Woburn and The Russells

London: Constable, 1980. A Fine unmarked copy with VG dustjacket which is not price clipped. x + 246 pages, 39 illustrations. Genealogical tree endpapers. Jeremiah Wiffen, librarian to the sixth Duke of Bedford, traced the lineage of the family to Olaf the Sharp-Eyed, King of Rerik in the seventh century. Later, Wiffen was thought to have been too ingenious; the first ancestor of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford proven by documentary evidence was Stephen Russell, who lived at the end of the 14th century, and through marriage came into the property of Berwick by Swire in Dorset. This was the home from which John Russell, a century later, set out on his varied and triumphant career in the service of the crown, receiving an Earldom in 1550. Since that time the Rusell family have sustained a remarkable ascendancy, usually adding to their property with each generation, or producing men as brilliant and distinguished as Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, in the 19th century and Bertrand Russell in the 20th century. The author, herself a Russell by birth, evokes the history of the great house and breathes life into its past inhabitants. 15. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.