OF

The present item is on a 12mo bifolium of light gray paper, with Kate Crowe’s letter on the two outer pages, and Tom Taylor’s unrelated pencil notes on the two inner pages. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. There is an engraved portrait of ‘Miss Kate Bateman’, with a long biographical footnote, on pp.160-161 of ‘The Reminiscences of J. L. Toole’, ed. Hatton (1889). That footnote states, with regard to the subject of this letter: ‘Miss Bateman appeared on the first night of the reopening of Sadler’s Wells under the management of [her mother] Mrs.

See the entries on Grey and Lady Ilbert's husband (who was Clerk of the Commons) in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. In an elegant hand. Reads: '15. 2. 15 / Dear Lady Ilbert / Many thanks: I shall be very glad to dine on Wednesday / Yours sincerely / E Grey.'

An unusually forthright communication for the period. See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. At the time of writing, Fitzgerald was President of the Board of Control under Sir Robert Peel. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged and ruckled. Signed ‘Vane Londonderry’. Begins: ‘My Dear Ftizgerald / I had not an opportunity to thank you as I would in the H of Lords for all your kind attention to my wishes.

Thomas broadcast many of his programmes from the Hammersley Hill estate, overlooking the Catskills. 1p, foolscap 8vo. On cream paper with letterhead in green. In good condition, folded twice for postage. Thomas’s bold signature, also in green, rises at an angle. Reads: ‘Dear Mr. McCormick, / I’ve entirely forgotten. / If you know of an extra copy I would like to add it to my collection. / With best wishes. / Sincerely, / Lowell Thomas’.

In fair condition, lightly aged and creased, laid down on part of page from album. Folded for postage. Neatly written. Reads: ‘6 Oct 1867 / Mr Pauer begs to inform Mrs Paget that the Austrian Piano maker will attend to her Piano tomorrow or Wednesday / In haste.’

A nice piece of WW2 RAF ephemera, written on the eve of the Battle of Britain. Scarce: the only copies on JISC at the National Library of Scotland and Bishopsgate Institute in London. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The ‘Text of the Letter’ is printed across the centrefold, with an introduction on the first page, reading: ‘Among the personal belongings of a young R.A.F. pilot in a Bomber Squadron who was recently reported “Missing, believed killed,” was a letter to his mother - to be sent to her if he were killed.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Addressed ‘Revd. F. Damstini Cremer / The Rectory / Keighley / England’. Signed ‘A. B. Bruce’. He begins by confirming that Cremer has has not mistaken his meaning ‘on p. 32 “The Kingdom of God”’, reaffirming over a paragraph what it is he was saying regarding the temptation of Christ. ‘It seems a considerable liberty, but then the Scripture writers do take liberties in their quotations & use of Holy Writ’.

Although he later repudiated his position, Mackintosh is notable for having defended the French Revolution from Edmund Burke's strictures. See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. With regard to Maurice's oriental studies, it is worth noting that Mackintosh was Recorder of Bombay, 1804-1811. The three items are in good condition, lightly aged and worn and folded for postage. The last two show slight evidence of the breaking of the wafer, and the last has minor traces of brown paper mount. All three are bifoliums, and all are signed ‘James Mackintosh’.

This is an extremely scarce item, not held by the Imperial War Museum, and significant for the five-page eye-witness account it contains (pp.29-33): ‘‘H.M.S. “Ardent” and the Jutland Action. / By A. M.’, i.e. Lieutenant-Commander Arthur Marsden, who was in command of the Ardent and one of only two survivors of its sinking. It is remarkable that he was allowed to disseminate such a candid account (for the perusal of naval cadets!) within months of the engagement. On cover: ‘The Britannia Magazine / Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. / Christmas, 1916.’ and printers’ slug.

Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign, 1798-1801, inspired a period of ‘Egyptomania’ culminating in Champollion’s decipherment of the Rossetta Stone. The contribution of the author of this letter to this outpouring of scholarly activity is an offer to the President of the Society of Antiquaries of London to blow up one of the pyramids, in order to extract their contents. See the recipient’s entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 8vo. Bifolium of laid Britannia paper, watermarked 1805. Fifty-five lines, well laid out and written in a neat and stylish hand.

Printed on one side of a piece of laid paper, watermarked with date 1808, roughly 34.5 x 21 cm. Very good. Illustration at head, coloured in red and green, roughly 6.5 x 10 cm.

See the entry for the ‘Sailor King’ in the Oxford DNB. On 12 x 7 cm piece of paper, cut from the cover of a frank. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with slight smudging and a small patch of light discoloration at centre (away from signature). Set out in customary fashion, and addressed by the future king (with the year cropped): ‘London. December fourth [...] / Dr: Carmichael Smith / M. D. / Upper [?] / Near Staines / Middlesex’. Firm signature at bottom left, with slight smudging to loops of the initial ‘C’: ‘Clarence’. See Image.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In fair condition, on lightly aged and spotted paper. Folded for postage. The recipient is not named. Signed ?Bute and Dumfries.? ?I should with pleasure have renewed to you a general permission to shoot upon my lands in Galloway, but having this year restricted other gentlemen in the neighbourhood on account of the condition of my muirs, [sic] I feel myself under the necessity of confining my permission to you within those which [match?] immediately with Mr Adair?s.?

For information regarding Sir Leslie Stephen, consult Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1p, 12mo. In fair condition, though somewhat aged and worn, with strip of brown paper stub adhering to one edge. Folded for postage. Reads: ?Madam, / I am obliged by your offer of an article, but, though I agree with you that it has some merit, I regret that my engagements make it quite impossible for me to accept it. / Your truly / The Editor of the Cornhill? (?Cornhill? little more than a series of scratches). See Image.

See her entry, and that of her husband, in the Oxford DNB. Hers states: 'most memorably used her energies to found the National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India, often known as the Countess of Dufferin Fund, in 1885.' 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium on grey paper. Addressed to ?Dear Miss Faithful? and signed ?H. Dufferin & Ava?. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. She thanks her for her ?kind note? and will be grateful for any help she can ?ever give with regard to my Fund?.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium with thin mourning border. In poor condition, aged, worn and discoloured, with chipping and closed tears, but text clear and complete. The recipient (‘My dear Friend’) is not named. The letter’s valediction reads: ‘Your’s my dear Brother / most affy. / Hugh McNeile’. (Whether or not McNeile’s actual brother is unclear.) He explains that the bearer of the letter, ‘Monsr. Rossellot’, is ‘the Pastor of a Protestant Church in Orleans’, and that there is ‘at Orleans a female Orphan Asylum, on behalf of which he is going to England’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. The recipient (‘Dear Sir’) is not named, but is presumably Alexander Macmillan (see Oxford DNB), the publisher of the two books referred to in the letter, which he seems to have sent for review. The letter is signed ‘H Reeve’. Folded for postage. He begins by thanking him for sending copies of ‘Lady Duff Gordon’s Letters [from Egypt]’ and ‘Ecce Homo’ [‘a survey of the life and work of Jesus Christ’ by J. R. Seeley], which he has ‘already read with great interest’.

Mason was, according to E. V. Lucas, ‘famous in both hemispheres’. His entry in the Oxford DNB ends with this assessment: ‘His books were best-sellers for fifty years, and the films made from them, notably The Drum (1938), for which he wrote his own scenario, and The Four Feathers (1939), were among the most popular in their time.’ 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice for postage. The valediction is in Mason's autograph: 'Yours sincerely / A. E. W. Mason'.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. (BBTI has John Andrews with bookshop and circulating library at 167 New Bond Street from before 1831 to 1857.) 1p, 12mo. Addressed on reverse of second leaf for delivery by hand ('wait') to 'Mr Wauchope / at Mr Andrews' / 167. New Bond St.'. In good condition, lightly aged, with unobtrusive central spike hole (for business correspondence) through both leaves. Reads: 'Dear Sir / Be so good as send me the vouchers of the Scrivener for 1827 agreeably with your promise, is there particular occasion for them today'.

An excellent slice of Georgian London history. See his entry, and Hook’s, in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. Fifty-five lines of text. On bifolium. In fair condition, on discoloured and lightly-worn paper, with closed tear at foot of gutter. Also present is a typed transcript. The letter concerns a proposed three-day ‘excursion to the Medway’. Hook has engagements that will interefere, but Thompson undertakes to land him ‘safe at the Tower by seven o’clock on Saturday’.

See his joint entry with his father John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836) in the Oxford DNB. On slip of paper roughly 11 x 6.5 cm, cut from document. In good condition, lightly aged, and laid down on part of brown paper leaf from an autograph album. (Part of an autograph by ‘[...] Perry’ is on the reverse.) Good large disciplined autograph ‘James Mc Adam’ (with the initial ‘J’ closely cropped at the head and left-hand side), beneath which is written, in a contemporary hand ‘The Colossus of Roads’. See Image.

See Taylor’s entry, and that of Princess Sophia’s brother William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1776-1834), in the Oxford DNB. Bagshot Park was the residence of her brother the duke (Silly Billy’), to whom she was very much attached. The siblings were not entirely accepted by the Royal Family due to the unequal nature of their parents’ marriage. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Taylor, who is not named but is clearly the recipient, has marked the letter as ‘Private’. Good firm signature ‘Sophia Matilda’.

This forgotten case of identity fraud predates the celebrated Titchborne case by more than a decade.

In a letter to ‘John O’London’s’ in 1921, Fletcher boasted of having ‘written (and published) seventy-three novels, twelve volumes of collected short stories, and fifteen historical and topographical works, the last-named mostly of considerable length’. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Annotated by recipient with date of response. Addressed to ‘Mr D. Webster.’ and signed ‘J. S. Fletcher.’ He thanks him for ‘the two Chichester pamphlets duly to hand’, noting that one was ‘The Accompt Cleared’ by Roger L’Estrange.

1p, 12mo. On blue-grey paper with matching stamped, postmarked envelope with typed address to ‘Mr. James Butt / 23 Hartop Rd. / St. Marychurch / TORQUAY’. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Good large signature: ‘Isobel Baillie’. In response to his enquiry, she reports that she has ‘several good pupils who could make satisfactory Sacred Records’, but she would like him to hear them first.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and creased. Folded for postage. Addressed to ‘Dear Hyman’ and signed ‘C. B. Oldman.’ He begins by thanking him for his ‘kind congratulations’ (on his promotion to at the British Museum, following the retirement of Sir Henry Thomas): ‘I have been laid up with a bad cold over Christmas otherwise I should have written before’. Hyman’s latest catalogue interested him very much, and he hopes that ‘the fact that I don’t buy much nowadays will not deter you from sending me future issues.

See his entry, and that of his son, in the Oxford DNB. Hornby served as Superintendent of the Royal Naval Hospital and Victualling Yard at Plymouth between 1832 and 1838. This item is 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium with thin mourning border. Fifty lines, neatly and closely written. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with slight damage and a few closed tears around gutter. Folded for postage. Signed ‘Phipps Hornby’, and with recipient (‘My dear Sir’) unnamed. Pencil note giving note by recipient at head of first page, giving prices for butter and cheese ‘for the Year 1834’.

Sentiment Thanks for your good wishes | Sincerely yours | Oscar Slater | 23/4.27. Image (= portrait) appears to be a drawing extracted from a newspaper or periodical. Backing paper, 8 x 11.5, portrait and text (slightly overflowing) on laid down pink paper, c.9.5 x 6cm. SEE IMAGE. Note: a. Oscar Joseph Slater (8 January 1872 – 31 January 1948) was the victim of a notorious miscarriage of justice in Scotland.

3pp., folio. Bifolium. Addressed, on reverse of second leaf, 'To | Mrs. Squire, | Wragby, | near Lincoln.' In fair condition, aged and worn, with Middleton's seal cut away from the second leaf (without any loss to text) and a number of closed tears along creases. Seventy lines of neatly-written text. A letter filled with pious sentiment, beginning: 'Mr. Squire favored us To-day with a Call, and it gave us a peculiar Pleasure to see that he is so well recovered from that Fit of Illness in which my Brother & I saw him, notwithstanding the uncommonly severe Winter we have since had.

The eight letters total 10pp., 4to., of which 3pp. are typed and 7pp. in autograph. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. De Rome's reputation was enlarged towards the end of his life, with the British Film Institute mounting a thrusting retrospective season, with an accompanying DVD and a penetrating documentary by David McGillivray, 'Peter de Rome: The Grandfather of Gay Porn' (2007). For more information on Alderman, who acted in de Rome's films 'Scopo' (1966) and 'The Second Coming' (1970), and who had been J. R.