The Deportment of a Married Life; Laid down in a Series of Letters, written by the Honorable E------. S-------, a few years since, to a Young Lady, her relation then lately married. Dedicated to the Countess of Derby. Second Edition

London: Printed for Mr. Hodges...and sold by C. Mason..., 1798. 8vo, 21 x 119, pp. [3], vi -xi [xii blank], 281 [282 blank], contemporary calf, rebacked with old gilt spine laid down, corners restored; title-page with library stamp and some staining of lower margins, lacks label, ex-library, with various stamps. The widow of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of Chesterfield, Eugenia Stanhope (?1729 - ?1783) shepherded his Letters through the press in 1774, mainly because her husband had left her nothing in his will. She published this work first in 1790, and this 1798 edition is partly revised from the two editions published in 1790, neither of which has the dedication leaves. It is dedicated to the Countess of Derby (1759 or 1762 - 1829), who in an earlier incarnation was the actress Elizabeth Farran [or Farren]. She became the mistress of Edward Smith Stanley, twelfth earl of Derby (1752–1834) in the 1780s, and upon the death of his wife, who had cuckolded him by having a prologned affair with the Duke of Dorset, on 14 March 1797. The dedication concludes, "may the faithful Historian, in contemplating the Purity of your Life, not omit to inform Posterity, that the Earl of Derby, in Soliciting your Acceptance of a Coronet, immortalized his Judgment of Female Excellence." Several sources give 1783 as the date of Eugenia Stanhope's death, so it would appear that this dedication is written from beyond the grave! It does not appear in either of the 1790 imprints. Otherwise, the publisher seems to have used the same leaves as for the 1790 editions.