The Secret History of the Cabinet of Bonaparte; including His Private Life, Character, Domestic Administration, and his Conduct to Foreign Powers: Together with Select Anecdotes of the Different Courts of Europe, and of the French Revolution; (With Privately Commissioned Bookplate, designed by American architect, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue)

London: J. M. Richardson and J. Hatchard, 1810. Second Edition. 3/4 Leather Binding. Very Good. London, J. M. Richardson, 23, Cornhill, and J. Hatchard, Picadilly, 1810, Second edition. 8vo, 9 x 6 inches: pp. 607. Brown 3/4 calf binding over marbled boards. 5 raised bands separating 6 panels with gold gilt titles and N with a crown on top in four of the panels. Marbled endpapers. 2 lengthy appendices.

Armorial bookplates on each endpaper. The Bertram Goodhue bookplate is affixed inside the back cover. Gilt topstain. Leather has light rubbing at edges, corners, and on raised bands. Toning, foxing throughout, binding tight. Text is unmarked. Overall, a handsome volume.

What really sets this volume apart is the privately commissioned bookplate designed by American architect, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue for William C. McMillan, affixed inside the back cover. Noted for his Gothic revival and Spanish Colonial Revival styles, as well as credited with popularizing the Art Deco style in some of his designs, Goodhue was also acclaimed during his lifetime for his typeface designs as well as the handful of privately commissioned bookplate designs he created during a lull in his architectural career. Three studies of this particular book plate design were included in his obituary in the January 1924 issue of Pencil Points: A Journal for the Drafting Room (316). In a 1912 article appearing in The Architectural Record (August 1912, Vol. XXXII, No. 167) on book plates designed by architects, Sheldon Cheney states that although Goodhue had "made perhaps not more than a score of plates, but these are among the finest of all American examples" (pg. 151). It's rare to find one of these acclaimed book plates in the wild, so to speak.