61. [Elisabeth Chudleigh]. History of the Life and Adventure - Lot 61

61. [Elisabeth Chudleigh]. History of the Life and Adventures of the Duchess of Kingston. London, s.n., 1789. In-8, 150 p., brown half-basin with ornate smooth spine (period binding). Clandestine first edition, illustrated with a frontispiece portrait and a full-length portrait of the Duchess feeding her parrot in an off-text plate. This anonymous book, published a year after the death in Montmartre of Elisabeth Chudleigh (1720-1788), Duchess of Kingston, recounts the scandals of this English aristocrat who became famous in a patriarchal century for her bigamy trial in 1776. The work also includes a note on Stefano Zannowich, an adventurer claiming to be prince of Albania, highlighting the public's attraction to marginal figures and transgressive tales at the end of the 18th century. In the pre-revolutionary context of 1789, this odd work embodies both a fascination with the excesses of the nobility and a veiled criticism of its impunity. Binding slightly rubbed, other defects minor.