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Autograph Letter Signed to 'R. Steggall' [perhaps the organist Reginald Steggall].

Author: 
James Orton, English Victorian poet
Publication details: 
12 May 1875; 86 Usher Road, Old Ford, London.
£56.00

12mo, 4 pp. Good, with spotting to second leaf of bifolium. Steggall and Orton's 'mutual friend (our very dear friend)' Mrs. Kent has written to tell Orton that Steggall 'will be happy to see my son on Saturday evening at 6'. Orton is grateful to Steggall for thinking 'of my anxiety to retain him with me after our long & to me at least terrible separation'. He is very grateful to Steggall, who is joined to Orton by a 'link of friendship which passes through to my two dear friends Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Atherstone'.

Autograph Letter Signed to [John] Lanyon.

Author: 
William Ewart
Publication details: 
23 January 1888; on letterhead '9, Bedford Street, | Belfast.'
£20.00

Mayor of Belfast, 1859-60, and founder of what was at one time the world's largest privately owned linen manufacturer (William Ewart & Son Ltd). Lanyon (1839-1900) was a surveyor, architect and engineer, partner in Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon. One page, 12mo. In good condition, with small closed tear at head not affecting text, and remains of mount adhering to blank verso. Reads 'Dear Mr Lanyon | It will give me pleasure to support the boy Arthur Knox in whom you are interested at the first Election for the St Anne's Society | But about the Form that I must sign.

Autograph accounts of 'Money Received in 1905 [to 1910]'.

Author: 
`Shirley Slocombe (fl. 1887-1916), English portrait painter
Publication details: 
[1905-10].
£56.00

Three pages, on quarto leaf folded vertically to make narrow bifolium. Very good, with minor aging and creasing. Under each of the six years details are given of the date, amount and individual from whom the sum is received. Includes £18.15.0 from John Sampson of York for 'Signing 150 proofs Lord ', £28.0.0 of 'Ellis (Bookdealer of Bond St., for 4 old books)', £29.8.0 of Mr. Garnett-Orme, 'For picture of Auck Lodge', and £75.0.0 and 'Mr. Savill (for 9 Engravings by Bartolozzi)'. Other names include Lawrence & Bullen Ltd, Mr Partingdon (picture restorer), Captain Frank Forester, H. P.

Catalogue of the Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1792-1862), Consisting principally of Letters from Percy and Mary Shelley. Sold by Order of his Great-Nephew Major R. J. Jefferson Hogg, M.C. of Norton-on-Tees, Co. Durham.

Author: 
Thomas Jefferson Hogg [Sotheby & Co.; Percy Bysshe Shelley; autograph letters; auction catalogue]
Publication details: 
London: Messrs. Sotheby & Co., 34 and 35 New Bond Street, W.1.; 30 June 1948. [Printed by Kitchen & Barratt, Ltd., Park Royal Road, N.W.10.]
£80.00

Octavo: 21 pp. Leaf of prices and buyers' names loosely inserted. Stapled. In original yellow printed wraps. Somewhat creased and chipped, on aged, spotted paper. Two-page foreword. Maggs were the main buyers, but the three highest sellers among the 105 lots, all Shelley letters, went to other dealers: lot 13, 'quoting 36 lines of original verse', for £155 to Pickering; lot 55, 'describing the origins and method of his elopement with Mary Godwin', £175 to Quaritch; lot 65, 'dealing with many topics', £360 to W. H. Robinson.

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.

No. 3. Important and Precious Autographs and Authors' Original MSS. from Froissart (1338 to 1404) to Clemenceau. Over five Centuries.

Author: 
G. Michelmore & Co., London autograph dealers [Chiswick Press; Oscar Wilde]
Publication details: 
London: G. Michelmore & Co., 5 Royal Opera Arcade, Pall Mall, S.W.1. [early 1920s] [Charles Whittingham and Griggs (Printers), Ltd. Chiswick Press, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.]
£100.00

Octavo: ii + 174 pp. Stitched. In original grey printed wraps. Internally clean and tight, in grubby and worn wraps. A first class catalogue, with excellent entries on items including letters and documents by Byron, Carlyle, Dickens, Disraeli, Edward Fitzgerald, Garibaldi, Pitt the Younger, Sir Walter Scott, Tennyson, Horace Walpole, George Washington. Fifteen books from the library of Mrs Piozzi.

Proof ('Saunders sculp.'), 'Engraved for Ashburton's History of England', of 'Henry II after having his Son crowned King serving the first dish to his Table'.

Author: 
[Charles Alfred Ashburton; Ashburton's History of England; Joseph Saunders, engraver; W. & J. Statford, Print Sellers, High Holborn, London]
Publication details: 
Published by W. & J. Stratfords, No: 112 Holborn Hill March 16, 1793.'
£28.00

On wove paper, with watermark '179< >'. Dimensions roughly 22.5 x 39 cm. Very good on lightly aged paper. One small unobtrusive spot of foxing. The illustration is within an oval roughly 21.5 cm wide, enclosed in a decorative box of dimensions 18 x 27.5 cm. A couple of bishops with croziers and a mass of nobles in ermine look on in a vaulted castle hall while Henry II presents what looks like a pie to his bemused offspring, who is seated beneath a canopy.

Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs Chapman.

Author: 
William Agnew (1825-1910), English art dealer, director of the magazine 'Punch' from 1872
Publication details: 
8 October 1865; on monogrammed letterhead.
£60.00

Three pages, 12mo. Very good on lightly aged paper with slightest trace of previous mount adhering to blank verso of second leaf of bifolium. He has 'looked out' and is sending 'a few interesting Autographs', and would have sent them before, had he not been 'a great invalid all summer'. 'I will get Miss Chapman a good collection of the autographs of literary men. I am now very closely connected with Punch & other publications and shall have frequent opportunities.' Agnew's family, as partners in Bradbury & Agnew, were for many years the publishers of 'Punch'.

Autograph Letter Signed (Sr. D. W. Smith') to Messrs Thorp & Dickson, Alnwick.

Author: 
Sir David William Smith (1764-1837), property manager for the Duke of Northumberland [Farne Islands, Northumberland]
Publication details: 
21 July 1834; Alnwick.
£150.00

4to bifolium: 2 pp. Good, with slight loss to second leaf from breaking of red wax seal, traces of which still adhere. Twenty lines of text. Docketed in pencil and ink on second leaf. Asks them to furnish him with 'all the particulars relative to the Farne Islands [...] who the Lessee? - their estimated quantiy or extent? - Rent? length of lease? - [...] whether Birds, feathers, down, Eggs, Rabbits - Kelp, or Seaware, fish &c? all which I should hope you would be able to obtain from some of your Bamburgh friends? - or from Blackett, at N. Sunderland? - how they are protected?

Offprint of article entitled 'Protection Against Lightning. What is a lightning conductor? How does it protect against lightning? And how should it be applied to be effective?'

Author: 
Alfred Hands [J. W. Gray & Son, Lightning Conductor Experts]
Publication details: 
Reprinted from "The Field" newspaper, May 16th, 1914.'
£28.00

8vo: ii + 14 pp. Unbound. Stapled and in original brown printed wraps. Very good on art paper. Six photographic illustrations, including 'Clothing of a man struck by lightning' and 'Farm-house at Whaddon, near Stamford, struck and practically wrecked by lightning.' Hands is described as 'Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Member of the Astronomical Society of France, Senior Partner of J. W.

Autograph Letter Signed ('R Seeley') to [John Lucas] Tupper.

Author: 
Robert Benton Seeley (1798-1886; DNB), English publisher and author
Publication details: 
3 July 1871; 54 Fleet Street [London].
£56.00

12mo: 2 pp. Very good. Relates to the photographic series 'English Artists of the present day', published by Seeley with accompanying essays 'by J. B. Atkinson, S. Colvin, F. G. Stephens, T. Taylor, and J. L. Tupper'. He is sending 'a copy of No. 3. The other we count as a presentation copy.' 'The Woolner photo. will I hope not be thought so bad by those who have not seen Elliott & Fry's. I was glad to find this morning that it had not struck Mr.

Autograph Letter, in the third person, to the publishers Williams & Norgate.

Author: 
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil (1830-1903), 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, British Conservative Prime Minister on three occasions
Publication details: 
25 January 1897; on letterhead 20, Arlington Street, S.W. [London].
£56.00

12mo: 1 p. Good. Purple receipt stamp in top left-hand corner. 'Lord Salisbury requests Messrs. Williams & Norgate to send him Harnack's "Die Chronologie der Altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius". Also another volume he published 3 or 4 years ago on the same subject - the "Geschichte".' One presumes that the present British Prime Minister is equally cultured.

Autograph Letter Signed ('W. H. Mallock') to 'Mrs Nesbit'.

Author: 
William Hurrell Mallock (1849-1923), English author [Edith Nesbit]
Publication details: 
10 October 1879; 15 Savile Row, London.
£35.00

12mo: 1 p. On discoloured paper with wear at head and traces of previous mount adhering to blank reverse. He sent the publishers Chatto & Windus her novel the previous Monday, 'begging them to write to you on the matter, and giving your work my best recommendation'. He has not heard anything from them himself, but expects it will 'take a week or two, before they can give an opinion'. The recipient may be Edith Nesbit, although this is unlikely as Nesbit was her maiden name. She became Edith Bland in 1880. None of her works appear to have been published by Chatto & Windus.

Autograph Letter in the third person to the London printseller James Caulfield (1764-1826).

Author: 
Thomas Coutts (1735-1822), London banker of Scottish extraction [Coutts & Co.]
Publication details: 
23 January 1817; Strand.
£38.00

12mo: 1 p. Somewjhhat grubby, but with text clear and entire. Caulfield 'has been misled in supposing Mr Coutts is inclined to collect Hogarth's or any other pictures as he has hardly ever had any taste or inclination for that Line.'

Autograph Letter Signed ('Tom Gallon') and Typed Letter Signed to Ernest Pertwee.

Author: 
Tom Gallon (1866-1914), English novelist, dramatist and humourist [George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.]
Publication details: 
TLS, 16 July 1903; ALS, 13 August 1903; both on embossed letterhead 190, Adelaide Road, St. John's Wood, N.W. [London.]
£56.00

Both items quarto. On worn, discoloured paper, with a couple of closed tears to the folds. Pertwee was the author of numerous anthologies for recitation, and these letters presumably relate to his 'Reciter's treasury of prose and drama: serious and humorous' (Routledge, 1904). TLS: 'Provided, of course, that Messrs. Routledge have actually agreed with you to publish the book of humorous prose recitations, I shall be very willing to allow you to reprint any one of the stories the titles of which I give below.

Prospectus announcing the publication of 'the First number of the PALL MALL MAGAZINE' on 25 April 1893.

Author: 
[The Pall Mall Magazine; George Routledge & Sons]
Publication details: 
[London: George Routledge & Sons, 1893.]
£56.00

Quarto: 4 pp. Unbound bifolium. Grubby and creased, with a couple of pin holes and small closed tears, and a little ink staining to the margins (not affecting text). Five illustrations, including full page engraving of two cherubs, entitled 'L'Enfance de l'amour'. Claims that 'neither labour nor expense will be spared to achieve and maintain the highest standard of literary and artistic excellence', and that the magazine will be 'strictly non-political, in the sense that it will champion the views of no particular party'.

Autograph Letter Signed to 'Mr. James' [the novelist Henry James?].

Author: 
William Dean Howells (1837-1920), American novelist and literary critic
Publication details: 
7 February 1886; Auburndale.
£200.00

12mo: 2 pp. Good, with thin strip of glue and grey paper from previous mounting adhering at foot of reverse (not affecting text). While it is possible that Howell may have given 'Mr. Gill' [tMichael Henry Gill, later of McLashan & Gill?] 'letters [of introduction]' when he 'went to New York ten or fifteen years ago', it is unlikely.

Autograph Letter in the third person to Messrs A. & C. Black, 4 Soho Square, London [publishers of 'Who's Who'].

Author: 
Freiherr Adolph von Deichmann (1831-1907) [Baron Deichmann], German banker and anglophile 'four-in-hand' coaching enthusiast
Publication details: 
8 October 1900; on letterhead of Schloss Bendeleben [Germany].
£38.00

8vo: 2 pp. Good, on lightly-aged laid paper with slight chipping and glue stain at head (not affecting text). A formal letter written in English in the third person. He asks them to send 'another form [for him to write his entry in 'Who's Who'] to be filled up [...] The first one sent was mislaid on leaving London'. Deichman was the subject of a 'Spy' cartoon ('Vanity Fair', 14 May 1903: 'He wears curious hats'), in which he is shown driving a coach.

Fear. Reprinted from the "Manchester Quarterly," April 1914.

Author: 
L. Conrad Hartley
Publication details: 
London: Sherratt and Hughes. Manchester: 34 Cross Street.
£28.00

8vo: 8 pp. Stapled and unbound. In original grey printed wraps with rusted staples. Grubby and dogeared. Signed ('L. Conrad Hartley') presentation inscription dated 31 May 1915. No copy of the offprint of this short story on COPAC.

The Neophyte and the High Priest. Reprinted from the "Manchester Quarterly," January, 1915.

Author: 
L. Conrad Hartley
Publication details: 
London: Sherratt & Hughes. Manchester: 34 Cross Street. 1915.
£28.00

8vo: 11 pp. Unbound and stapled. In original beige printed wraps. Grubby and dogeared, with rusted staples. Signed (L. Conrad Hartley') presentation, dated 31 May 1915. No copy of the offprint off this short story on COPAC.

Autograph Letter Signed ('A. Cardinal Gasquet') to the publishers Messrs George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., together with typed copy of their reply.

Author: 
Francis Aidan Cardinal Gasquet, English Benedictine monk and historical scholar (1846-1929) [George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.]
Publication details: 
21 June 1913 [for 1915]; on letterhead Palazzo San Calisto, (Trastevere) Roma'.
£150.00

[Vatican Librarian; Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archive; subject of Shane Leslie's biography;Three pages, octavo. Good, on lightly aged and spotted paper, with crease to second leaf of bifolium. Regarding Rev. J. R. McKee's translation of Arnold Oskar Meyer's 'England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth'. He has received McKee's letter. 'When I promised this to the Professor more than two years ago I did not contemplate having to leave England altogether & still less had I any dream of the war, which has interrupted all relations with German friends'.

Catalogue of Fourteen Thousand Portraits of Authors, Actors, Legislators, Ministers and Celebrated Men and Women of All Countries. The Largest Sale that has ever taken place in the United States. [...] by Edelinck, Lemperour, Bause, Schidt, Doo [...]

Author: 
Banks, Merwin & Co., Auctioneers, Broadway, New York [Auction Catalogue]
Publication details: 
New York: To be Sold at Auction [...] 8th, 9th and 10th of March, 1864, By Banks, Merwin & Co., At the Irving Buildings, Nos. 594 and 596 Broadway].
£150.00

Octavo: 18 pp. Unbound: stabbed and unstitched. First leaf and leaves with pp. 15/16 and 17/18 loose. Leaves with pp.3/4 and 15/16 half-separated. Paper discoloured and chipping at edges. Extends to 918 lots. The odd number of leaves implies the loss of a final leaf, possibly bearing text. Stamp of the Public Library Ford Collection. Docketing in pencil notes a duplicate at the New York Public Library. No other copy traced.

The Art of Fiction. A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on Friday evening, April 25, 1884 (With Notes and Additions).

Author: 
Walter Besant
Publication details: 
London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly. 1884. [Billing and Sons, Printers, Guildford.]
£28.00

Octavo: 39 pp. Stitched. In original orange wraps, with grey printed paper boards. On spotted, aged paper, with insect holes to a couple of leaves. Wraps stained and worn. First English printing of an essay noted for its coupling with Henry James's piece of the same name (not present here) in an American edition of 1885.

Catalogue No. 26: 'Early Newspapers | From 1625 to 1850'.

Author: 
Birrell & Garnett, Ltd., 30 Gerrard Street, London W.1 [booksellers' catalogues; bookselling]
Publication details: 
Harding & Curtis, Ltd., Somerset Street, Bath. [1929.]
£56.00

Octavo: 32 pp. Stapled and unbound. Rather worn, particularly at first and last leaves. A few pencil marks and notes, and slight ink staining at head of first leaf. Twenty illustrations. 168 items; three-part index on final page. Influential catalogue, the collection sold in its entirety to Duke University. One of Birrell & Garnett's managers was Graham Pollard, co-author of the book which unmasked T. J. Wise as a forger.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Alfred Savoir'), in French, to 'Monsieur le Major'.

Author: 
'Alfred Savoir' (1883-1934, pen name of Alfred Poznanski), French dramatist and editor of Polish/jewish extraction
Publication details: 
Paris, 37 rue Bassano; date not stated.
£75.00

One page, quarto. Good, on lightly aged and creased paper, with strip from mount adhering to right-hand margin. He is pleased to be of assistance to General Ponsonby and his officers, and is happy to agree to the authorisation for Banso, as far as it concerns him. His English rights have been purchased by Curtis & Brown of London, to whom application must be made. He does not think they will ask for any remuneration. Asks the recipient to pass on his respects to the general, and in a postscript wonders whether he can tell him a good story concerning a lion hunt.

Four Autograph Letters Signed ('W. Marshall') to Messrs Bradley & Son Ltd[, The Crown Press, Printers, Caxton Road, Reading], giving formula for 'Spacine' ('for the prevention of rising spaces in Monotype') and instructions for its application.

Author: 
W. Marshall, East Dulwich printer and inventor [Bradley & Son, Reading printers; Monotype; Spacine]
Publication details: 
30 Jan. [1929], 8 and 13 May 1929 and undated; the first three from 92 Upland Rd, East Dulwich, London, S.E.22.
£350.00

The four items, all on aged and lightly spotted paper, are attached by four rusty staples. One (five pages, octavo): In reply to the firm's inquiry regarding 'the prevention of rising spaces in Monotype', Marshall states that, instead of giving information, he 'would rather send you the method and you try it out and prove for yourself its value, then pay me afterwards'.

Typed pages from her 'Chinese Prose Literature of the T'ang Period' (London: Probsthain, 1938), together with a proof slip from the printers.

Author: 
Evangeline Dora Edwards (1888-1957) [Stephen Austin & Sons, Ltd., Hertford, Herts, publishers]
Publication details: 
1938
£38.00

Good, on lightly aged paper. Rust stains from paperclips on one leaf. Five pages of typescripts on five quarto leaves. The first page gives the contents, and the rest are covering pages with a few words of instructions (e.g. 'PREFACE | (To be prepared after revising first proofs)' and 'APPENDIX --- Authenticity........ | To follow with Bibliography and Indexes.' The proof slip, printed and with pencil insertions, is one page, on a leaf roughly eight inches by four and a half.

Typed Letter Signed ('H A McClure Smith') to T. H. Rowney of Messrs George Rowney & Co., Ltd., London.

Author: 
Hugh Alexander McClure Smith (1902-1961), Australian diplomat, journalist and editor of The Sydney Morning Herald
Publication details: 
4 April 1950; on engraved letterhead of The Sydney Morning Herald.
£65.00

One page, quarto. On aged and creased paper. Letterhead illustrated with engraving of the paper's headquarters. Thanks him for the copy of Rowney's 'Artists' Almanac'. 'Like yourselves, we are an old family firm and as such have always taken a live interest in the Arts.' Endorses the Empire Art Council, feeling that '[t]here is a great deal that can be done in the exchange of art exhibitions, etc., between the various parts of the Empire'. Docketed with London address on reverse.

Typed Letter Signed to Leslie Bloom of the Gallery First Nighters' Club.

Author: 
Ian Wallace (born 1919), English baritone singer connected with Flanders and Swann
Publication details: 
29 October 1956; on letterhead 27 Stormont Road, Highgate, London, N.6.
£18.00

Two pages, on letterhead of roughly 13.5 x 17.5 cms. He has sent a wire accepting the 'kind invitation'. '[A]s you can imagine we are rehearsing all day and every day at the present [...] The only thing thaht could stop me being with you is that we are, I understand, to record the "Fanny" music for a long-playing record on that Saturday'.

Thirty-one secondhand booksellers' catalogues (one a duplicate).

Author: 
Bickers; Alfred Cooper; W. Downing; T. Gladwell; W. George; Kerr & Richardson; C. Lowe; Uriah Maggs; J. Mathews; J. Neale; Parry & Hales; W. Paterson; Reeves & Turner; J. Roche; H. Sotheran; H. Young
Publication details: 
1880-1882; London, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester.
£450.00

all octavo, in worn nineteenth-century binding, with front hinge loose, lacking spine. New endpapers. All items good, on aged paper with occasional foxing. An invaluable collection, providing a snapshot of secondhand bookselling in provincial Victorian England within an extremely short timescale. Several of the booksellers are not represented in the British Library collection, and others are only represented by catalogues of a later date. Of note are the two catalogues published by Sotheran's Manchester arm, the existence of which is not mentioned in Andrew Block's 'Short History' (1933).

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