BESANT

[ Sir Walter Besant, novellist and historian. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('W. Besant.'), headed 'Mem. for Mr Henry Gray' (genealogical bookseller), ordering five books from his catalogue.

Author: 
Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), novellist and historian largely responsible for the creation of the People's Palace in East London [ Henry Gray of Acton, genealogical bookseller ]
Publication details: 
12 Gayton Crescent, Hampstead. No date.
£45.00

1p., 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged. Begins: 'Mem. for Mr Henry Gray | I have received your Catalogue dated April 25th. | Will you send me, if still in hand, […]'. A list of five works follows, the last four French, including Sarah Scott's Utopian "Millenium Hall", following which Besant writes: 'for wh. I will remit by return post – on receipt.'

[ Printed pamphlet. ] New Life of Jacob.

Author: 
C. Bradlaugh [ Charles Bradlaugh; Annie Besant ]
Publication details: 
[ London. ] Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, 63, Fleet Street, E.C. 1885.
£35.00

8pp., 12mo. Disbound without wraps. Drophead title only. In good condition, on aged paper. Originally published in 1861 under the pseudonym 'Iconoclast'.

[ Printed pamphlet. ] The Natural History of the Christian Devil.

Author: 
Annie Besant [ Charles Bradlaugh ]
Publication details: 
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, 63, Fleet St., London. - 1885.
£35.00

8pp., 12mo. Disbound without wraps. Drophead title only. In good condition, on aged paper.

[ Pamphlet. ] Theosophy and the Law of Population.

Author: 
Annie Besant [ Theosophical Publishing Society, London ]
Publication details: 
'Reprinted from Lucifer, July, 1891.' London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C. The Path, 132, Nassau Street, New York, U.S.A. Theosophical Headquarters, Adyar, Madras, India. Undated [ circa 1891 ].
£80.00

11 + [1]pp., 12mo. Disbound without covers. In good condition, on aged paper. On reverse of title: 'London: Women's Printing Society, Limited, 21b, Great College Street, West[m]inster.' Scarce.

[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.

[Harry Duncan O'Neill, Secretary of the Clerical, Medical and General Life Assurance Society.] Autograph Letter Signed ('H. D. O'Neill') to 'Hay', with copy of his privately printed 'Clerical Verses. 1889-1910. By H. D. O'N.', containing 28 inserts.

Author: 
'H. D. O'N.' [Harry Duncan O'Neill (1867-1946), Secretary of the Clerical, Medical and General Life Assurance Society] [Arthur Digby Besant (1869-1960)]
Publication details: 
Book: [London?] Printer not stated. [Circa 1911.] Letter: on letterhead of 15 St James's Square, Pall Mall, SW [London]; 9 February 1912.
£320.00

For more about O'Neill (son of the Victorian artist George Bernard O'Neill) see his obituary in The Times, 15 June 1946. LETTER: 4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper.

[The Atlantic Union.] Three documents relating to this club founded by Sir Walter Besant, Conan Doyle and others: Typed Letter Signed from Hon. Sec. T. D. Hawkin to Mrs J. L. Nissen; 'amplified' offprint of article from The African World; circular.

Author: 
[The Atlantic Union, club founded in 1900 by Sir Walter Besant; Thomas Driffield Hawkin; John Leigh Nissen, partner in London printers Nissen & Arnold and Past Master of the Leathersellers' Company]
Publication details: 
Hawkin's letter: on Atlantic Union letterhead, 13a Cockspur Street, Trafalgar Square, London; 10 December 1907; offprint 'Amplified from The African World, April 4, 1908'; circular from The Atlantic Union, undated.
£450.00

The Oxford DNB entry on Sir Walter Besant states that, 'Concerned to cultivate better understanding with North America, Besant worked in the last two years of his life for the Atlantic Union.' In fact it was Besant who founded the club in 1900, with Conan Doyle and others, with the object, according to The Times, 22 February 1900, 'of drawing together the various English-speaking peoples and strengthening the bonds of union by the formation of ties of personal friendship among individual members'.

Typed Letter Signed ('Walter Besant') to Mrs [Alice] Westlake.

Author: 
Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), novelist and historian of London [Alice Westlake (nee Hare); Adam and Charles Black, publishers; The Survey of London; Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; Frognal]
Publication details: 
13 February 1897; on Adam and Charles Black 'Survey of London' letterhead.
£45.00

12mo, 2 pp. Seventeen lines of text. On lightly aged and creased paper. Attractive arts and crafts letterhead. Sending his 'mosts profound sympathy in the danger which threatens Chelsea'. He will sign 'the paper [...] with the greatest of pleasure', although he anticipates 'very little good as a possible result'. Suggests a time at which the paper can be sent to him.

Handbill, advertising 'Messrs. Raphael Tuck & Sons' next Amateurs' "Literary" and "Painting" Prize Competition, (A Special Section being reserved for Children of varying ages), in May 1895.', judged by 'Walter Besant and Marcus Stone, R.A.'

Author: 
Raphael Tuck & Sons, Fine Art Publishers, London [Walter Besant; Marcus Stone]
Publication details: 
London: Messrs. Raphael Tuck & Sons, Fine Art Publishers, 72/73 Coleman Street, City. [1895]
£100.00

On one side of a piece of paper roughly 24 x 14.5 cm. With card backing. Good, though lightly aged. Headed by the Royal warrant, the top-half of the handbill features, in a variety of types and point sizes, the announcement of Tuck and Sons' intention to award 'Upwards of 4,000 prizes, of the value of 3,000 guineas, and a number of judges' diplomas', with Besant and Stone as judges. The lower part has two columns featuring fifteen testimonials, by newspapers ranging from 'Windsor and Eton Gazette' to the 'Sheffield Telegraph'.

Autograph Notes relating to the London district of Fulham.

Author: 
Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), English novelist and historian of London
Publication details: 
Undated; on three letterheads of 'Frognall End, Hampstead, N.W.' [London].
£100.00

The notes, on three 12mo bifoliums, cover three pages, with a few lines on a couple of others. In excess of eighty lines. Very good. Brief chronology and list of notable residents, presumably an outline for the description of the district in Besant's 'London' (1892) or another of his many writings on the city.

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.

Letter <in secretarial hand?>, signed in autograph, to 'Mr <Dubarry?>.

Author: 
Sir Walter Besant
Publication details: 
27 April 1889; on letterhead '12, GAYTON CRESCENT, | HAMPSTEAD'.
£36.00

English novelist (1836-1901). Two pages, octavo. Some discoloration in margin from previous mounting. His silence is due to the fact that he has been 'out of town for Easter'. He is grateful to his correspondent for thinking of him 'in connection with the Garrick. But I am afraid I must not consider it. You see by the address that I live out of the way of clubs - This is for the sake of certain small children <?> to be considered'. He is already a member of three clubs: the Athenaeum, the Old University and the Savile ('wh: I do frequent').

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