Autograph Letter Signed to Rupert Simms.

12mo (leaf dimensions 18 x 11 cm): 2 pp. Twenty-one lines of text, complete and legible. On aged paper with some wear at head. Casting interesting light on the workings of the provincial Victorian booktrade. Kinsman states: 'I will have much pleasure in helping you all that I can in the Bibliography of your County: and as a start to begin with I send you 2 dozen of my Catalogues in which there must be many Staffordshire natives as Authors.' He offers to collate books for Simms, or to 'send the Books themselves for your inspection or purchase (that is such as may be still on hand) you returning them at once when collated.' He asks for the catalogues to be returned once finished with, as 'Of some of my Catalogues not sent I have not a single copy left and of some sent I have only these copies.' Simms lost both hands in childhood and learnt to write with a contraption attached to one of the stumps. His 'Bibliotheca Staffordiensis' was published in a limited edition in 1894.