This nine-volume selection from the letters of Queen Victoria, with ancillary material, was commissioned by her son, Edward VII, and published between 1907 and 1932, with a gap of almost twenty years between the third and fourth volumes. The editor of the 'Second Series', which covers the years from 1862 to 1885, was George Earle Buckle (1854-1935), a historian and former editor of The Times, who continued the editorial policy of his predecessors, but who needed to tread carefully, as many of the people mentioned in documents of the second part of Queen Victoria's reign were still alive when Volumes 4-6 were published between 1926 and 1928. Volume 6 covers the period 1879-85, and includes the death of Disraeli, the disaster of General Gordon at Khartoum, and the turbulent political background to the issue of Irish home rule.