The Complete Peerage: Ab-Adam to Ayr: 1 (The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom)

The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom is a standard reference work covering, in the words its alternative title, 'a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times'.The third edition extends to six million words. The first edition of The Complete Peerage was written by George Edward Cokayne, a distinguished genealogist and long-serving herald at the College of Arms who eventually became Clarenceux King of Arms.It was published in eight volumes between 1887 and 1898, and alongside the same author's five-volume The Complete Baronetage, published 1900-06, it became a standard work.The second edition was published in thirteen volumes between 1910 and 1959, with a final volume of addenda and corrigenda published in 1998.It was revised and enlarged by Vicary Gibbs, a genealogist and former Conservative politician, who was aided by several people including the publisher and historian Herbert Doubleday.Doubleday had e