHouse_ and _The Semi-Attached Couple_.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree large volumes of her Water-colour Sketches were sold at Christie’s\u003cbr\u003ein 1907 and are now in the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe year 1849 proved to be one of the greatest sorrow to Miss Eden. Her\u003cbr\u003ebrother, Lord Auckland, died quite suddenly in January, and three\u003cbr\u003emonths later she lost her sister Fanny. For the next twenty years she\u003cbr\u003edivided her time between Eden Lodge, Kensington Gore, and a little\u003cbr\u003ecottage at Broadstairs, writing her books, and seeing many of her\u003cbr\u003efriends.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47084560941296,"sku":"2940015764758","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015764758","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}