"This book is given to Princess Royal with an earnest desire that she will read it..." - Letters from Baron Haller to His Daughter on the Truths of the Christian Religion, inscribed, signed, and dated on 19 January 1781 by Britain's Queen Charlotte, consort of King George III, to their 14-year-old namesake daughter, Princess Royal Charlotte.
Translated from the German
London and Edinburgh: J. Murray and William Creech, 1780. First English Translation. Full leather. This scarce, 1780 first English translation of Letters from Baron Haller to His Daughter is rendered extraordinary by a contemporary gift inscription from Britain’s Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, to her namesake eldest daughter, Princess Royal Charlotte. The inscription, elegantly inked in 12 lines on the front free endpaper recto, reads: “This book is given to Princess Royal | with an earnest desire that she will read it | with attention, whereby she will be enabled | to inculcate in her mind those Principles | and Duties which will render her, agreeable to | Her Creator, an Ornament to Society, and a | Blessing to her Parents. which is the sincere | wish of Her very affectionate Mother.” The Queen signed “Charlotte”. Directly below, justified left in three lines, Queen Charlotte wrote “Q.H. | 19th January. | 1781.”
The binding is contemporary, presumably original, speckled calf, rebacked with what may be the original spine title label laid on. The binding is sound, though with expected wear to the extremities of the original boards. The contents are likewise sound, respectably bright and clean within, the text block edges and perimeter of the endpapers toned, spotting minimal.
The author, Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777) was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, poet, professor, and voluminous writer. “His iconoclastic approach to understanding basic human physiology led to major works” and he was well-regarded across Europe; though he was educated in Holland and Germany and taught in the latter, he was inducted into both the Royal Society of London in 1743 and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1747.
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of George III (1744-1818), became Britain’s Queen upon her marriage to Britain’s George III on 8 September 1761, remaining so until her death in 1818. “Charlotte was fortunate in finding that the marriage arranged for her suited her, and she quickly adapted to a happy life with her husband, who loved her very deeply. They found they shared interests in science, art, theatre, and music, as well as a sincere religious faith... George III was proud of his queen and urgently sought a suitable house that could become both her official residence and a retreat where the king and queen could have a private life away from the intrusions of courtiers and petitioners… Early in 1762 the king bought Buckingham House, at the west end of the Mall in St James's Park. It became known as the Queen's House” and “proved suited for the royal couple's domestic life.” This is the “Q.H.” in Queen Charlotte’s inscription to her daughter, later known as Buckingham Palace.
“George and Charlotte had fifteen children, and their evident love for their large family was important both for its support of their marriage and for its contribution towards the stable domesticity which became part of the public image of monarchy. Twenty-three years of her married life were occupied with child bearing, with annual or biannual pregnancies.”
It is to her first and namesake daughter, then-14-year-old Charlotte Augusta Matilda, princess royal (1766-1828), that this book is inscribed. The counsel in Queen Charlotte’s inscription to her daughter about inculcating “Principles and Duties which will render her, agreeable to Her Creator, an Ornament to Society, and a Blessing to her Parents” was neither idle nor irrelevant. Moreover, the gift of this first English translation of a work originally written in German proved specifically apropos.
On 18 May 1797 the Princess Royal married the future Duke Frederick III of Württemberg. “Electress” Charlotte became a queen herself in 1806 when her husband, in an alliance with Napoleon that infuriated his father-in-law George III, became King of a Württemberg that had seceded from the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick prudently switched sides in 1813 and died with his assumed royal title intact in 1816, rendering Charlotte Dowager Queen of Württemberg, the title with which she died.
Reference: ODNB. Item #008340
Price: $5,000.00