GURWOOD, Fanny (d.1872). A collection of approximately 120 letters to Fanny Gurwood and her daughter Adèle (a few to other addressees), by various correspondents, London, Paris and elsewhere, 7 April 1811 - 23 April 1906 (many undated); and 3 memoranda by Colonel Gurwood, together with other papers and correspondence addressed to Gurwood, and a letter by Mrs Gurwood, altogether approximately 294 pages, mostly 8vo (address panels, blanks), tipped on guards into an album, half morocco, gilt lettering on spine; [and:] LYTTON, Edward Robert, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831-1891). Eleven autograph letters signed ('R.Lytton', 'R' and, from February 1873, 'Lytton'), and seven autograph letters signed by his wife, Edith, to Adèle Gurwood (daughter of Colonel John Gurwood), Vienna, London, Torquay, Knebworth, Paris and India, 7 May 1872 - 19 March 1879; and eleven letters by members of the Bulwer and Lytton families and other correspondents (of which 4 to Mrs Gurwood), altogether approximately 106 pages, mostly 8vo (autograph envelopes, blanks), tipped on guards into an album, half pigskin, gilt lettering on spine. Provenance: Adèle Gurwood; her half-sister Eugénie, Viscountess Esher; and by descent. The first correspondence includes autograph letters signed by the Duke of WELLINGTON (2 to Mrs Gurwood after her husband's death, 1846); NAPOLEON III (3); Prince NAPOLEON (son of Jerôme Bonaparte, known as 'Plon Plon', 3 to Mrs Gurwood, signed 'Napoleon Bonaparte' and 'Bonaparte'); LOUIS PHILIPPE (one); Sir Robert PEEL; Lady BLESSINGTON (2); the Comte d'ORSAY (2); Alfred de VIGNY (to an unidentified correspondent); the Duc de NEMOURS (signed with initial 'N', 4 to Guerard); Edward Bulwer LYTTON (1st Baron Lytton, 2, acknowledging some flowers and inviting Mrs and Miss Gurwood); Lord RUSSELL; Robert BROWNING (5 to Miss Gurwood); Emile de Girardin (8), Alexis de Tocqueville, Lord Mahon (to Mrs Gurwood referring to Mr Lockhart and a printing matter), Robert Owen (to 'My excellent and kind friend' on the 'great general Revolution', 25 May 1849), John Bright, Charles Kean, the Duke of Devonshire (3 to Mrs Gurwood), and letters to Miss Adèle Gurwood by correspondents including Lady Morgan, General Viscount Wolseley (7), members of her family and others; [and] papers relating to Colonel Gurwood's service in the Peninsula War and his edition of the Duke of Wellington's Dispatches, and a Laissez-passer for [Monsieur] Kreilssammer [a member of Mrs Gurwood's family] to visit London (23 February 1871). Colonel Gurwood's papers include a transcript of a letter by Wellington to the Prince Regent declining to release a serving officer to please a young lady, 'I have never yet known of a young lady dying of love' (1811); a list of officers at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo and a related letter; a draft defending Wellington's conduct over the shooting of Marshal Ney; correspondence relating to his edition of Wellington's Dispatches; a letter from the Portuguese ambassador announcing his appointment to the Portuguese Order of the Tower and Sword. Those by the Duke of Wellington include an autograph annotation on a letter asking for Gurwood to be allowed to relieve the Governor of the Tower; and a certified copy of a deed of assignment granting Gurwood and his heirs the copyright of the Dispatches; two autograph letters (3rd person) by Wellington to Mrs Gurwood [after her husband's suicide] conveying in the first surprise and regret at a report that Gurwood used to keep memoranda of what Wellington had said in confidence which, if true, would be fatal to Gurwood's reputation: 'The Duke does not believe that there is an instance in history of a similar act. It is anti-social, it puts an end to all the charms of society, to all the familiar and private communication between man and man' (29 January 1846); the second (on receiving her letter of rebuttal of the alleged grounds for this rebuke, saying that 'from an overstrained sense of delicacy towards Your Grace' her husband had burned his notes), an 11-page expression of regret at offending her 'and that she should have thought proper to express her feelings in such a tone and temper', but making no apology for having believed what he was told. Napoleon III offers his box for the opera, thanks Colonel Gurwood for a catalogue of books in German, and (letter signed) acknowledges Mrs Gurwood's letter [on his election as President]. Prince Napoleon recalls her kindness to Napoleon III during his exile in London, and Louis Philippe writes of an invitation. Other letters indicate the warmth in which Mrs Gurwood was held after her husband's death, Lady Blessington showing pleasure that her advice has been taken, and recommending that Eugénie should go to Malvern for her health; Bulwer Lytton asking Mrs Gurwood about a banking matter, and thanking her daughters for flowers; the Duke of Devonshire looking forward to meeting 'celle qui était la charmante Mlle Meyer' [on Eugénie's marriage to Baliol Brett]; the comte d'Orsay writes from Bournemouth, 'l'idéal d'un Watering Place', and Charles Kean turns down an invitation 'until Henry 8th is fully launched I must deny myself ... the part of Cardinal Wolsey is fortunately one that requires little physical exertion'. The letters to Adèle Gurwood include a 'Balloon despatch' from Paris (4 January 1871), and five letters by Robert Browning, 21 April 1877 - 28 May 1889, accepting or declining invitations, in one saying that after Venice the London weather has made him ill. The Laissez-passer for Mr Kreilsammer, one of Mrs Gurwood's family, is dated shortly after her sister, Marianne had been murdered during the Paris Commune. The friendship between the Lytton family and the Gurwoods dated from the latter's arrival in London in 1838 [see lots 89 and 90 for letters from Edward Bulwer Lytton to Fanny Gurwood and her daughters]. The first of Robert Lytton's letters to Adèle comforts her on her mother's death (letter of 7 May 1872), and two long letters at the end of the year consult her about apartments in Paris suitable for his appointment as secretary at the Embassy, with questions about rents and servants wages. Edith Lytton writes on Bulwer Lytton's death (letter of 22 January 1873), and, more firmly, advising Adèle to forget her own sorrow, and to find an object 'for to sit down and think over one's misery is indeed torture'. Robert writes of his grief at the loss of his father, describing the symptoms of his last illness and reproaching himself for not recognising them. In a letter from Paris he asks for her help in the reissue of Bulwer Lytton's The Parisians (first published in Blackwoods Magazine), to eliminate the 'uncorrected bad French' and mentions Alexandre Dumas' interest in completing one of his father's comedies for production. Edith Lytton's letters from India, on Lord Lytton's appointment as Viceroy, indicate some degree of enjoyment of their life there, with 'occasional little holidays and such charming marches in the hills', giving news of her children and that [on the outbreak of the Afghan War] 'Robert is bearing all the terrible anxiety, work & strain upon him wonderfully'. (2)