George Selwyn

Court celebrations and dinner guests share space with political anxiety in George Augustus Selwyn's letters. Selected from correspondence preserved at Castle Howard, they appear alongside a biographical narrative and explanatory notes by E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue. The editors introduce a man known for his wit and for his close connections with the people who shaped eighteenth-century English public life.

Selwyn's accounts give ordinary social exchanges the immediacy of private conversation. In the middle passage, he recalls gracious remarks from the Queen at a royal birthday celebration and lists guests at his dinner table. He then turns to Charles Fox and growing concern about British affairs in America. These shifts between court ceremony, friendship and national politics make the collection useful to readers interested in how public events were discussed within a particular circle of acquaintances. The notes help explain the people and references that fill the letters.