Almanach de Gotha pour l'année 1837 - INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE DOWAGER, QUEEN ADELAIDE TO QUEEN VICTORIA TWO WEEKS AFTER HER SUCCESSION TO THE THRONE

Gotha: Chez Justus Perthes. 1837. First Edition. Inscribed "To the Queen/from her grateful + affect[tionate] Adel[k?]chen / July 6. 1837." Publisher's red cloth gilt with the armorial crest of Ferdinand I of Austria. 4 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (11 x 7.5 cm); vi, [48], 290, 92, [2] pp., with engraved portraits, pages edged in gilt. Light wear, overall fine.


This is a remarkable copy of the chief European Royal Genealogical Reference, inscribed to the newly ascended Queen herself, listed as Princess on page 23, who had turned 18 on 24 May 1837 and who, on 20 June 1837, when William IV died at the age of 71, became Queen of the United Kingdom and the first Empress of India of the British Raj from 1 May 1876, until her death. At 63 years and 7 months, her reign as the Queen lasted longer than that of any other British monarch, and is the longest of any female monarch in history. Her reign is known as the Victorian era, and was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military progress within the United Kingdom.

Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen became Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and Hanover and spouse of William IV. The city of Adelaide in Australia was named after her. Though her efforts to be close to her niece Princess Victoria were frustrated by Victoria's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Kent, the newly ascended Queen viewed Adelaide with kindness and her firstborn child, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, took her second name from her great-aunt, who was also the child's godmother. 

"Adelchen," the apparently diminutive, affectionate form of "Adelaide" or the German "Adelheid" has further roots in the culture of German nobility. In Charlotte Mary Yonge's 1884 "History of Christian names" there is a discussion of the daughter names "Adelchen" or "Adelheit" as being related to the old English "AEtheling" for "son," adding further that the included word "heid," as in "the 'hood' or 'head' at the end of our [English] abstract nouns" suggests "that the princess royal of each little Frankish duchy or county was thus the 'Nobleness' thereof." (p. 411)
Historically, The Almanach de Gotha book has listed the Ruling Imperial, Royal and Princely Families of Europe, and was continuously produced for nearly 181 years until the Soviet occupation of the former Saxon Duchy of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha in 1944. The Almanach provided detailed facts and statistics on nations of the world, including their reigning and formerly reigning houses, those of Europe being more complete than those of other continents. It also named the highest incumbent officers of state, members of the diplomatic corps, and Europe's upper nobility with their families and was notable for the breadth and precision of its information on royalty and nobility compared to other Almanachs. First published by Justus Perthes in the German Duchy of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha in 1763, the Court which in the mid 1800's produced Prince Albert as consort for Queen Victoria, the Gotha's own familiar crown was stamped on the cover of what was to become the ultimate power register of the ruling classes.


We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Helen Rappaport, author of "Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion," in the cataloging of this item. (12606)

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Law, Politics & Social Sciences

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