AUGUSTINE

[August Courtauld, Arctic explorer and yachtsman.] Autograph Signature from the end of a letter.

Author: 
August Courtauld [Augustine Courtauld] (1904-1959), British Arctic explorer and yachtsman, solo meteorologist of Icecap Station, Greenland
August Courtauld
Publication details: 
No place or date.
£65.00
August Courtauld

On 5 x 13.5 cm piece of paper, cut from the end of a letter and laid down on one side of part of a leaf from an album, the mount carrying a cropped cartoon on the other side. In good condition, lightly aged, with the mount a little ruckled. Simply reads: ‘Your sincerely / August Courtauld’. Captioned on mount: ‘August Courtauld - explorer’. The cartoon is intriguing.

[‘I think we must do something’: Augustine Birrell, author and Liberal Party politician.] Four Autograph Letters Signed and one Autograph Note Signed to A. G. L. Rogers, Secretary of Liberal Publication Department, regarding public relations plans.

Author: 
Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), author and Liberal Party politician, Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1907-1916 [A. G. L. Rogers, Secretary of the Liberal Publication Department]
Publication details: 
Letters undated: two on letterhead of The Pightle, Sheringham, Norfolk; one from The Pightle on cancelled letterhead of The Clyffe, Corton, Lowestoft; one on letterhead of 3 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn [London]. Note: 14 January 1894; from New Square.
£180.00

While his entry in the Oxford DNB notes that Birrell was a loyal supporter of Gladstone in the early part of his parliamentary career, it does not allude to his intimate involvement during that period in what would now be called the public relations of his party, as evidenced by this correspondence, which comes from the papers of Arthur George Liddon Rogers (1864-1944), son of the editor of the economist Thorold Rogers, and written while Rogers was Secretary of the Liberal Publication Department, a position to which he was appointed in November 1891.

[‘If it isn’t done there will be a Row’: Augustine Birrell, author and Liberal Party politician.] Autograph Letter Signed to A. G. L. Rogers, Secretary of the Liberal Publication Department, concerning a pamphlet which they must ‘concoct’ together.

Author: 
Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), author and Liberal Party politician, Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1907-1916 [A. G. L. Rogers, Secretary of the Liberal Publication Department]
Publication details: 
Without place or date (‘Saturday’), but 1891 or 1892.
£56.00

See Birrell’s entry in the Oxford DNB. From the papers of Arthur George Liddon Rogers (1864-1944), son of the editor of the economist Thorold Rogers, and written while Rogers was Secretary of the Liberal Publication Department, a position to which he was appointed in November 1891. 1p, foolscap 8vo on ruled paper. In good condition apart from two small burn holes. Folded once. Signed ‘A Birrell’. Twenty-four lines of text in a bold, forceful hand.

[ Augustine Birrell, author and politician. ] Autograph Letter Signed to Sir Frank T. Marzials, giving an assessment of the character of Victor Hugo on reading Marzials's biography.

Author: 
Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), author and Liberal Party politician, Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1907-1916 [ Sir Frank Thomas Marzials (1840-1912); Victor Hugo ]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of 3 New Square, Lincoln's Inn. 12 September [1888].
£45.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium on grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. He writes that Marzials is 'some days too late' with his 'kind offer', as both Birrell and his wife have read 'with great pleasure' Marzials's book on Victor Hugo. 'It was a difficult task. (I mean the Life, not the reading of it) I am no judge on such a subject – being a very stay at home sort of fellow, but anyhow you succeeded in pleasing me. What a sensible, <?>, shrewd sort of fellow he was in what way may be called ordinary things.

[ Thomas Arnold the Younger. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('T. Arnold') to Rev. R. Hutchinson, regarding the views of St Augustine on 'Perseverance and Predestination' and 'the good works of the heathen'.

Author: 
Thomas Arnold the Younger [ Tom Arnold ] (1823-1900), Professor at University College, Dublin, son of the headmaster of Rugby School and brother of the poet Matthew Arnold, literary scholar (Wikipedia
Publication details: 
Laleham, The Parks. 22 December 1872. [ Laleham on Thames, Middlesex (now Surrey). ]
£400.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. Arnold, whose conversion to Roman Catholicism hindered his academic dvancement in England, was grandfather of the writer Aldous Huxley, and taught James Joyce at Dublin. At the time of writing he was running a private tutoring establishment at Oxford. He begins the letter by explaining that it has hardly been possible to reply to Hutchinson 'during term time [...] I had so much work on my hands'. He is returning 'Canon Bright's letter', and has 'not had time to look at the treatises on Perseverance and Predestination'.

[ Augustine Brohan, French actress of the Comédie-Française. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('Augustine Brohan') to an unnamed recipient ('ma bien chère demoiselle')

Author: 
Augustine Brohan [ Joséphine-Félicité-Augustine Brohan ] (1824-1893), actress of the the Comédie-Française, mistress of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte [ Napoleon III ], with fashionable Paris salon
Publication details: 
Ville d'Avray. 31 April [ no year ].
£80.00

1p., 16mo. Eleven lines of text. On aged and worn paper, with central closed tears unobtrusively repaired with archival tape. A warm letter of thanks, with valediction 'Mille choses affectueuses à tous les vôtres'.

[Printed advertising pamphlet.] What some famous Men say about "The Century".

Author: 
[The Century Dictionary, The Century Company, New York] [Augustine Birrell; Leslie Stephen; Clement Shorter; Sir Walter Besant; Edward Dowden; Dean Farrar; Sir Michael Hicks Beach; W. E. H. Lecky]
Publication details: 
Place and date not stated. [The Century Company, New York, circa 1901.]
£80.00

Printed on the rectos only of 27 16mo (17 x 10.5 cm) leaves, attached to one another by a metal stud in the top left-hand corner. On aged and creased high-acidity paper, with the first three leaves detached. Each leaf carries a transcript of a letter of endorsement from a different individual or group, each with a facsimile signature. The writers are 'The Editor and Proprietors of the "Sheffield Telegraph"'; Sir Michael Hicks Beach, MP; W. E. H. Lecky, MP; Lord Goschen; Viscount Wolseley; Dean Farrar; Sir James Crichton Browne; Sir J.

Autograph Letter Signed from Augustine Birrell to the journalist and publicist Sydney Walton, mocking him in entertaining terms for suggesting that he would be well-received as a lecturer to 300 boys.

Author: 
Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), Liberal politician and essayist [Sydney Walton (1882-1964), journalist and publicist]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of 70 Elm Park Road, Chelsea, SW. 2 September 1917.
£90.00

2pp., 4to. Good, on lightly-aged paper. A very funny letter, written in the style that became known as 'birrelling'. He begins: 'Dear Sir. | I admire the enthusiasm which from the depths of an Office bearing the historically-ominous title of "Ministry of Food", & lodged in a once ducal mansion, can dictate (in type) so spirited a letter as your's [sic] of the 27th. ult. I wish I could believe in your vision of Three hundred Boys shouting Come - to an (almost) Septuagenarian Lecturer. It is of course all nonsense.

Syndicate content