First edition. Interesting collection of essays previously published in various magazines or reviews, includes a study of Despard, with analogies to Casement, and an essay on Arthur Thistlewood "the 'British Jacobin', who reproduced the cheap humanitarianism, the reckless bloodthirstiness, the bombastic phraseology and autolatrous megalomania of the Parisian demagogues of 1792 before the eyes of the England of Sir Walter Scott and Miss Austen". Attractive association copy, pencilled ownership inscription to the front free endpaper of "M [perhaps Mary, wife of Sir Charles] Oman, Bailey's Hotel, S.W. 7" - the bookseller's ticket for Parker & Son, Oxford, to the front pastedown would seem to support the supposition - and the bookplate of Sir Charles' granddaughter, designer and gardener Julia Trevelyan Oman, later Lady Strong, to the front pastedown.
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