Papers of Alexis de Tocqueville and his collaborator Gustave de Beaumont, principally relating to their journals of visits to the United States, England and Ireland, as well as incoming letters to de Tocqueville, papers relating to his father Hervé Clérel de Tocqueville and other family papers, comprising:

Travel Journals

Gustave de Beaumont's autograph manuscript, as used for the first complete edition of Tocqueville's works after his death, entitled Oeuvres complètes d'Alexis de Tocqueville publiées par Madame de Tocqueville, 9 vol., 1864-67, cut and marked by the printer with the corresponding galley numbers, a few pages with text cut and pasted onto another sheet; Voyage aux Etats-Unis 1831-32: 174 pages, numbered by the printer 494-667, the complete text as printed in vol. VIII of Beaumont's edition; Voyage en Angleterre, 1833-35: 165 pages, numbered by the printer 669-833 (lacking 811-813), as printed in vol. VIII of Beaumont's edition; Part of Voyage en Irlande, 1835: 38 pages, numbered by the printer 835-841 and 879-910, corresponding to pp.377-80 and 396-412 respectively of vol. VIII of Beaumont's edition (the published text ends on p.436).

A folder of notes in Beaumont's hand surveying reviews of Démocratie en Amérique in both the French and foreign press, 40 pages, 4to, with comments such as 'article remarquable de Louis Blanc' in the Revue Républicaine, 10 May 1835; 'great praise' in the Morning Post, 10 October 1835; and a reference to the work by Robert Peel in his acceptance speech as Rector of Glasgow University in 1837; with a folder marked 'Notes de Clémentine' [Beaumont's wife].

Correspondence

Autograph draft (undated) of his letter of 27 October 1843 to John Stuart Mill (OC, vol. 6, i, p.344), with revisions and corrections, 4 pages, 8vo, giving his opinion of Mill's A System of Logic, 'une œuvre très originale et qui ne peut manquer de faire beaucoup de sensation...j'ai été particulièrement frappé par ce que vous dites de l'application de la logique aux sciences morales'; Autograph letter in the third person to Mme Romilly [London], no date, explaining why he is only sending her three of the four volumes of Lamartine's latest work; Autograph letter signed to Tocqueville by Nassau William Senior, Bad Kissingen, 30 July 1847, 3 pages, 8vo, expressing his pessimism at the English legislators, comparing the last session of Parliament to Robespierre's legislation of 1794 'I fear it is little in favor of democratic government that the greater the influence of the people the worse the measures'; with a letter by Minnie Senior to Beaumont, 1864, about finding a publisher for 'three new volumes of Tocqueville'; Autograph letter signed to Tocqueville by Richard Monckton Milnes, London, 26 September 1846, 4 pages, 4to, seeking his opinion on 'the Spanish marriage', which he describes as 'this storm of blind private ambition', and suggesting that Louis-Philippe has misled Queen Victoria in the matter (...'I believe the consolidation of the Orleanist family to be one of the greatest securities for Continental Europe, but this alliance seems to be as disgusting to Spain as it is displeasing to England...the Queen has taken up the affair very strongly, the King having talked it over with her at Eu, and, it seems, made her believe something quite different from what has taken place...'), the 'Affair of the Spanish Marriages' soured Franco-British relations for several years; Seven autograph letters signed to Tocqueville by Louis de Loménie, Paris, 1857-1858, on the somewhat vexed question of finding a translator for Lord Normanby's book on the 1848 revolution in Paris, explaining that he does not feel he can do it himself, because of the criticism of Guizot it contains, and suggesting that Mme Belloc [Louise Swanton Belloc, author and translator, grandmother of Hilaire] 'qui jouit d'une certaine notoriété pour la traduction des ouvrages anglais' might be a suitable candidate for the work; Two folders with wrappers annotated by Tocqueville of papers and correspondence with tradesmen and lawyers relating to the Tocqueville chateau and estate, especially the library ('livres à acheter pour Tocqueville', 'livres qui me manquent', with lists principally of classical Greek and Latin authors and seventeenth-century French philosophers), notes on English measurements, and details of fences and gates for sheep, 1838-49 where dated; Notes in English in the hand of Madame de Tocqueville entitled 'Manuscript [sic] de Mr Senior', relating to Marshal Bugeaud; A note by Reeve to Tocqueville, recommending a book on architecture.

Papers of Hervé Clérel de Tocqueville (1772-1856)

Collection of papers relating to Alexis's father Hervé de Tocqueville's long and distinguished career in public office, both as Prefect of various departments and a member of the Chambre des Pairs, including 4 bound volumes of memoranda, reports, draft Bills, and speeches made by Tocqueville during his terms of office as Prefect successively of the departments of Maine et Loire, Oise, Côte d'Or, Moselle, Somme, and Seine et Oise, 1814-1819, and parliamentary reports from 1827-29, some 800 pages in all, folio; a folder of his letters of nomination to the various prefectures in 1823, 1826 and 1828, with correspondence regarding the prefecture of the Somme, which he was evidently most reluctant to accept; together with thirteen letters by Tocqueville to his Cherbourg lawyer Noël Dumarais, on matters relating to the estate at Tocqueville; A scribal manuscript with autograph corrections of his De la charte provincial, published in 1829, c.160 pages, folio, the text written on the right-hand side of the page, with corrections on the left-hand side; and a scribal manuscript relating to his Coup d'œil sur le règne de Louis XVI, with some autograph annotations, 14 pages, 4to; Scribal manuscript entitled 'Des causes de la révolution du 20 mars et du retour de Bonaparte', 105 pages, 4to, with corrections; and two earlier rent books (late eighteenth-early nineteenth century) from the Tocqueville estate, with notes in Alexis's hand pasted on front cover.