Top Hat and Tails (Strictly Private to Public Exposure – A Plateful of Privilege, Book II)

First edition, first impression.  [iv], 236, [iv]pp.  Laminated light card covers.  8vo.  Covers are a little rubbed around the edges, slight shelf worn and volume slightly warped.  Internally neat, clean and bright.  Firmly bound.

Lord Bath, perhaps the most eccentric peer of the 20th century, began writing his journals while at Oxford but it took many years to get them into print.  Originally intended as a multi-volume series, in fact only four books were published, this being the second volume after The Early Years, and explores elements of his early life and societal positioning.  The first four volumes were labelled as series I – series II never happened.  Lord Bath, peer, landowner and owner of the Longleat estate, sat in the House of Lords from 1992 to 1999.  After Eton, National Service and Oxford (where he was president of the Bullingdon Club) he studied art in Paris.  He developed Longleat as the first stately home Safari Park and practiced polygamy, campaigned for devolution, advocated egalitarianism and believed that criminals should be helped rather than punished, becoming a media sensation for this hippy fashion sense, his many ‘wifelets’ and extraordinary wealth,