BLACKWELL

[ Printed booklet. ] The Idea of a British Book Trade Association. An Address given to The Society of Bookmen by Basil Blackwell.

Author: 
Basil Blackwell [ Sir Basil Blackwell (1889-1984), Oxford bookseller and publisher ] [ The Society of Bookmen, London ]
Publication details: 
The Society of Bookmen, 3 Henrietta Street, London, W.C.2. June 1937. [ Unwin Brothers Limited, London and Woking, Printers. ]
£35.00

12pp., 8vo. Stapled into light-brown printed wraps, with title in dark-brown on white label on front wrap. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. Blackwell's address is on pp.3-10; p.11 carries a 'List of Members 30th June 1937', in two columns, including R. Cobden-Sanderson, Geoffrey Faber, Rupert Hart-Davis, Harold Macmillan, Stanley Unwin and Sir Hugh Walpole. The final page carries details of the Society's officers, committee, secretary and offices. Blackwell begins his address: 'I have nothing new or strange to propose to-night.

[ Charterhouse; book ] Carthusian Worthies.

Author: 
J. L. Smith-Dampier [ Shakespeare Head Press, Oxford; Charterhouse ]
Publication details: 
Oxford: Printed at the Shakespeare Head Press, St Aldates, and Sold by Basil Blackwell, Broad Street. 1940.
£200.00

xxiv + 366pp., 8vo. In rough red cloth with lettering in blue. A good copy, lightly aged and worn, in a chipped and worn dustwrapper with closed tears mended with archival tape. Tastefully printed in the firm's robust style. The blurb on the front of the dustwrapper states: 'The aim of the author, himself an Old Carthusian, is to introduce or recall some of the famous men who have successively peopled the Charterhouse, whether as monastery, mansion or school.

[ H.M. Patent Office, London. ] Manuscript document containing 'Searches' into the 'Novelty' and 'Validity' of around 150 patent applications, with diagrams and index.

Author: 
H.M. Patent Office, London (now the Intellectual Property Office) [ Sir Henry Bessemer; Sir John Coode; Gusttav Overbeck; Crosse & Blackwell; Wedgwood; Bryant & May ]
Publication details: 
H.M. Patent Office, 25 Southampton Buildings, London, WC. 13 March 1878 to 19 December 1882.
£450.00

The Patent Office - now the Intellectual Property Office - was established by the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, which simplified the procedure for obtaining patents of invention and reduced costs. In 1883 another Act of Parliament brought into being the office of Comptroller General of Patents, with, according to the National Archives, 'a staff of patent examiners to carry out a limited form of examination; mainly to ensure that the specification described the invention properly, but without any investigation into novelty'.

Typed Letter Signed ('Basil Blackwell') to Secker.

Author: 
Sir Basil Blackwell (1889-1984), Oxford bookseller [Martin Secker (1882-1978), publisher]
Publication details: 
17 December 1969, on illustrated Blackwell's letterhead.
£35.00

4to: 1 p. Ten lines of text. Heavily stained, but a neat link between two giants of the twentieth-century British book trade. 'I give myself the pleasure of saluting you, I really believe for the first time'. He is happy for the opportunity of telling Secker how much he admired his 'flair and enterprise in earlier years'. He hopes he 'may write as firmly and with as lively a mind as you in six years' time'. 'Alas that we must disappoint you': the books Secker has requested are all out of print. 'Just possibly one or more may come into our hands secondhand.

Typed Note Signed to J. G. Wilson of Messrs Bumpus of Oxford Street.

Author: 
[BOOKSELLING] Sir Basil Blackwell
Publication details: 
10 April 1930; on personalised letterhead of Basil Blackwell & Mott Ltd, 49 Broad Street, Oxford.
£45.00

Notable Oxford bookseller (1889-1984). 1 page, 16mo. In good condition though dusty. He thanks Wilson for sending 'The Yellow Dwarf', 'which shall be duly submitted to the editor of 'The Merry-Go-Round'. Thank you for thinking of it.' Signed 'B Blackwell'.

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