A Scholar and a Gentleman: Edward Hasted, The Historian of Kent

First edition, first impression.  xiv, 470pp, with occasional black and white illustrations.  Blue cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine.  Pale blue endpapers.  8vo.  Volume is neat, clean, bright and tight throughout.  In its original, illustrated dust jacket, not price clipped, just a little bumped on extreme edges.  

The first full length biography of Edward Hasted (1732-1812), the pioneering early historian of his home county of Kent.  A well-respected historian and antiquarian, Hasted was also an interesting man – in 1790 he left his wife of 35 years and fled to France with another women.  He remained there until the French Wars forced him back to England, where he was quickly incarcerated in a debtor’s prison for several years; but he ended his life as Master of the Lady Hungerford Almshouses in Wiltshire, a position secured with the patronage of his friend, the 1st Earl of Radnor.