bound in textured blue cloth with, front & rear, a blind-stamped, floral bordered, panel with two outer blind-stamped lined borders; yellow end-papers; b/w. frontis. portrait of Sir Thomas Overbury (lacking tissue guard) & one other, tissue-guarded , of Frances, Countess of Somerset. The Earl of Somerset, Robert Carr, a favourite of James I, was to marry Frances Howard, the divorced wife of the Earl of Essex but Carr's friend Sir Thomas Overbury objected to the marriage pointing out publicly that she was already "noted for her injury and immodesty." Eventually Overbury was manoevred into refusing a Royal Commission overseas and was sent to the Tower of London by James I where he later died. It was alleged that Frances Howard had visited him there and administered poison. By this time Carr was no longer a favourite of the King and was charged, along with his wife, with Overbury's murder.