THE apparatus of this edition needs some apology, since it is both extensive and limited. The learning Chesterfield displays in his letters is extraordinarily wide and sometimes out of focus, and I hope the present edition goes further than its predecessors in making his obscurities accessible to modern readers. There have, regrettably, been occasions when calculated guesses or mere blanks were all that the most intensive enquiries could turn up—these things of darkness I acknowledge mine. Chesterfield had his own cheerfully acerbic view of new editions and their compilers: ‘the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads, for they may profit of the former’. Although I have profited particularly from Bonamy Dobrée’s heroic six-volume edition of the letters, my chief debts are to the friends, relations, and correspondents whose generous assistance has on more occasions than I wish to count saved me from blockheadedness. Those who have supplied or helped me to find information are Dr Peter Davidson, Ms Annemiek Scholten, Dr Albert van der Heide, and members of the Sir Thomas Browne Institute, University of Leiden; Professor Roy Foster of Hertford College, Oxford; Dr Tom Bartlett of University College, Galway; Ms Petra Hesse of the Leipzig University Archive; Mr Horst Flechsig of the Leipzig Theaterhochschule; Dr Bernd Neumann of Kyoto University; Mr Simon Rees; Mrs Elizabeth Roberts; Mr Michael Walling; and Mr Stephen Wood, Keeper of the Department of Armed Forces History, National Museum of Scotland. None of these kind people is responsible for any errors which remain. Simon Rees also saved me from the sort of débâcle which can only befall a certified computer blockhead. My greatest debt is to my wife, who assisted with proofreading and surrendered to Chesterfield and his son much of the time I should have been spending with ours.
D.R.