AUTOGRAPH

[No. 36.] Catalogue of Interesting, Choice and Rare Historical Documents and Autograph Letters, [...] And a Choice List of Modern Names [...] George Cattermole [...] Charles Dickens [...] William Cowper [...] Lord Nelson. [...]

Author: 
Samuel J. Davey [booksellers' catalogues; George Cattermole; Charles Dickens; William Cowper; Isaac Newton; Lord Nelson]
Publication details: 
London: On Sale by Samuel J. Davey, 47, Great Russell Street, Opposite the British Museum, W.C. 1892.
£80.00

Quarto: 50 + [2] pp. Fold-out frontispiece giving eighteen examples of handwriting from items in the catalogue. In original orange printed wraps. Good, though a tad dusty, and in worn and faded wraps with some glue staining to back and wear to spine. Well printed, with lengthy extracts from most items. A scrap of paper which acts as a bookmark has the words "Listed Walpole entries to W.S. Lewis || Nov 1953" in Winifeed Myers [?] hand (from her reference library). The first item is 'A Series of Pencil Sketches by George Cattermole, illustrating Dickens' Works' (£60).

Postcard signed with envelope, to Philip Yale Drew, American actor and suspected murderer.

Author: 
W. Reginald Bray, dealer in autographs, 8 Queen's Garth, Forest Hill, S.E. 23 [London], England.
Publication details: 
Stamped 11 Nov. 1929.
£180.00

Printed postcard with manuscript additions, minor defects. The printed heading describes him as ""The Autograph King. Unchallenged. Owner of the largest collection of Modern Autographs in the World", lists the Exhibitions at which he has displayed his stock, and adds his address and a request to the recipient to write their autograph ("Request Register No. [17861]". The recipient of this was Philip Yale Drew who added "Young Buffalo" to his full clear signature on the reverse. In this same year, 1929, Drew had been arrested as a suspect in the the murder of tobacconist, Alfred Oliver.

Autograph Card Signed [to Rev. E. J. F. Davies].

Author: 
Edward Hutton (1875-1969), British writer on travel and Italy
Publication details: 
21 April 1934; Rome.
£10.00

One page, on back of printed postcard. Very good. Photograph of the Via Appia on reverse. Reads 'Dear Sir | In reply to your request I have pleasure in sending you this'.

Some Reminiscences and Reflections on Collecting Autographs.

Author: 
Charles King Wadham [autograph collecting; Yale University Press]
Publication details: 
Dalton, Massachusetts: Maisonette. ['Privately printed, The Printing-Office of the Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, March 1931'.]
£45.00

Octavo: 32 pp. Stitched. In original printed wraps. Internally clean and tight, but wraps dogeared and grubby, with closed tear and pen mark. Tissue-guarded frontispiece of Wadham, with small dogear to top corner (not affecting image). Facsimile of Whittier's autograph. Read before the 'Saturday Evening Club of Dalton'. 'My collection today is so comprehensive [sic] that I have no hesitation in soliciting the most distinguished personages; in fact, I feel that I am conferring an honor rather than offering an insult in asking them.

Katalog 1: Autographen.

Author: 
Christian M. Nebehay, Austrian dealer in autographs
Publication details: 
Wien 1. (Vienna, Austria) Annagasse 18. [1950s?]
£50.00

Quarto: 40 pp. In original printed wraps, decorated with various facsimiles. Facsimiles in text, and portrait of Beethoven on rear inner wrap. Good, on browned paper. Sections on painters, writers, poets, architects, sculptors, musicians. Nods towards the American market, with some entries in English and Dollar conversions. Together with Nebehay's attractive bifoliate trade card, carrying a photograph of his premises.

Typed Note Signed ('W L Courtney') to Miss E. F. Davies.

Author: 
William Leonard Courtney (1850-1928), British critic and editor of the 'Fortnightly Review'
Publication details: 
19 November 1907; on letterhead 53 Gordon Square, W.C. [London].
£10.00

One page, on piece of paper roughly seven inches by eight wide. On aged paper laid down on a piece of card, and with some wear and paper and glue stains. 'My dear Madam, | In reply to your letter of Novr. 18th, I have pleasure in sending you my autograph, as you desire.' Four-line printed biographical cutting in bottom right-hand corner.

At Private Sale, November, 1859. Catalogue of the Entire Private Collection of Autograph Letters, &c. gathered during several years, with much care and expense, by Mr. T. H. Morrell. [..] nearly every Prominent Character in the Revolutionary War [..]

Author: 
T. H. Morrell [Bangs, Merwin & Co, auctioneers; autograph collecting; auction catalogues; Declaration of Independence; American Presidents]
Publication details: 
New York: Bangs, Merwin & Co., At the Trade Sale Rooms, 13 Park Row. 1 November 1859.
£150.00

Octavo: 28 pp. Stabbed. In original blue printed wraps. Advertisements on back. On browning high-acidity paper, in chipped and worn wraps with damp staining to edges at rear. 298 items. Items 95-141: 'Signers of the Declaration of Independence and Presidents of the United States.' Scarce: no copy on COPAC, which does record one copy of a catalogue of a sale of Morrell's books by the same firm in 1866, and two copies of a catalogue of a further sale in 1869.

Autographs [Reprinted from The Concise Encyclopaedia of Antiques Volume IV by kind permission of The Connoisseur].

Author: 
P. J. Croft [Winifred A. Myers (Autographs) Ltd]
Publication details: 
London: Winifred A. Myers (Autographs) Ltd, 80 New Bond Street, W1. [c.1954].
£45.00

Quarto: 10 pp (paginated 236-41). Stapled. In original printed green card wraps. Good, though lightly creased. Five plates, examples of the hands of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir John Harington, Admiral Lord Nelson, together with an original and a faked Burns letter. While the offprint is undated, the Encyclopaedia itself was published in 1954.

Autograph Note Signed from Woolf to Rev. E. J. F. Davies.

Author: 
Evelyn Woolf, secretary to Marguerite d'Alvarez (c.1883-1953), English contralto singer
Publication details: 
30 October 1928; 27 West 67th Street, New York.
£10.00

One page, octavo. Good on aged and lightly creased paper. 'As you see by the enclosed it was returned to Mme D'Alvarez. | She is so sorry, but hopes it will now reach you. | Yours Truly | [signed] Evelyn Woolf | Secretary'.

Autograph Signature on card, addressed to autograph collector Albert Millward.

Author: 
Murray Kash, Canadian-born British actor, announcer and author, compere of the BBC television programmes 'It Pays To Be Ignorant', starring Michael Bentine (1957)
Publication details: 
Undated; place not stated.
£35.00

One page. Dimensions of card roughly three and a half inches by four and a half. Right-hand side and bottom edge of card cropped. 'Autograph of' printed at head, and beneath this 'To Albert Millwa | With very best wi | Murray Kash'. The right-hand edges of the letter 'K' in Kash's name extend rightwards over the rest of the word, and may be very slightly cropped. Upper four lines of biographical cutting laid down at foot. Fragment of printed letter from Millward (and signed by him) requesting the autograph, beneath remains of plastic film on reverse.

Le Gout des Manuscripts. Discours inaugural prononce a Bale le 28 juin 1956 [...] devant la Societe suisse d'amateurs d'autographes.

Author: 
Theodore Besterman
Publication details: 
Geneva: Societas Bibliographica, 8 rue Verdaine [1956.]
£75.00

12mo: 45 pp. In original light-green printed wraps. Very good on lightly aged paper, with some sunning to wraps. Inscribed by the author "For Mary | with love & all good wishes for Christmas and the New Year, especially the show' | Th." Besterman attempts to demonstrate that the taste for autographs, 'tres loin d'etre malsaine, est au contraire pure et bienfaisante'.

Autograph Note Signed to S. C. J. Freeman-Matthews, [autograph hunter of] Cape Town, South Africa.

Author: 
John Fiske (1842-1901), American philosopher and historian
Publication details: 
31 May 1900; Cambridge, Massachusetts.
£40.00

One page, 12mo. Very good on lightly aged paper. 'It gives me much pleasure to add my autograph to your collection.' With a 38-line biographical cutting on Fiske.

Autograph Letter Signed to "le Comte Cossilla, conservateur des Archives Royales, a [Turin?]".

Author: 
Baron [G.J.A.] de Stassart, Belgian miscellaneous writer
Publication details: 
Paris 4 May 1843.
£85.00

In French. One page, 4to, blank bifoliate, fold marks, mainly good condition. The central subject is autograph-collecting. He initially refers to the "interessants" autographs which Cossilla sent him in 1841and which had not arrived by a diplomatic conduit but only 4 or 5 months previously. He makes a comment about his "relations autographiques" with his correspondent and promises to offer duplicates ("doubles [underlined] qui pourront vous convenir"). Note: an online reference to de Stassart (a Descartes letter from his collection) indicates a major autograph collector.

Invoice Signed, printed heading with manuscript additions, made out to a Mrs [Madeleine] Dale with other material.

Author: 
Bernard Quaritch, bookseller
Publication details: 
15 Piccadilly, London, 26 Oct. 1889.
£450.00

Invoice, one page, 4to, minor defects, seeks payment for "Sorting & arranging a Collection of Autographs & Letters, by an Expert, with very great care . . . [£8.8s] Mounting & Guarding nearly 400 Letters, as arranged, Paper for Mounting & carefully guarding the same | Binding the collection in 9 vols 4to. & impl. 4to. in large morocco lettered [£12.12]." Bernard Quaritch has signed the receipt. With a printed receipt completed in manuscript, signed "Bernard Quaritch" (printed), one page, 8vo, good condition, acknowledging the receipt of £5.9.0 from "Mrs Madeleine Dale.

Autograph Letter Signed to A. H. Terry.

Author: 
J. Pettit Griffith [autograph dealer?]
Publication details: 
18 July 1910; 42 Glenelg Road, Acre Lane, Brixton, SW. [London]
£80.00

One page, octavo. Good, on lightly creased and aged paper, with a little wear at foot. Purple ink. He thanks him 'for Cheque safely to hand for the Autograph Album. There is no question abot the Collection being a genuine one.' Details the provenance from the artist H. W. Pickersgill, to Charles Kingsley, to Kingsley's brother. 'I bought the Vol at the latters sale -'. He will send the two letters 'and the Kingslake in the morning'. He has been 'laid up ill for some days'.

Autograph Letter Signed to the autograph collector Thomas Thompson of Church Street, Liverpool.

Author: 
John Russell Smith (1810-94), English bookseller [Dawson Turner]
Publication details: 
13 June 1840; 'No. 4. Old Compton Street, Soho, London'.
£200.00

Two pages, quarto. Very good. With traces of blue paper mount adhering to addressed verso of second leaf of bifolium. Dawson Turner having declined to buy a collection on the grounds that it is 'wholly out of his line of collecting', Russell now offers it to Thompson. They are 'not so interesting' as he anticipated when he 'bought them at an auction without looking at them till they were on the table'. Gives details of the purchase and describes the volumes, estimating their cost in binding.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Horace') and fragment of Autograph Letter Signed ('Horace Annesley Vachell.').

Author: 
Horace Annesley Vachell (1861-1955), English novelist and playwright
Publication details: 
The letter: 24 September 1899, on letterhead 'PEVERELL, HURSLEY, WINCHESTER.' The fragment: undated and with place not stated.
£30.00

The letter: one page, 12mo. Good, but with removal from mount having thinned the paper in places, and with traces of brown paper mount still adhering. He is sending the autographs of 'Henry Seton Merriman (Hugh Scott); Gertrude Atherton; Miss Fowler; and Douglas Sladen. Also a photo from Ted (not a good one, but the only one I have left).' He enjoyed himself 'so much' at Langford. 'It was a week of real enjoyment to me.' The fragment: one page, four inches by four and a half wide.

Autograph Letter Signed ('J. Clunie') to an unnamed male autograph collector.

Author: 
John Clunie (1784-1858), Principal of Leaf Square and Seedley Grove Academies, 1812 to 1837
Publication details: 
20 June 1836; Seedley Grove, near Manchester.
£50.00

One page, on piece of lightly aged paper, roughly six and a half inches by seven. Strip neatly torn away at head (not affecting text, but perhaps bearing recipient's address). Good, with a little damage from breaking of wafer and slight evidence of previous mounting on revese. Thirteen lines. He is sending the selected autographs, and will 'be happy to receive, at your leisure, those of Currie, Daubeny, Mc.Culloch, Flowers, Woodville & Phillips & Jones - or such 5 of them as you can best spare'.

Autograph Note Signed ('H W Gwatkin') to 'Miss Thomas'.

Author: 
Henry Melvill Gwatkin (1844-1916), English theologian and church historian
Publication details: 
8 Scrope [sic] Terrace, Cambridge; 12 May 1908.
£25.00

One page, 12mo. Very good, on lightly aged and spotted paper. 'Dear Miss Thomas | The autograph-hunter has the advantage. It is not civil to ignore her, and she cannot be refused without getting what she wants'.

Ten Autograph Letters Signed (all 'E Walford') to a number of different correspondents (including A., F. and H. Barker, Mrs Ratcliffe and a newspaper editor named 'Taylor').

Author: 
Edward Walford (1823-97), topographer, genealogist, antiquary and editor of 'Once a Week' and 'The Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer'
Publication details: 
Five undated, the others 1860 to 1890; all but one (from Bracknell in Berkshire) from a number of London addresses.
£400.00

All items good, though on dusty and aged paper. Five items are addressed to sellers of manuscripts (probably the same individual). ONE (to H. Barker, 23 April 1885, on letterhead of 'The Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer', one page, octavo): Asks to be offered Wellesley autographs purchased at a recent Sotheby sale, of which he sent an account to 'The Times', which was 'crowded out'. TWO (to F. Barker, 25 April [1885], 'at T.

A small collections of letters to Robert Cole, and related notes and printed material.

Author: 
Robert Cole, antiquary and autograph (and manuscript)-collector of note.
Publication details: 
Various places, 1856-1860.
£400.00

The material is loosely sewn together and not bound, much marking and chipping but little textual loss. There is an interchange of information, the main drive being antiquarian material concerning Sir Michael Stanhope, however remote the connection, some elicited by a request for information in "Notes & Queries".Twenty-one autograph letters, most extensive, signed from antiquaries, many distinguished: Robert Lemon, archivist (DNB) (1), George R. Corner, antiquary (DNB) (9), "Mr Sage" (enclosed in letter from King - and TO H.W. King - but signature cut off: "E.J.

Autograph Letter Signed ('H. K. F. Gatty') to 'Mrs. Wakefield'.

Author: 
Horatia Katharine Frances Eden (née Gatty) (born 1846), sister and biographer of Mrs Juliana Horatia Ewing
Publication details: 
Ecclesfield, Sheffield; 22 March [year not stated].
£60.00

Four pages, 12mo. Mourning border. Aged and spotted, with remains of three mounts adhering to one edge. She is enclosing a note from 'Miss Yonge', and 'one from Miss Roberts [Margaret Roberts] who wrote "Madlle Mori", "In the Olden Time", "The Atelier du Lys" &c. She refers to Miss Yonges mother in her note'. She is also sending a note 'from Mr. Dodgson too. Who is "Lewis Caroll'. (Alice in Wonderland) - & one from Isa Craig - now Mrs. Knox.

Autograph Note Signed ('Donald Mackenzie Wallace') to unnamed female correspondent.

Author: 
Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace (1841-1919), foreign correspondent of the London 'Times' who published an important work on Russia
Publication details: 
29 June 1907; on letterhead St Ermin's Mansions, Caxton Street, S.W. [London].
£25.00

One page, 12mo. Good, on aged and lightly spotted paper, but with blank verso showing traces of previous mounting. Nine-line printed biographical cutting laid down in top left-hand corner. Reads 'Madam, In accordance with your request I enclose my autograph'.

Autograph Letter signed ('B. W. Proctor') to 'Mr C Schofield'.

Author: 
Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874), English poet writing under pseudonym 'Barry Cornwall'
Publication details: 
32 Weymouth Street | 16 August 1863'.
£80.00

One page, 12mo. Very good. Docketed in pencil at head. 'I have no knowledge of Mr Tupper [presumably the poetaster Martin Farquhar Tupper, 1810-89] or of his address. I was in hopes that the madness of collecting autographs had subsided - but I am sorry to perceive, from your letter, that this is not yet the Case.'

Autograph Card Signed ('Agnes Castle' and 'Egerton Castle').

Author: 
Egerton Castle (1858-1920) and his wife Agnes Castle, nee Sweetman (1860-1922), British historical novelists
Publication details: 
6 December 1901; place not stated [Brighton].
£30.00

Printed Post Card, dimensions three and a half inches by five and a half. Good, on aged paper, but with the reverse (showing the remains of a photograph of Brighton) damaged by its removal from an autograph album. Unobtrusive vertical crease. Reads (apparently in Egerton Castle's hand) 'Dear Miss Gray | Your letter has been forwarded to us here. We have much pleasure in sending you the autographs you desire'.

Autograph Note Signed ('Wemyss Reid') [to Rev. E. J. F. Davies].

Author: 
Sir Thomas Wemyss Reid (1842-1905), British novelist and biographer
Publication details: 
8 July 1902; Falcon Hotel, Bude, Cornwall.
£30.00

One page, 12mo. On blue paper discoloured from glue by previous mounting. Seven-line printed biographical cutting in top right-hand corner. 'I am very happy to comply with your request [for an autograph].'

Autograph Letter Signed to an unnamed female correspondent.

Author: 
W.W. Caddell, autograph-collector [?]
Publication details: 
3 Castellain Road, Maida Hill, w. [London], 16 Feb. 1914.
£80.00

Two pages, 8vo, good condition. He claims that he has checked his post and finds he had not answered her. "If you still have the autograph letters of Gissing & others & will post them on approval I will see if I can afford your price." He refers to his enclosure of a "The 'Bazaar' Reference Register" (present) which is a coupon certifying that the references provided by "Capt. W. Waithman Caddell" were perfectly satisfactory.

Signed Covering Document for the sale of papers signed by Nelson, Hardy, St Vincent and Trowbridge.

Author: 
Commander Richard Longfield Davies, R.N., of Reddinick House, Penzance [R. Hedges Davies; Nelson; Hardy; St Vincent; Trowbridge; Autograph Collecting]
Publication details: 
10/11/83
£60.00

On piece of paper five inches by six and a half. Good, with slight smudging to a couple of lines and a strip of archival tape on blank reverse. The four lines of text, in a different hand from the signature, were presumably written out by the purchaser, in order to indemnify himself in case of dispute. Reads: 'I hereby certify that these four papers signed respectively by Nelson, Hardy, St Vincent & Trowbridge have descended to me through my grandfather Richard Longfield Davies.-' Signature reads 'R. Hedges Davies | Nover. 10th. 1883.'

Fragment of Typed Letter Signed to unnamed correspondent.

Author: 
C. Maguire [autograph dealer?]
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£80.00

On piece of paper roughly seven inches by eight wide. On aged paper with closed tears and fraying to extremities. Top part of document torn away, leaving ten complete lines of text. Lays out the conditions under which an archive of letters is offered for sale.

Autograph Note Signed to unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Edmund Yates (1831-94), British novelist, dramatist and editor of the 'World' magazine
Publication details: 
28 August 1886; on letterhead 1 York Street, Covent Garden, London.
£40.00

One page, 12mo. Very good on lightly-aged grey paper. Reads 'Dear Sir. | Here is the autograph you require. | Faithfully your's | [signed] Edmund Yates'. The words 'Here' and 'to' are slightly smudged.

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