Recollections of a Long Life

John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton (1786–1869), politician and memoirist, is today best remembered for his close friendship with Byron. This six-volume memoir, edited by his daughter from his own writings and diaries, was published in 1909–11, and sheds light on social and political events of his time.

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John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton (1786–1869), politician and prolific memoirist, is today best remembered for his close friendship with Lord Byron, and as the inventor of the phrase 'His Majesty's Opposition'. He travelled extensively in Europe with Byron, and acted both as his best man and as his executor after Byron's early death in 1824. He began his political career as a radical, but gradually moved to a much more conservative viewpoint. This six-volume work is a revision of his 1865 privately printed memoir, Some Account of a Long Life, expanded by his daughter from his diaries and letters, and published between 1909 and 1911. Volume 3 covers the period 1822–9, and includes the political battle for Catholic emancipation, achieved in 1829. The appendix includes Hobhouse's account of Byron's death, and the subsequent destruction of Byron's memoirs by publisher John Murray, who considered they would damage Byron's reputation.