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[xvi], 366 pp. Final blank present. Title and imprint within an elaborate woodcut border. (Folio) 29x19 cm (11½x7½"), period limp vellum. Third Edition in English.

Translated from the French by Thomas Danett and first published in 1596. A primary source for fifteenth century European history and one of the great classics of history. The memoirs are divided into two parts, the first the reign of Louis XI, the second the Italian expedition and the negotiations at Venice leading to the Vercelli treaty, 1494-1495. Commines's "portrait of Louis XI remains unique ... and his history remains the definitive history of his time, and that from it all political history took its rise" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.). STC 5604. Armorial bookplate of John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol (1665-1751) affixed to the verso of the free endpaper. Signed by his second wife, Elizabeth (died 1741) on the paste-down: "Elizabeth Countess of / Bristol her Book / 1738." Also signed "Tho: & Elizabeth Hervey" at the top of the title page and "Tho. Hervey" at the bottom of the title page. The Hon. Thomas Hervey (1699-1775), one of Elizabeth's seventeen children, was one of the members for Bury from 1733 to 1747; held various offices at court; and eloped with Elizabeth, wife of Sir Thomas Hanmer, 2nd Baronet. He had very poor health, and his reckless life frequently brought him into pecuniary and other difficulties. He wrote numerous pamphlets, and when he died Dr. Johnson said of him, "Tom Hervey, though a vicious man [i.e. a man of vice], was one of the genteelest men who ever lived."