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Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), railway administrator, biographer and author of the influential book 'Self-Help' (1859) [South Eastern Railway; Victorian steam engines; nineteenth-century locomotives]

[Samuel Smiles, railway administrator and author of 'Self-Help'.] Autograph notebook, containing information relating to his work as Secretary of the South Eastern Railway, including memorandums, tables and transcripts of letters.

According to Smiles's entry in the Oxford DNB, he was 'prominent in the negotiations for the amalgamation of the Leeds and Thirsk Railway [by which he was employed] with the North Eastern, which was effected in 1854 and abolished his own office. Thereupon he left Leeds for London on being...

£2,800.00
Padraic Fallon (1905-1974), Irish poet and playwright

[ Padraic Fallon, Irish poet and playwright. ] Typescript of unpublished novella titled 'Hearse for a Playboy'.

118pp., of which the first 102pp. are in 4to, and the last 16pp. in folio. Stapled into red card wraps. Ownership inscription on inside front cover: 'Padraic Fallon, | Prospect, | Wexford'. Internally in good condition, on lightly-aged paper, in heavily-worn wraps. The story is set among race-...

£2,800.00
E. V. Knox [Edmund George Valpy Knox] (1881-1971, ‘Evoe’), editor of ‘Punch’ 1932-1948, humorist, essayist and poet [son of Edmund Abruthnott Knox, brother of Ronald, Dillwyn and Wilfred Knox]

[E. V. Knox [Edmund George Valpy Knox] (1881-1971, ‘Evoe’), editor of ‘Punch’.] Two Typed unpublished Talks on Punch, one dealing with the magazine’s place in social history, the other with its politics. With two drafts of the first, one in autograph

See Knox’s entry in the Oxford DNB, along with those of his father Edmund Arbuthnott Knox, his brothers Ronald, Dillwyn and Wilfred, his wife the ‘Mary Poppins’ illustrator Mary Shepard (daughter of Ernest Shepard) and his daughter the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald. At the time the present...

£2,500.00
W. S. Cowell Limited, Ipswich printers [Beatrice Warde; Ruari McLean; Francis Meynell; Sebastian Carter (Rampant Lions Press); Charles Batey; Brooke Crutchley; Hans Schmoller; Ralph Steadman]

[W. S. Cowell Limited, Ipswich printers.] The firm's 'Address Book', containing thousands of signatures of British printers, publishers, artists and book illustrators over a forty-year period, sumptuously-bound with unique printed prelims.

Founded in 1818, the Ipswich firm of W. S. Cowell Ltd ('The Press in the Butter Market') grew into one of the leading British printers, known for its high-quality catalogue work. The firm's papers are in the Suffolk Record Office at Ipswich, whose catalogue entry provides a good summary of its...

£2,500.00
Florence Jaffray "Daisy" Harriman (1870–1967), American socialite, suffragist, social reformer, organizer, and diplomat

Florence Jaffray Harriman's Visitors' Book: High Society and Progressive Politics in New York and Washington, 1915-1936

The present item - Daisy Harriman's Visitors' Book - is a significant artefact. Harriman was an important social activist and one of New York's leading socialites (at age 86, as Life Magazine reported, she still continued to host regular Sunday dinners for around twenty guests). Grouped together...

History, Women £2,500.00
Thomas Gibson Bowles (1841-1922), editor of the London society magazine 'Vanity Fair', founded by him in 1868 [Masson & Lewis, Accountants, 27 Leadenhall Street, London]

Three financial documents from 1880 on 'Vanity Fair': holograph 'Report' by the editor Thomas Gibson Bowles, accompanying 'Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Account' and 'Comparative Statement of Income and Expenditure' by accountants Masson & Lewis.

The three items, all in manuscript, are in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. All three are folded into the usual packets, with the two items by the accountants each titled in manuscript on the outside. Item One (Gibson's report): 'Report to accompany the Accounts of "Vanity Fair" for the...

£2,500.00
Sir Charles Stewart Scott (1838-1924), diplomat, British Ambassador to Russia, 1898-1904 [Franco-Austrian War (Second Italian War of Independence), 1859; American Civil War; Princess Alexandra]

[Sir Charles Stewart Scott, diplomat, British Ambassador to Russia.] 'Private & most Confidential' Autograph journal of ‘Charles: S: Scott’, largely written while an attaché in Paris (Franco-Austrian War, 1859), also in Dresden and Copenhage.

The papers of Sir Charles Stewart Scott (an Ulsterman: see his entry in the Ulster Dictionary of Biography) are held by the British Library. The present journal, described by its writer as ‘Private & most Confidential’, covers the very start of his career, from Paris in 1859 to Copenhagen in...

£2,500.00
William Nichols, photographer and Farm Bailiff at Felix Hall, Essex, the country house of Sir Thomas Burch Western

Album containing 53 original photographs, with captions, by William Nichols, Farm Bailiff at Felix Hall, the country house of Sir Thomas Burch Western.

An evocative collection of photographs, in which, unusually, a Victorian servant has been allowed to make a record of his masters, their country house, and household. The 53 photographs are laid down on 17 leaves of a contemporary stitched 4to album. In fair condition, lightly-aged, and with the...

£2,500.00
George Robins [George Henry Robins] (1777-1847), celebrated London auctioneer [James Black (1783-1855), editor of the Morning Chronicle [Horace Walpole; Strawberry Hill]

[George Robins, auctioneer.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Geo Robins') to the editor of the Morning Chronicle James Black, pushing for an article to be inserted in the paper, to tie in with his sale of the contents of Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill.

2pp., 12mo, bifolium. Very good, on lightly aged paper. The letter reads: 'Strawberry Hill is to the classic world much more important than the turmoil of everlasting Politics. It will be a little refreshing as a contrast to your readers to hear of Horace Walpole - the Inclosed is from...

Art and Architecture, Literature £2,500.00
John Player & Sons [ Player's ], tobacco and cigarette manufacturer, based in Nottingham, now part of the Imperial Tobacco Group: the firm's Dublin cigarette manufacturing plant, 1924-1960

[ John Player & Sons, tobacco manufacturers. ] Six substantial ledgers of itemised and audited accounts of the firm's Dublin plant ('Summary of Stock. No. 1', 'Private Ledger No. 2', 'Private Journal No. 5 [6]', and two 'Impersonal Ledger').

Six substantial ledgers (the heaviest 37 x 41 x 8 cm, and the widest 39 x 52 x 3 cm), containing itemised accounts providing a mass of information regarding the tobacco industry and economic history in Ireland, and one of Dublin's notable employers, whose sales in the 1950s were in the tens of...

£2,500.00