The diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (1826-93) between 1878 and 1893

"Lord Derby (1826-93) was at the centre of things. His father, the 14th Earl, had been thrice prime minister, as well as the longest serving English party leader of modern times. The 15th Earl was the only minister to serve in the cabinets of both Gladstone and Disraeli. As a diarist, he was probably the fullest and most informative "fly on the wall" of the great world in the second half of the nineteenth century. The diaries began in 1849, and continued with only slight breaks to his death in 1893. Most pages were nearly full, and filled shrewdly, fairly, and intelligently. The diaries should convince us that there never was such a thing as a harmonious cabinet." "The most important man in Lancashire, and a landowner on a great scale, Derby records the minutiae of a vanished way of life, that of the great Victorian nobleman dedicated to public service, as faithfully as he does momentous arguments in the cabinet. These diaries may provide a quarry for the social as much as for the political history of the upper classes; and an intelligent commentary on the people and events of aristocratic parliamentary government in its final phase." "Conversation has tended to be the missing link in history. These diaries take us a useful step along the road from "who wrote what?" to "who said what?"."--BOOK JACKET.