HERTFORDSHIRE

[Humphrey Joel, commercial photographer (Humphrey and Vera Joel).] Autograph Letter Signed to theatre historian W. Macqueen-Pope, threatening, since his last three letters have been ignored, to make new prints of photographs he is withholding.

Author: 
Humphrey Joel (fl. 1914), commercial photographer,‘Special Photographer to Fry's Magazine’ [Humphrey and Vera Joel, Photographers; Walter James Macqueen-Pope, theatre historian]
Publication details: 
7 December 1951; on letterhead of ‘Humphrey and Vera Joel / Photographers / Dryden Cottage, Radlett / Hertfordshire’.
£90.00

From the Macqueen-Pope papers. (See his entry in the Oxford DNB.) For several decades Humphrey Joel was a leading British commercial photographer, providing the London magazines with scenic and architectural views. In 1914 he was described as the ‘Special Photographer to Fry's Magazine’. 2pp, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased. The letterhead incorporates a reproduction of a drawing of Dryden Cottage. Signed ‘Humphrey Joel’.

[Sir Hubert von Herkomer, painter, film director and composer.] Autograph Note Signed (‘Hubert Herkomer’), asking for details of ‘your Ramblers’ before a visit from them.

Author: 
Sir Hubert von Herkomer [originally Hubert Herkomer] (1849-1914) German-born British painter, pioneering film director and composer
Publication details: 
28 February 1891; on letterhead of Dyreham, Bushy, Herts.
£45.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In fair condition, but a little brittle and discoloured (unobtrusive repair to one corner with archival tape). The recipient is not named. Reads: ‘Dear Sirs / I shall be pleased to see your Ramblers June the 6th. Let me know details of them & numbers a week before. / Yours truly / Hubert Herkomer’.

Autograph Manuscripts of two translations by John Curling: Count Rostopchine's 'The Truth upon The Great Conflagration of Moscow 1813' and 'Observation on the Campaign in the Netherlands', with printed version of latter.

Author: 
John Curling ['J*** C******'] (1784-1863), JP, of Offley Holes and Gosmore, Herts [Count Fedor Wassiljavitch Rostopchine, Governor of Moscow; Napoleon Bonaparte; Retreat from Moscow, 1812]
Publication details: 
Manuscript translation from Rostopchine dated 'Hitchin 1856', second manuscript translation undated. First pamphlet printed in Hitchin by C. Paternoster, Sun Street; 1858. Second pamphlet (by 'J*** C******') by C. & T. L. Paternoster; undated.
£850.00

The two translations, in the same original red leather notebook, totalling 226pp., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper, in worn binding. The first translation in the volume is a fair copy, without corrections, of a work published in French in 1823 as 'La V?rit? sur l'Incendie de Moscou; par le Comte Rostopchine' (Paris: Ponthieu). Neither Curling's nor any other English translation appears to have been published. The second translation (the printed version of which is the first of the two pamphlets) is heavily corrected, with seven pages of additions loosely inserted.

[Lucy Kemp-Welch, painter noted for her depiction of military horses in the Great War.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Lucy Kemp-Welch'), accepting an invitation from 'Cousin Florence'.

Author: 
Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869-1958), painter noted for her depiction of horses, especially during the First World War
Publication details: 
24 December 1902. On letterhead of Kingsley, Bushey, Hertfordshire.
£50.00

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Having found among her correspondence an unanswered letter from her cousin she apologises for the apparent rudeness, before accepting her 'kind invitation to luncheon when next we are in your neighbourhood'. She hopes that they 'may be in the Forest some time in the summer'. She ends by stating that she is enclosing an autograph for her cousin's friend.

[Lucy Kemp-Welch, painter noted for her depiction of military horses in the Great War.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Lucy Kemp-Welch'), accepting an invitation from 'Cousin Florence'.

Author: 
Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869-1958), painter noted for her depiction of horses, especially during the First World War
Publication details: 
24 December 1902. On letterhead of Kingsley, Bushey, Hertfordshire.
£50.00

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Having found among her correspondence an unanswered letter from her cousin she apologises for the apparent rudeness, before accepting her 'kind invitation to luncheon when next we are in your neighbourhood'. She hopes that they 'may be in the Forest some time in the summer'. She ends by stating that she is enclosing an autograph for her cousin's friend.

[Rafael Sabatini, Anglo-Italian popular novelist.] Autograph Letter Signed to 'Miss Greenwood', regarding a 'flagrant' cause for complaint, and the removal of his name from the 'author credits' of a film with an 'unutterable scenario'..

Author: 
Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950), Anglo-Italian author of romance and adventure novels
Publication details: 
On his letterhead, Clock Mill, Clifford, Hertfordshire. 23 July 1949.
£80.00

1p, 12mo. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Folded once. Signed 'Rafael Sabatini'. After thanking her for her letter of sympathy, he notes: 'In the past I have had plenty of cause for complaint, but nothing quite so flagrant.' He has been 'avenged by the Press, which described the unutterable scenario from which the film was made in terms similar to those which I employed when I requested that my name be removed from the “author credits”'. He ends with good wishes to her 'laudable enterprise'.

[E. V. Lucas, author, editor and poet.] Holograph (signed 'E. V. L.') of apparently-unpublished poem titled 'Herefordshire'.

Author: 
E. V. Lucas [Edward Verrall Lucas] (1868-1938), author, editor and poet, Chairman of Methuen & Co, London publishers
Publication details: 
Without place or date.
£100.00

1p., 8vo. Signed at bottom right: 'E. V. L.' Sixteen lines of verse, divided into two eight-line stanzas, beginning: 'As I went down to Hertfordshire | To visit Hatfield Oak, | I met the prettiest girl, to whom | Courageously I spoke.' The conceit of the poem is that the girl is the 'Queen of Hearts', and the author is trumped in his suit of her by the king, the last two lines reading: 'The King strode in, the Queen to win, | And I – I lacked the Ace.' Charles Lamb, whom Lucas greatly admired and whose works he edited, had particular links with the county of Hertfordshire.

[ Stephen Austin, Hertford printer, proprietor of the Hertfordshire Mercury. ] Autograph Letter Signed to Alexander Ramsay, offering to help promote 'The Scientific Roll', although Hertford is 'not a Literary or Scientific locality!'

Author: 
Stephen Austin (1804-1892), Hertford stationer and printer, proprietor of the Hertfordshire Mercury [ Alexander Ramsay, editor of 'The Scientific Roll' ]
Publication details: 
On his Hertford letterhead. 10 November 1881.
£35.00

1p., 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The letter begins: 'It would afford me very great pleasure to help you in the matter of "The Scientific Roll" This is not a Literary or Scientific locality! and we have given up our Booksellers' Shop'. If Ramsay will send 'a copy of the numbers printed', he will 'give a notice in the "Hertfordshire Mercury" and perhaps that will make it known and induce people to take it.' The Austin family continued to run the Hertfordshire Mercury until the 1980s.

[ John Edwin Cussans, antiquary. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('J. E. Cussans') to Edward Walford, regarding his 'new Magazine' [ the Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer ] and the sending of a New Year's card.

Author: 
John Edwin Cussans (1837-1899), English antiquary and historian of Hertfordshire [ Edward Walford (1823-1907), magazine editor ]
Publication details: 
On embossed letterhead of 4 Wyndham Crescent, Junction Road [ London ]. 28 December 1881.
£120.00

See both men's entries in the Oxford DNB. 2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The present letter was written as Walford – having resigned the editorship of the Antiquary in acrimonious circumstances – was preparing to launch the Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer (renamed Walford's Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographical Review in 1885). It would cease publication in 1886. In the letter, after thanking Walford for his 'very kindly review', Cussans writes: 'If the first number of your new Magazine be a fair specimen of those to follow, its success is certain.

[ Reginald L. Hine, author and attorney. ] 10 Signed Letters (7 in Autograph; 3 Typed) to Franziska Hyde, regarding his writing and hers, with four letters to her from his wife following his suicide, and copies of Hyde's letters to him.

Author: 
Reginald L. Hine [ Reginald Leslie Hine ] (1883-1949), author and attorney, local historian of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, author of 'Confessions of an Uncommon Attorney' [ Franziska Hyde ]
Publication details: 
Eight on his letterhead, Willian Bury, Letchworth, Herts. 1948 and 1949. Her letters from 7 Byron Place, The Triangle, Clifton, Bristol.
£950.00

The collection of 35 items in good condition, lightly aged and worn. A good-natured playful correspondence on both sides, with both parties delighting in literary byways (Hine signs one letter 'Yours in the love of learning'). ONE: 10 Signed Letters (7 in Autograph; 3 Typed) to Franziska Hyde, and one unsigned Autograph Letter Signed, regarding his writing and hers, with four letters to her from his wife following his suicide, and copies of her letters. Between 5 October 1948 and 20 February 1949.

[ Spencer Cowper, judge and Member of Parliament. ] Autograph Signature ('Spencer Cowper') to Exchequer receipt.

Author: 
Spencer Cowper (1670-1728), judge and Member of Parliament, tried for the murder of Sarah Stout in 1699
Publication details: 
[ Receipt of His Majesty's Exchequer, London. ] 6 May 1715.
£125.00

1p., on 15 x 17.5cm. Aged and worn, with loss to edges, and laid down on part of a leaf removed from an album. The usual printed text, completed in manuscript, recording a payment of £25. Note: An account of the 1699 Sarah Stout murder trial, at which Cowper 'called expert medical testimony, including the famous physicians Samuel Garth and Hans Sloane, together with the anatomist William Cowper (not related)' is given in his entry in the Oxford DNB.

[ Bernard Alfred Southgate, Director of the Water Pollution Research Laboratory. ] Three Typed Letters Signed (both 'B A Southgate') to J. Samson of the Royal Society of Arts, regarding a lecture on 'Prevention of Water Pollution'.

Author: 
Bernard Alfred Southgate (1904-1975), Director of the Water Pollution Research Laboratory, Stevenage [ Department of Industrial and Scientific Research; Royal Society of Arts ]
Publication details: 
All three on letterheads of the Water Pollution Research Laboratory (Department of Scientific and Industrial Research), Stevenage, Hertfordshire. 16 July and 9 and 23 August 1963.
£45.00

Five items: Southgate's three letters and carbons of two of Samson's replies (17 July and 10 August 1963). The five are all in good condition, on lightly aged paper. Southgate's first letter (16 July 1963; 1p., 12mo) accepts Samson 'invitation to give a paper', and discusses the question of the title: 'We are concerned here with the prevention of pollution and the study of its effects in surface waters and my paper would deal mainly with that side of the question rather than with the treatment of water as carried out by a water undertaking.

[ Eighteenth-century Letchworth in Hertfordshire. ] Signed Manuscript 'Mem[orandu]m': 'Aggreem[en]t. for Lease of Letchworth' between Richard Price (on behalf of Richard Warburton Lytton of Knebworth House) and Henry Eve of Barnish Roothing, Essex.

Author: 
[ Letchworth in Hertfordshire; Richard Warburton Lytton (1745-1810) of Knebworth House, grandfather of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), Lord Lytton; Henry Eve; Joseph Males; Richard Price ]
Publication details: 
[ Letchworth, Hertfordshire. ] 10 August 1780.
£80.00

3pp., 4to. Bifolium. 47 lines of text, with emendations. In fair condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. Begins (spelling and capitalization uncorrected): 'Memm. | August 10 1780 It is this Day hearby agreed betwen Richd. Price of knebworth in hartfordshire on the behalf of Richard warburton Lytton Esqr. and Henry Eve of Barnish Roothing in Essex on his Own behalf as fallows vizt.

Series of ten printed handbills by Mrs. Humphry Ward, on behalf of the Unionist Party in the General Election of 1910, under the title 'The Coming Election | Letters to My Neighbours | by | Mrs. Humphry Ward'.

Author: 
Mrs. Humphry Ward [ Mary A. Ward (1851-1920), novelist ] [ Jerome K. Jerome ]
Publication details: 
Addressed from 'Stocks, Aldbury, Tring.', and dating from between 10 and 17 January 1910. Published by Smith, Elder, & Co, London, and printed by Spottiswoode & Co. Ltd, London.
£220.00

A total of 41pp., 4to. Complete run of ten issues (a second edition, expanded to 63pp., appeared in the same year). In black cloth binding, with manuscript note on front pastedown: 'George H M Ricketts - | Lent to Mr Blackman with a hope that he will read it & circulate it amongst his friends.' Eight of the ten numbers are of 4pp.; one (no.4) is of 6pp; and another (no.10) of 3pp. Uniform in design and all printed in blue ink.

[ Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Liberal politician. ] Commencement of Autograph Letter to Lady Monteagle, expressing his distress and that of his wife [ over a death in her family ].

Author: 
[ Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1806-1863), Liberal politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer. ] [ Marianne, Lady Monteagle, wife of Thomas Spring Rice (1790-1866), 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon ]
Publication details: 
Grove Mill, Watford, Hertfordshire. No date.
£60.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium with mourning border. Ends abruptly at the end of the fourth page, and without signature. For the period an unusually frank expression of distress, apparently over the death of his wife's elder daughter He thanks her for calling on him with books - 'when you so kindly came to that House though I had intended so very much to see you I felt all my courage fail - & that I s[houl]d. only distress you & do myself harm if I saw you'.

[ Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, Viceroy of India. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('Lytton') to 'Mr Lee' (his agent?) regarding a cricket match at Knebworth, and lightning conductors to 'the 8 turrets' there.

Author: 
Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1831-1891), 1st Earl of Lytton, Viceroy of India and poet
Publication details: 
Without place or date. On his monogrammed letterhead.
£56.00

2pp., 12mo. On leaf with mourning border. He thanks him for his letters, and expresses disappointment that he 'could not come to the Cricket Match', which was 'not finished, but decided in favour of Knebworth according to the score of the first Innings'. He asks him to obtain 'estimates for lightening [sic] conductors to each of the 8 turrets at Knebworth'. He fears that 'these copper domes are themselves lightening conductors which are now cut offf from all communcation with the earth'.

[ Edward Lytton, Lord Lytton. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('L.') to 'Mr. Pearson', offering him a present.

Author: 
Edward Lytton, Lord Lytton [ Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton ] (1803-1873), 1st Baron Lytton, English novelist and politician, friend of Charles Dickens
Publication details: 
Without place or date. On his monogrammed letterhead.
£56.00

1p., 12mo. In good condition, lightly-aged. He writes that he has had 'a very fine p' sent to him, and asks if Pearson might accept it. 'If you dont care about it yourself you may have friends here to whom you might like to give it. Only, unluckily, I must have back the top'. He ends with a complaint regarding a 'Bronchial cough'.

[The Almshouse Charity Estate and the Fifteen Houses Charity Estate, Baldock, Hertfordshire.] Itemised manuscript double-entry account books for the trustees of the two charities, covering thirty years, with entries signed off for the commissioners

Author: 
[The Trustees of the Almshouse Charity Estate and of the Fifteen Houses Charity Estate, both in Baldock, Hertfordshire]
Publication details: 
[Baldock, Hertfordshire.] Almshouse Charity Estate: entries between 10 October 1865 and 5 July 1895. Fifteen Houses Charity Estate: 10 November 1862 and 23 September 1894. Both books signed off on 29 June 1896.
£450.00

The two volumes in matching green cloth quarter-bindings, with marbled covers (one set green and the other brown). Both affected by damp at the head, and in worn bindings, but in acceptable overall condition, with text entirely legible. Two interesting and informative documents of local and social history. ONE (Almshouses Charity): 64pp., tall 8vo. In manuscript on cover: 'ALMSHOUSES CHARITY ACCOUNTS'. Among the signatories are two Rectors of Baldock, W. J. Skilton and John D. Nairne, and T. Rigby Kewley, Thomas G. Simpson and Frederick Archdale.

[Frank Curzon, The Yorkshire Union of Mechanics Institutes.] Autograph Letter, with a caricature of himself acting as the signature, to John Warren of Royston, thanking him in playful and punning style for arranging a rail trip.

Author: 
Frank Curzon (1819-1907), poet of Exeter, Devon [The Yorkshire Union of Mechanics Institutes; John Warren, Royston, Hertfordshire]
Publication details: 
The Yorkshire Union of Mechanics Institutes, Victoria Chambers, Leeds. 9 November 1878.
£80.00

1p., 12mo. In good condition, on lightly aged and creased paper. Consisting of a series of appalling puns, the letter reads: 'Dear Sir | Thanks for the Time Table it was a "rail" service and for your offer of a meal which will suit me to a "T" and for your selection of a bed, as I prefer Bedford to Bedlam, and for your instructions to change my train. It is easier to miss a train than to train a miss. | I feel now that I shall get to Royston with only the Hitchen that is necessary, and I am itching to get there when I feel that I am Warren-ted safe. | I remain My dear Sir | Yours truly'.

Manuscript Accounts Day Book of Perks & Llewellyn, Dispensing & Family Chemist, High Street, Hitchin [interior now housed in Hitchin Museum], giving names and addresses of purchasers, with products and prices.

Author: 
Perks & Llewellyn, Dispensing & Family Chemist, High Street, Hitchin [interior now in Hitchin Museum]
Publication details: 
17 September 1904 to 22 November 1905.
£350.00

366pp., narrow folio (16 x 40 cm). 43 lines to the page. In original vellum binding, with covers ruled in blue. On front cover printed label of 'PERKS & LLEWELLYN, | Dispensing & Family Chemist, | HIGH STREET, HITCHIN.' Marbled edges and endpapers. First leaf with 5 cm closed tear. Written out in black ink, in two or three different hands, with the granting of credit recorded in red. Containing a mass of information about local history, product and price. Early entries are stamped with date, later entries have date written out.

[Printed booklet, with photographic illustrations.] The Mount Pleasant Artists' Rest Home. Rickmansworth. Hertfordshire. Founded 1929.

Author: 
[The Mount Pleasant Artists' Rest Home, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, founded in 1929 by the artist Francis William Reckitt (1860-1932), 'as a Convalescent Rest Home for [...] male artists'
Publication details: 
[The Mount Pleasant Artists' Rest Home, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.] Undated. [Circa 1929.]
£100.00

15pp., landscape 12mo. With four additional pages of photographic plates ('Exterior facing south', 'The lounge', 'The dining room', 'A bedroom'). Stitched into grey printed wraps. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. The booklet includes a list of trustees and other officers, a descriptive text, the 'Regulations relating to the home', 'Form of application' (with two pages of 'rules', including 'CASES NOT ADMITTED') and 'Medical Report'. The descriptive text begins: 'The Home has been built and generously endowed by Mr. F. W.

[Sir Charles Holroyd, English engraver, first Keeper of the Tate Gallery.] Autograph Letter Signed to 'Mr Kitton' [the author Frederic George Kitton], accepting the congratulations of the Hertfordshire Arts Society on his knighthood.

Author: 
Sir Charles Holroyd (1861-1917), English engraver, first Keeper of the Tate Gallery, and Director of the National Gallery [Frederic Geoge Kitton (1856-1904), author; Hertfordshire Arts Society]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the National Gallery, London. 11 November 1913.
£120.00

1p., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper. 'Allow me to thank you and through you the members of the Hertfordshire Arts Society for your kind congratulations upon the honour the King confers upon me and upon the Gallery in the work of which I am privileged to assist'.

[Rev. Frederic Smith, Registrar, East India College.] Printed form, filled in and signed by him, giving 'Mr. Balfour's Account' with the College.

Author: 
Rev. Frederic Smith, Registrar, East India College [now Haileybury College, Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire]
Publication details: 
East India College [Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire]. 17 December 1840.
£60.00

1p., 8vo. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, but with damage to one margin (not affecting text) caused by the tearing of the item out of a book. The account is itemised into: Apothecary; Bookseller and Stationer; Hair Cutter; Porter, for Letters, &c; Purveyor; Shoemaker; Tailor, with four categories added in Smith's hand: Fencing; Wine; Advances; Jackson (Packing Cases). Balfour's account comes to £60 19s 1d. Beneath the account are fourteen lines of printed notifications, concluding: 'N.B. The Registrar's Address, during the ensuing College Vacation, may be had of Mr.

15 items relating to Lieut. A.H. Ross's service in the Second World War as Platoon Commander in the Hertfordshire Battalion of the Home Guard, including Platoon photographs, Special Army Orders, service certificate, letter from Lt-Col. H. K. O'Kelly.

Author: 
Alexander Howard Ross (1880-1965), Commissioner, Southern Province of Sierra Leone, 1920-1928, Platoon Commander, Hertfordshire Battalion, Home Guard, 1940-1944 [Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Kane O'Kelly]
Publication details: 
Items from the War Office, London, and Hertfordshire. From 1940 to 1944.
£750.00

The fifteen items in fair condition, lightly aged and worn, laid down or pinned to leaves removed from an album. Items One to Three: three black and white landscape photographs, each around 15 x 20 cm. The first photograph, captioned 'November 1940', shows Ross standing in a field, in front of a platoon in two columns, shouldering rifles with bayonets. The second photograph, captioned '7. C. Coy of Batt., Herts Home Guard 1943', shows twenty-six officers, in three rows, in front of the entrance to a municipal building. The front row, seated, consists of seven senior officers with batons.

Album of 49 photographs by the Victorian photographer William Claridge of Berkhamstead, with the ownership inscription of his granddaughter Sybil Maude Hubert, and including character studies of individuals, and an unknown view of the City of London

Author: 
William Claridge (1797-1876) of Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, Victorian photographer; his granddaughter Sybil Maude Hubert [married name Churchill] (1872-1944)
Publication details: 
[Berkhamstead] The photographs dating from c. 1855 to 1876. Sybil M. Hubert's ownership inscription dated 1883.
£850.00

49 photographic prints, laid down on 48pp. of a small (16.5 x 13 cm) contemporary 4to album, quarter-bound with brown leather spine and brown cloth boards, with yellow endpapers. No captions: the only manuscript in the volume being the ownership inscription of 'Sybil M. Hubert | 1883' on the front free endpaper. A fragile survival: aged and discoloured, with occasional staining from damp, which also caused some of the photographs to stick to one another, with slight damage occurring on their being detached; binding also in poor condition, with boards detached and leaves loose.

Manuscript Accounts Day Book of Perks & Llewellyn, Dispensing & Family Chemist, High Street, Hitchin [interior now housed in Hitchin Museum], giving names and addresses of purchasers, with products and prices.

Author: 
Perks & Llewellyn, Dispensing & Family Chemist, High Street, Hitchin [interior now in Hitchin Museum]
Publication details: 
17 September 1904 to 22 November 1905.
£280.00

366pp., narrow folio (16 x 40 cm). 43 lines to the page. In original vellum binding, with covers ruled in blue. On front cover printed label of 'PERKS & LLEWELLYN, | Dispensing & Family Chemist, | HIGH STREET, HITCHIN.' Marbled edges and endpapers. First leaf with 5 cm closed tear. Written out in black ink, in two or three different hands, with the granting of credit recorded in red. Containing a mass of information about local history, product and price. Early entries are stamped with date, later entries have date written out.

Autograph Letter Signed from the West Indian merchant Justinian Casamajor, of Potterells, Hertfordshire, to 'Mrs. Curling', describing the judgement of the Court of Chancery in Antigua regarding the estates of the late Mathew Christian.

Author: 
Justinian Casamajor [Justinian Casamayor; Casamayorga] of Potterells Grove, Hertfordshire, West Indian merchant [Mathew Christian [Matthew Christian] (d.1778) of Antigua; sugar plantations; slavery]
Publication details: 
St Helens Place, London; 19 January 1809.
£130.00

3pp., 4to. Bifolium. 56 lines. Good, on aged paper. Addressed on reverse of second leaf to 'Mrs. Curling'. Casamajor is taking 'the earliest opportunity' to inform Mrs Curling 'by the last Packet', that he has 'received an Acc[oun]t. from my agent in Antigua, that the Court of Chancery in that Island had disallowed all Charges of Interest on the Arrears of the Annuities on the late Mathew Christians Estates amounting to £2567.2.5 also the Trustees Commission of £50 a year for 16 years, to this our Counsel'.

Two Autograph Letters Signed ('Charles Gibson' and 'Charles E. Gibson') by Gibson, as Lieutenant and Adjutant of the 49th, written to his 'Aunt Kate' from Sebastopol during the Crimean War, including a description of horse races during the armistice.

Author: 
Captain Charles Edgar Gibson, of the 49th Regiment of Foot [Crimean War; Sebastopol]
Publication details: 
Letter One: 'Camp Sebastopol. January 24th. 1856.' Letter Two: 'Camp 49 Regt Sebastopol. March 31st.'
£350.00

Letter One: 12mo, 4 pp. Bifolium. 75 lines of text. Clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Expresses regret at 'Morten Edens melancholy death, so young & so clever as he was'. 'There is great talk of Peace. We hardly know if to believe it - few will be sorry should the news prove to be true, as I think most of us have had enough fighting. Apparently refers to his sweetheart under a cypher. She has not written to him, but 'London gaieties have little time for correspondence'. 'The weather here is something awful - cold & wet, fogs & sleet.

Lithographed document entitled 'Estimate For the Erection of Proposed New Isolation Hospital at Leavesden Asylum, near Watford, Herts, for the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District.'

Author: 
Captain C. E. Dance, R.E.R., Surveyor to the Board [Metropolitan Asylums Board; Leavesden Asylum]
Publication details: 
September 1902. Rich & Co. Electrographers & Lithographers, 12 Furnival St. E.C.
£100.00

Unbound and stapled. Sixty-four pages. Dimensions of leaf roughly thirteen inches by eight wide. Lithographed facsimile handwriting throughout. Aged and with some wear to extremities, but text clear and entire. 'Clerk of Writ Copy' in red ink manuscript at head of first page. An interesting and informative document, compiled on behalf of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, giving in detail the specifications for builders tendering for the contract for the erection of the new hospital.

Autograph Letter Signed to Pryor's mother.

Author: 
John Hopkinson (1844-1919), English geologist [Alfred Reginald Pryor (1839-1881); Royal Geological Society]
Publication details: 
5 March 1888; St Albans, Hertfordshire.
£56.00

12mo: 3 pp. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Concerns Pryor's posthumous 'Flora of Hertfordshire' (1887), which contained an introduction co-written by Hopkinson. Four copies of the book are being presented to Mrs Pryor 'by our Society'. 'This is partly the cause of the delay in sending them to you, for we had to wait for authority from the Council of the Society, to present them.' The rest of the letter concerns the large paper edition of the book, a copy of which Hopkinson offers to procure for Mrs Pryor 'at the subscription price'.

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