Navy Calf. Gilt edging on both boards with Cargilfield School on front board. Red title plate with gilt lettering and ornate decoration on the spine. Red marbling on all edges.

This collection of historian James Anthony Froude’s lectures delivered at Oxford on 16thcentury English seamen. In very good condition. This collection included Froud’s historic lectures The Sea Cradle of the Reformation, John Hawkins and the African Slave Trade, Drake’s Voyage Round the World, The Great Expedition to the West Indies, Sailing of the Armada, and Attack on Cadiz.

James Anthony Froude FRSE (23 April 1818 – 20 October 1894) was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser’s Magazine. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergyman, but doubts about the doctrines of the Anglican church, published in his scandalous 1849 novel The Nemesis of Faith, drove him to abandon his religious career. Froude turned to writing history, becoming one of the best-known historians of his time for his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Inspired by Thomas Carlyle, Froude’s historical writings were often fiercely polemical, earning him a number of outspoken opponents. Froude continued to be controversial up until his death for his Life of Carlyle, which he published along with personal writings of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. These publications illuminated Carlyle’s often selfish personality and led to persistent gossip and discussion of the couple’s marital problems.