Octavo.
Collation: xvi, 624 pp. Forty plates, including the engraved title-page.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,
FIRST BARON MACAULAY
(1800-1859)
88. The | History Of England | From | The Accession Of James II. | By | Thomas Babington Macaulay. | Volume I. | London: | Printed For | Longman, Brown, Green, And Longmans, | Paternoster-Row. | 1849. [-1861].
Trevelyan, in his Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, tells us there was no end to the trouble that the author devoted to matters which most writers are glad to leave to their publishers. "He could not rest until the lines were level to a hair's breadth, and the punctuation correct to a comma; until every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed like water."
In a footnote he adds this quotation from one of Macaulay's letters to Mr. Longman, which, while it referred to the edition of 1858, is also indicative of his attitude toward this, the first edition:
"I have no more corrections to make at present. I am inclined to hope that the book will be as nearly faultless, as to typographical execution, as any work of equal extent that is to be found in the world."
He was apprehensive concerning the success of the book. He writes, "I have armed myself with all my philosophy for the event of failure," but his fears were groundless.