Egerton MS 3822-3862

D'ARCY OSBORNE DIARIES. Diaries, with related letters and ephemera of the diplomatist Sir Francis D'Arcy Godolphin Osborne, 12th and last Duke of Leeds (b.1884, d.1964), covering much of his career in Rome (1909-1913, 1929-1931), Washington (1913-1918, 1931-1936), the Hague (1918-1919), London (1920-1928), Lisbon (1928-1929) and the Holy See (1936-1947); 1898-1964. Mostly autograph. The pre-1940 diaries (Eg. 3822-3845) are contained in twenty-six bound volumes of holograph diaries and date books, with some typewritten insertions; the post-1940 diaries (Eg. 3846-3854) are typewritten, with autograph corrections and some deletions. For some sections there is a second version (Eg. 3856-3860) prepared for circulation to potential publishers, together with a preface in five versions containing successive slight alterations, dated June 1963. The Vatican diaries are supplemented by a small quantity of correspondence (Eg. 3861, ff. 5-45) including nine letters from Mgr Giovanni Montini (later Pope Paul VI). Amongst the ephemera in the same volume are four maps showing the Allied approach to Rome in 1944 prepared for Osborne in Vatican City. Osborne's diaries for June 1940 to September 1944 were used by Professor Owen Chadwick in his study Britain and the Vatican during the Second World War (Cambridge, 1986). This study also makes use of sections of the diary for May 1943 which are not present in this collection. Purchased from Quaritch from the Bridgewater Fund, April 1989.

Paper. Forty-one volumes in forty-six parts. The autograph diaries are in bound volumes of various sizes. British Library arrangement of the typescripts and other loose papers.