CENTURY

Autograph Letter Signed to [Dorothy] Owston-Booth.

Author: 
Ishbel Macdonald (1903-1982), hostess at Downing Street of her father the British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald
Publication details: 
30 September 1936; on letterhead of Upper Frognal Lodge, Hampstead, NW3.
£56.00

4to, 1 p. On cream paper with letterhead printed in green. Fair, on lightly spotted and creased paper. She cannot make an appointment for an interview 'for various reasons [...] The chief reason being that I do not give interviews'. Owston-Booth was a contributor to the Windsor Magazine.

Four original sepia studio photographs of Gladstone, and one of his wife. With photographic reproduction of an optical illusion caricature.

Author: 
William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), British Liberal Prime Minister; his wife Catherine Gladstone [nee Glynn] (1812-1900) [Thomas Fall; Samuel Alexander Walker]
Publication details: 
None dated [but one from 1881]. The photograph of Mrs Gladstone by the London Stereoscopic Company; photographs of Gladstone by T. Fall, 9 & 10 Baker Street, London, and Samuel A. Walker, 230 Regent Street, London. [The other two unattributed.]
£450.00

ITEM ONE: Photograph of Gladstone, 14 x 10 cm, by Thomas Fall (1833-1900). In very good condition, laid down on the photographer's worn printed card, 16.5 x 11 cm. Showing Gladstone seated outdoors, with his grandson on his knee. NPG x22229 (the entry for which describes it as a 'carbon cabinet card', taken on 14 September 1881). ITEM TWO: Photograph of Gladstone, 14.5 x 10 cm, by Samuel Alexander Walker (1841-1922). Laid down on the photographer's printed card ('Portraits "At Home" A new Application of Photography introduced by Samuel A. Walker'), 16.5 x 11 cm.

Autograph Letter Signed ('R Waithman') to 'J. <Delan?>'.

Author: 
Robert Waithman (1764-1833), Lord Mayor of London, 1823
Publication details: 
Dated in a contemporary hand to 1826. [The City of London.]
£25.00

4to, 1 p. Text clear and complete. On aged, sunned paper, with some chipping and closed tears to edges. He may not 'be able to get to the Com[mon] Coun[ci]l' as he is 'engaged on the Rota at the Old Baily this week'. He will be at a Court of Aldermen at the Guildhall at one o'clock, and if the recipient and other members of the Council cannot be there a quarter of an hour before, he will 'come out to you'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('R Waithman') to 'Mr Dillon'.

Author: 
Robert Waithman (1764-1833), Lord Mayor of London, 1823
Publication details: 
23 August [no year].
£23.00

12mo, 1 p. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Gives the date of a dinner with 'Mr. & Mrs. Thompson & family', to which he invites Dillon and his wife.

Engraved armorial bookplate, designed by Charles Catton and engraved by Francis Chesham, for Lord Camelford.

Author: 
Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford (1737-1793), politician and art collector [Charles Catton the elder (1728-1798), R.A., painter; Francis Chesham (1749–1806), engraver; bookplates; ex libris]
Publication details: 
Undated [1770s?].
£35.00

Steel-engraving, on a piece of thick laid paper, 12.5 x 17.5 cm. Fair, on lightly-aged and foxed paper. Never mounted, and so with no glue staining or other marking to blank reverse. Depicts Camelford's armorial crest, flanked by two birds, with motto 'PER . ARDUA . LIBERI .' At foot, in copperplate, 'Camelford.', with 'C. Catton R.A. del. F. Chesham Sculp.'

Financial Reform Tracts. Nos. 11 and 12. Speech of Sir Wm. Molesworth, Bart., M.P., in the House of Commons, on Tuesday, 25th July, 1848, On Colonial Expenditure and Government.

Author: 
Sir William Molesworth [The Financial Reform Association, Liverpool]
Publication details: 
[Financial Reform Association, Harrington Chambers, North John-street, Liverpool, March, 1849.] Printed at the Office of the "Standard of Freedom," 335, Strand, London.
£65.00

8vo: 32 pp. Pamphlet. Bound in modern marbled boards with paper label. Fair, on aged paper with top outer corner of last few leaves slightly dogeared and with reverse of last leaf a little grubby. An important speech, another edition of which exists, published by Ridgway in 1848. A reply by John Towne Danson was also published by Ridgway in 1848, going through two editions.

Manuscript Memorandum, in English, docketed 'General Bernard's information respecting ettiquette [sic] of the french Court'.

Author: 
Baron Simon Bernard (1779-1839), French general of engineers, who did much military work for the United States government
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£56.00

Written in a neat, close hand (not Bernard's) on one page (the recto of the first leaf of a 12mo bifolium). Twenty-one lines. Text clear and complete. On aged, grubby and lightly-creased paper.

Scrapbook of material collected on a trip to Scotland for the 1958 Edinburgh International Festival, including letters, programmes, tickets, maps, postcards, newspaper cuttings.

Author: 
The Edinburgh International Festival, 1958 [Victor Conn of Eltham]
Publication details: 
[1958. Items from England and Scotland, collected in 'A Collins Scrap Book'.]
£280.00

Around 140 items, laid down on 53 pp of a contemporary 37 x 25 cm stapled scrapbook. In original red and orange wraps, with 'Edinburgh Festival 1958' in manuscript on front cover. The collection is in good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with occasional items a little discoloured from mounting. The scrapbook itself is slightly grubby and ruckled. Collected by Victor Conn of Eltham, London, who was presumably responsible for the neat captions to some newspaper cuttings and other items.

Autograph Letter in the third person to Buchan, regarding 'Mr. Pitt', 'his abilities and fortitude' and 'the dilemma' arising from 'the present situation'.

Author: 
Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford (1737-1793), politician and art collector [David Steuart Erskine, eleventh earl of Buchan (1742-1829), antiquary and reformer]
Publication details: 
8 February 1784; Oxford Street.
£56.00

4to, 1 p. On piece of watermarked laid paper. Thirteen lines of text. Clear and complete. Good, on aged paper, with thin strip of stub adhering to blank reverse. Docketed at head, in a contemporary hand, '331 | Lord Camelford for fac simile'. Camelford was not at home when Buchan called, but he 'will take care that his Lordship's Letter shall be transmitted to Mr Pitt [his cousin William Pitt the younger?]'. Pitt 'will doubtless feel himself flatter'd with his Lordship's testimony in favour of his abilities and fortitude'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('H. O. Coxe') to <Innes?>.

Author: 
Henry Octavious Coxe [H. O. Coxe] (1811-1881), Bodley's Librarian, 1860-1881 [The Bodleian Library, Oxford]
Publication details: 
16 January 1879; Bodleian Library.
£65.00

16mo, 3 pp. Bifolium. Thirteen lines of text. Clear and complete. On aged paper with heavy staining to outer pages. Clarifying the position regarding 'new editions with additions'. The Bodleian is entitled to copies of these, 'unless the additions are separate - then we can only claim the new matter'. Explains that the Library's 'agent in London', Eccles of Great Russell Street, 'receives for us, or collects, as it may be the of the Publishers'. Docketed in pencil in a contemporary hand on the blank reverse of the second leaf.

Autograph Letter Signed ('M Ross') to Spottiswoode & Robertson, regarding her neighbour Wyndham Lewis being 'In a fidget' about insurance.

Author: 
Lady Mary Ross [Spottiswoode & Robertson, Solicitors; Wyndham Lewis; Park Lane, Grosvenor Gate, London]
Publication details: 
31 March 1830; Park Lane, Grosvenor Gate, London.
£45.00

12mo, 2 pp. Fifteen lines of text. Clear and complete. On aged and stained paper, with 3.5 cm closed tear in gutter, corner torn with no loss of text. Addressed, with postmark and remains of red wax seal, on reverse of second leaf. Docketed 'Lady Mary Ross | Park Lane 31 March 1830 | ans. 17 Apl'. Her neighbour 'Mr Wyndham Lewis' is 'In a fidget, as to Insurance'. She hopes it has been regularly paid, and 'must trust to yr not allowg it to be neglected'. She believes the insurance is 'for the House only & that I did not wish furniture'. According to the 'Survey of London', No.

Printed circular, signed 'Hervey', putting himself forward as Parliamentary 'Representative of our University'.

Author: 
Frederick William Hervey (1800-1864), 2nd Marquess of Bristol [Trinity College, Cambridge]
Publication details: 
23 October 1822; Trinity College, Cambridge.
£65.00

4to (22.5 x 18.5 cm), 1 p. Eighteen lines in four paragraphs. Text clear and complete, crisply printed in italic. On aged and grubby paper. Begins 'The lamented death of Mr. SMYTH having occasioned a vacancy in the Representation of our University, I am induced to offer myself as a Candidate for the honour of succeeding him in that distinguished situation.' He is 'unfettered by political engagements', and must forever feel 'affection and gratitude' for 'a Body, amongst whom I have passed some of the happiest and most profitable years of my life'. Hervey was unsuccessful.

Official instructions for the carrying out of an execution at Prisons in a British Colony.

Author: 
William Stirling, 'Ancien Assistant au Laboratoire de Police Technique de Lyon' [executions; hanging]
Publication details: 
[Offprint from the 'Revue Internationale de Criminalistique', vol.6 (1934).] Lyon: Joannes Desvigne et Cie, Editeurs, 36 a 42 Passage de l'Hotel-Dieu. 1934.
£56.00

8vo: 4 pp (paginated 3-6). In original light-green printed wraps. Text in English, clear and complete. Good, on aged paper, with slight discoloration to wraps. Blind accession stamp of the British crime writer Jonathan Goodman (1931-2008). The following sentence is deleted in pencil: 'The above instructions have been observed at executions interessed [sic] by one.' A 'plan of the authorized scaffold' is said to be 'attached', but is not present. No copy recorded on COPAC or WorldCat.

Autograph Letter Signed to [Richard] Welford [of the Newcastle Chronicle].

Author: 
George Troup (1811-1879), editor, Tait's Edinburgh Magazine [Richard Welford; Newcastle Chronicle]
Publication details: 
2 November 1859; Tait's Magazine Office, 34 Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
£75.00

12mo, 4 pp. Bifolium. 58 lines of text. Clear and complete. On aged paper, with the outer pages grubby and stained. The delay in replying to Welford's letter is due to the fact that it 'fell aside in Edinburgh and did not reach my hands until lately'. 'I was engaged in a veryy subordinate capacity on Taits Magazine when the shilling series commenced - and for some years - and again had it as my own property from 1846 to 1850 and have had it again for some years; yet I do not remember having ever seen a notice in the Newcastle Chronicle'.

Socialism in Song. An Appreciation of William Morris's "Chants for Socialists. Together with an Introductory Essay on Poetry and Politics.

Author: 
J. Bruce Glasier [John Bruce Glasier (1859-1920)] [William Morris; The National Labour Press]
Publication details: 
Manchester: The National Labour Press, Ltd. [1919.]
£85.00

12mo: xiv + 32 pp. In original grey printed wraps. Internally sound and tight on aged paper. Wraps worn and grubby, with slight staining to spine. Eight copies on COPAC, but only three at deposit libraries (Oxford, NLS and the BL).

Autograph Letter Signed ('W. P. Greswell') to an unnamed bookseller [Thomas Thorpe?].

Author: 
William Parr Greswell (1765-1854), Anglican clergyman and bibliographer [Thomas Thorpe, London bookseller]
Publication details: 
4 October 1821; Denton near Manchester.
£75.00

4to, 2 pp. Thirty lines of text. Clear and complete. On aged and grubby paper. One closed tear and minor traces of mount to extremities. An interesting letter, casting light on the relationship between bookseller and knowledgeable client in Georgian England. He gives the conditions under which he would be interested in buying a few items from the booksellers monthly catalogue.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Eric A. Walker') to Bower.

Author: 
Eric A. Walker [Eric Anderson Walker] (1886-1976), first holder of the King George V Chair in History at the University of Cape Town, South Africa [Sir Graham John Bower]
Publication details: 
30 June 1927; on University of Cape Town letterhead.
£50.00

4to, 2 pp. Thirty-nine lines of text. Clear and complete. Neatly and closely written. Begins by discussing two books recommended by Bower: Otto Hammann's 'World Policy of Germany' and a work by Sir Francis Younghusband. Hammann's book 'confirms what Sir Sidney Lee writes about the Kaiser's telegram'; he is pleased that Younghusband's, which he has not yet read, contradicts the story that 'Lord Ripon was prepared for such drastic measures'. He has been 'correcting the proofs of the 600-page history of South Africa which I undertook to write for Longmans Green five or six years ago'.

Autograph Letter Signed (twice, both 'Negri Cristoforo' ), with short poem, to an unnamed woman.

Author: 
Cristoforo Negri (1809-1896), Italian politician and first President (1867-1872) of the Italian Geographical Society [Jeremiah James Colman (1830-1898), Norwich mustard manufacturer]
Publication details: 
27 August 1868; on letterhead of Carrow House, Norwich.
£120.00

12mo, 2 pp. Bifolium. Fair, on aged paper with a little light staining. The recto carries the seventeen-line letter to a 'Gentilissima Dama', in response to a request for an autograph. On the reverse of the second leaf is a four-line poem, signed and dated by Negri, beginning 'Come un Nume che si adora'. In the letter Negri writes that he does not have 'la presunzione di credere che il mio autografo meriti di essere conservato'.

Autograph Signature ('Charlotte H Dolby') on fragment of letter.

Author: 
Charlotte Helen Sainton-Dolby (1821-85), English contralto singer
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£25.00

Dimensions roughly two and a half inches by four and a half wide. Clear, bold signature on aged paper. Reads '<...> believe me Gill's friend as well as your own | [signature] Charlotte H Dolby'. Reverse reads '<...> says, because I get mixed up with such a lot of people, and lose my individuality in the <...>'.

Original illustration, produced for publication, signed 'A. Twidle' and entitled on reverse 'Monkish Robes', showing three monks in the grounds of an oriental (Burmese?) temple.

Author: 
Arthur Twidle (1865-1936), English book illustrator [Burma; Burmese; oriental; the Far East]
Publication details: 
Undated.
£80.00

On a piece of thin card, 30.5 x 23 cm. Dimensions of illustration 23 x 17 cm. Signed by Twidle in bottom right-hand corner. The image itself is clear and sharp, in spotted and grubby margins. Docketed in pencil on reverse 'Monkish Robes | 491 | to 5 inches width | with rule as in picture'. An attractive, detailed watercolour, in black and grey, and picked out in white, showing three monks processing with eyes cast to the ground in different directions in the grounds of stone temple overgrown with foliage.

Visits With Henry Miller: A Woman's Point of View. ['50 - copy Limited/Signed Edition']

Author: 
Mamie Gertz [Henry Miller]
Publication details: 
Ann Arbor, Michigan: Roger Jackson, Publisher, 1995.
£180.00

12mo, 36 pp. In wraps, with art paper flyleaves. Very good. Number 26 in the signed edition of fifty copies, which, according to a note by the publisher, 'contains a second photograph of Mamie and Elmer Gertz, rather than the single photograph which is contained in the Trade Edition [of two hundred copies]'.

Home Colonization. Address of the Home Colonization Co-operative and Social Home Association (Limited).

Author: 
[The Home Colonization Co-operative and Social Home Association.]
Publication details: 
No date. [1870s?] Langley & Son, Printers, 23 George St., Euston Rd.
£150.00

12mo: 8 pp. An unopened pamphlet made by folding a leaf twice. Text clear and complete. Good: on aged and slightly-grubby paper. Scarce: the only copies on COPAC at the London School of Economics and University College London, in whose entries it is dated to the 1870s.

Baxter Colour Prints Pictorially Presented.

Author: 
H. G. Clarke [George Baxter (1804-1867), Victorian engraver; Baxter prints; Maggs Brothers, booksellers, Conduit Street and Berkeley Square]
Publication details: 
London: Maggs Bros., 34 & 35 Conduit Street, W. 1920-1. [Printed by Courier Press, Leamington Spa. 1921.]
£220.00

4to. [iv] + 142 pp. Frontispiece and 136 plates, one in colour and the rest in black and white, with a further six illustrations at end in section entitled 'Tit-Bits of George Baxter'. A tight copy, in original worn quarter-binding, with black calf spine (with 6 cm split at head of rear hinge) and grey cloth bevelled-edged covers. Marbled endpapers split at hinges. The first and last few leaves have slight damp staining to the extremities. Text and plates printed on the same art paper, and consequently a heavy volume.

Glum-Glum. A Fairy Romance.

Author: 
[Charles Marshall, author?] [Richard Bentley (1794-1871), printer and publisher] [Victorian children's literature]
Publication details: 
London: Richard Bentley, Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty, 8 New Burlington Street. 1867. [London: Robson and Son, Great Northern Printing Works, Pancras Road, N.W.]
£200.00

4to (leaf dimensions 20.5 x 16.5 cm): 63 pp. In original grey-green printed wraps. Tight and generally good, but with damp-staining to a few leaves, some wear to corners and creasing and grubbiness to the last three leaves. Wraps worn and grubby. Embossed bookseller's stamp to rear wrap: 'W. H. Smith & Son. 186 Strand, London.' Scarce: COPAC only lists copies at the Bodleian, the National Library of Scotland and the British Library (the last being attributed to 'MARSHALL, Charles, Traveller'). The beginning is reminiscent of Tolkien's 'Hobbit': 'POOR Glum-glum!

Folio broadside ballad, illustrated with woodcut, entitled 'Patient Joe, or the Newcastle Collier.'

Author: 
Z.' [Hannah More] [the Cheap Repository for Religious and Moral Tracts]
Publication details: 
Undated [circa 1795]. 'Sold by S. HAZARD, (PRINTER to the CHEAP REPOSITORY for Religious and Moral Tracts) at BATH; By J. MARSHALL, PRINTER to the CHEAP REPOSITORY, [...] and R. WHITE, Piccadilly, LONDON [...]'
£200.00

On one side of a piece of laid paper, 45 x 27 cm. Dimensions of printing, including decorative border, 37 x 21.5 cm. Woodcut at head (between two vignettes) roughly 6 x 7.5 cm, showing two men with packs, one smoking a pipe, trudging across a field, with a dog in the foreground and what looks like a merry-go-round in the background. Clear and entire. With light water staining, but in good condition overall. The poem, attributed at the end to 'Z.' and announced as 'Entered at STATIONERS HALL', consists of seventy-two lines arranged in eighteen four-line stanzas over two columns.

Scrapbook, assembled and annotated by Pymm, containing newspaper cuttings, letters and other material relating to his wife's involvement in the 'Liberal Unionist Tea Party Scandal' of 1893.

Author: 
Henry Pymm [The Liberal Unionist Tea Party Scandal, Lambeth, 1893; Henry Morton Stanley]
Publication details: 
1893; London.
£225.00

The nature of this somewhat Pooterish 'scandal' is explained in one of the cuttings in the scrapbook: '[...] the Unionists of North Lambeth are making secret but strenuous efforts to insure the return of Mr. H. M. Stanley at the next election.

Manuscript volume titled 'Notes on the familary of VICARS of South Yorkshire. Collected by Alfred Scott Gatty.' With illustrations, family trees, insertions.

Author: 
Alfred Scott-Gatty (1847-1918), Garter Principal King of Arms at the College of Arms [genealogy of the Vicars and Vickers families of South Yorkshire]
Publication details: 
Ecclesfield Vicarage, Sheffield. 1876.'
£250.00

4to volume (leaf dimensions 23 x 18.5 cm). Written out in Gatty's neat close hand over 96 full pages of a brown cloth notebook with decorative enadpapers. With 30 extra 4to pages of notes, and three loose family 8vo leaves of family trees. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, in worn binding with split hinges. With title page and names underlined in red throughout.

Manuscript indenture: 'Deed of Trust in relation to the foundation of a Chair of Physical Chemistry in the University'. Signed by Badock, Cook and Rafter, and bearing the University of Bristol seal.

Author: 
William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925), 1st Viscount Leverhulme; the University of Bristol [Sir Stanley H. Badock, Pro-Chancellor; Ernest H. Cook, Lecturer; James Rafter, Registrar]
Publication details: 
17/11/19
£95.00

2 pp, on first leaf of bifolium of thick cream paper, dimensions roughly 40.5 x 26.5 cm. Ruled with red lines. Docketed on reverse of second leaf. Text clear and complete. In good condition, though grubby. Leverhulme ('the Settlor') is 'desirous of assisting in the foundation of a Chair of Physical Chemistry in the University', and has ('with the approbation of the Council of the University') 'transferred Five Thousand "B" Twenty per centum Cumulative Preferred Ordinary Shares of One pound each fully paid in Lever Brothers Limited into the name of the University'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Stanley Buckmaster') to [F.] Meade[, Secretary, Official Press Bureau].

Author: 
Stanley Owen Buckmaster, 1st Viscount Buckmaster (1861-1934), Liberal politician and Lord Chancellor [the Official Press Bureau; Great War; censorship]
Publication details: 
12 April 1915; on embossed government letterhead of the Official Press Bureau, Whitehall.
£35.00

12mo, 3 pp, 26 lines. Good, with tiny pin holes at head and foot of both leaves of the bifolium, and one corner roughened by removal of mount. Buckmaster has learnt that Meade is 'contemplating leaving [his] work in this Office', and would 'greatly regret any such step' as Meade's work is 'of great assistance and is much appreciated by all of us in this room'. While Buckmaster realises that there is little opportunity for advancement, he feels that 'we all do render considerable service to the state'.

Olive, Cypress and Palm. An Anthology of Love and Death. Compiled by Mina Curtiss.

Author: 
Mina Curtiss, ed. [Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly]
Publication details: 
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1930.
£56.00

8vo: xvii + 296 pp. In original black cloth, with design in silver stamped on front board. No dustwrapper. Faded spine and lightly-marked cloth. Inscribed by Curtiss on front free endpaper: 'To Ellery Sedgwick - | Most gratefully - | Mina Curtiss | Christmas, 1932.'

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