28 MAY 2005, Page 21

Rosebery brought to book

From Allan Massie Sir: In what is on the whole an admirable and perceptive review of Leo McKinstry’s Rosebery, Jane Ridley asserts that ‘There has never been a full biography’ (Books, 21 May).

Not so. There was a very good one by Robert Rhodes James, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1963. Like Mr McKinstry, Rhodes James had access to the Rosebery archive at Dalmeny. There was an earlier, official biography written by Rosebery’s son-in-law, the first Marquess of Crewe.

Jane Ridley’s explanation of Rosebery’s political failure is convincing. But there is another possible reason. As a very old man Rosebery told his nephew Lord Stanhope that his one ‘very big mistake’ was to have followed Gladstone rather than Disraeli.

Allan Massie

Selkirk