INVASION

[Napoleonic Wars: the arming of six British merchant ships, c.1807.] Manuscript ‘Account of Sundry Stores received from the Pilot Boates [sic]’, ‘Respecting Arming Pilot Boates / Account of Stores’.

Author: 
Napoleonic Wars: the arming of six British merchant ships, c.1807 [Brittania, Stephen Brown; Sloop Neptune, John Hurry; Syren, William Jackson; Fox, Thomas Lundie; Rover, Robert Jackson]
Publication details: 
Entries dated between May 1805 and June 1809. On paper watermarked ‘J WHATMAN / 1807’.
£280.00

None of the boats and captains named in the present item are present in contemporary Navy Lists, so they would appear to be merchant ships. 2pp, foolscap 8vo. Aged and worn, with slight loss along edges and faded to a small portion of text. Folded four times into a packet, named (on the reverse): ‘Respecting Arming Pilot Boates / Account of Stores’. The whole of the recto is filled with text, divided into six rectangles in two columns of three rectangles each, under the heading ‘Account of Sundry Stores received from the Pilot Boates’.

[Winston Churchill; leaflet] Beating the Invader. A Message from the Prime Minister

Author: 
Winston Churchill
Churchill
Churchill2
Publication details: 
May 1941
£220.00
Churchill
Churchill2

Two-sided leaflet, edges have been in the Wars, fold marks (quartering), with 2 small holes with no loss of text. See image of recto. See descriptions by my colleagues on abebooks for comment on its status as a first edition, scarcity, etc. WITH: Another two-page leaflet, but 8vo, City of Liverpool | INVASION EXERCISES | Advice to the Public [...] W.H. Baines. Good condition. See image of verso.

[A. W. Kinglake [Alexander William Kinglake], historian and travel writer.] Autograph Letter Signed stating his opposition to ‘the Bill which threatens to make Charities liable to local assessment’.

Author: 
A. W. Kinglake [Alexander William Kinglake] (1809-1891), historian and travel writer whose great achievement was the eight-volume ‘Invasion of the Crimea’
Publication details: 
25 March [no year, but presumably during his period in Parliament, from 1857 to 1869]; 12 St James’s Place [London]. 3pp, 12mo.
£45.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 25 March [no year]; 12 St James’s Place [London]. 3pp, 12mo. On a bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged, with thin strip cut from top of first leaf (not affecting text). Signed ‘A W Kinglake’. The recipient is not named. Presumably writing during his period as Member of Parliament for Bridgewater, between 1857 and 1869, he begins ‘My dear Sir / I shall make a pint of being present at the discussion of the Bill which threatens to make Charities liable to local assessment’.

[George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle, Whig statesman, and planned French invasion of England.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Morpeth'), applying [to member of government] for financial aid, in case his Troop of Yeomanry are 'called for to act'.

Author: 
George Howard (1773-1848), 6th Earl of Carlisle [styled Viscount Morpeth until 1825], Whig statesman, Lord Privy Seal [Henry Belasyse (1742-1802), 2nd Earl Fauconberg, Tory politician]
Publication details: 
27 April 1798. Clarges Street [London].
£56.00

1p, 4to. Aged and worn, with thin strip of mount adhering to one edge, and slight damage to one corner. The unnamed recipient is a member of William Pitt the Younger's Tory Ministry, and the letter is written at a time when the administration was preparing for a French invasion, the first French Army of England having gathered on the Channel coast.

[Battle of Normandy, 1944.] 'Secret' British Army pamphlet titled 'OPERATION “OVERLORD” - 1944 | Report by AQMG (Ops) EASTERN COMMAND', describing 'the part played by Eastern Command in the preparations for and launching of the operation'.

Author: 
[Operation Overlord (Battle of Normandy), 1944] 'AQMG (Ops) EASTERN COMMAND' [i.e. Lieut.-Col. Colin Thornton-Kernsley (1903-1977)]
Publication details: 
[Operation Overlord, Eastern Command, 1944] On final page: 'D 53664-1 175 D/d E.C.2144 11/44 70'. '11/44' signifies the date of the pamphlet, November 1944, and '70' the number of copies printed.
£600.00

Sir Colin Thornton-Kernsley is identified as author from the first of the pamphlet's seven appendices ('Eastern Command | List of officers principally concerned with plans for the mounting of Overlord'), where he is described as: 'Chairman: AQMG(Ops) Lt. Col. C. N. Thornton Kernsley MP-RA'.

[ Charly Wesmael, Belgian Second World War cycling frontier guard. ] Printed memoirs, in French, titled 'Ma Camionnette et Moi | Souvenirs de Guerre d'un Garde Frontière 1940'.

Author: 
'Charly Wesmael, 1er Regiment - 1er Bataillon - 6me Compagnie' [ Belgian Second World War bicycling frontier guard ('un humble garde-frontière') from the 'régiments de cyclistes frontières' ]
Publication details: 
Undated (1940s or 1950s?) 'Brochure crée et editée par des Anciens Combattants'. [ Printer's details on wraps: 'G. THONON. HERSTAL'. ]
£220.00

Duplicated Typescript of 25pp., 4to, on rectos of 25 leaves. In conventionally-printed wraps by 'G. THONON. HERSTAL', bearing the title and author's name. With bookmark ribbon striped with the colours of the Belgian flag bound-in at the back. In fair condition, on aged paper, in worn wraps. Dedicated on first page carries the dedication 'AU ROI LÉOPOLD | Digne fils du Roi Chevalier | un humble garde-frontière | dédie ses souvenirs | SEPTEMBRE 1940'.

[ Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968. ] Duplicated typed document issued by 'Kilburn VSC', titled 'Czechoslovakia - A Marxist Analysis'.

Author: 
Kilburn Vietnam Solidarity Campaign [ VSC ] [ Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968; Aubrey Walter? ]
Publication details: 
At foot: 'published by Kilburn VSC, 329a West End Lane, London NW6' [ 1968 ].
£50.00

1p., folio. Printed in red. Sixty lines of text. In fair conditon, lightly aged and worn. The first paragraph reads: 'The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia has provoked the expected emotional outburst from the reformist Left, tailing as usual behind the hypocritical phrases of the British ruling class, who weep over "poor Czechoslovakia" while actively supporting the 100-times-worse suffering inflicted by the US on the Vietnamese.

[ British Army field exercises of First World War German invasion. ] 'Field Message Book' of Captain E. A. Grubbe, used in training reservists at Newhaven Fort, with maps. With ALS from Grubbe to his brother, telling of captured 'Prussian guards'.

Author: 
Edmund Alexander Grubbe (b.1857), Captain in the 88th Connaught Rangers [ 8th (Reserve) Battalion, City of London Rifles; Post Office Rifles ]
Publication details: 
FIELD MESSAGE BOOK: 'Army Book 153', Waterlow & Sons Ltd, London. With stamp of '8th. (Reserve) Batt., City of London Rifles'. Newhaven Fort, East Sussex: December 1914 to June 1915. LETTER: from London and Paris Hotel, Newhaven; 2 December 1914.
£450.00

FIELD MESSAGE BOOK: Landscape 8vo notebook with 43pp of manuscript, in a number of different hands (one of them apparently Grubbe's), including seven full-page maps, with two further pages of carbon copies, preceded by 3pp. of printed text titled 'Field Message Book / (For the use of Dismounted Regimental Officers and Non-commissioned Officers of Cavalry and Mounted Infantry.)' In pencil and ink on graph paper pages. In detachable brown cloth cover, with explanatory label ('Cover for Army Book 153').

Autograph Letter Signed ('A W Kinglake.') from the historian and travel writer Alexander William Kinglake [A. W. Kinglake] to an unnamed recipient.

Author: 
Alexander William Kinglake (1809-1891), historian and travel writer, author of 'Eothen' and 'The Invasion of the Crimea', Liberal Member of Parliament for Bridgwater.
Publication details: 
On House of Commons letterhead. 16 March 1864.
£35.00

1p., 12mo. 8 lines. On aged paper with a small hole (not affecting text) and pin marks. He thanks him for his 'kind thought' in sending 'the Danish Images', adding: 'I assure you the present was a very welcome one to me.'

An archive illustrating English coastal defence against French invasion, 1794 to 1796

Author: 
[The Coast Committee of Northumberland; Napoleonic Wars]
The Coast Committee of Northumberland, 1794-6. Archive
Publication details: 
1794-6
£450.00
The Coast Committee of Northumberland, 1794-6. Archive

121 signed bills and receipts from the accounts of the Trustees of the Northumberland Coast Committee (also described as 'Trustees for Guarding the Coast', 'The Honourable Coast Committee Alnwick', 'The Honnble. Coasting Committe [sic]'). Very little is to be discovered about this organisation, with no contemporary references in The Times.

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