MERCURY

[The Sherborne Mercury, or Weekly Advertiser, Dorset's first newspaper, a printed periodical predating The Times.] Number for ?Tuesday, April 29, 1740.?

Author: 
The Sherborne Mercury, or Weekly Advertiser, proprietor William Bettinson (d.1746), Dorset's first newspaper
Publication details: 
?Tuesday, April 29, 1740.? (Vol. IV, No. 167.) ?Printed at SHERBORNE, by WILLIAM BETTINSON, from LONDON.? [Dorset.]
£180.00

An important provincial publication, predating The Times by half a century. See the Oxford DNB entry of the later proprietor Robert Goadby, and the article by Roger Guttridge, ?Dorset?s first newspaper?, in ?Dorset Life?, August 2019. 4pp, folio. On two leaves, which originally formed a bifolium, but have now become detached from one another. Aged and worn, with chipping to extremities and along central horizontal and vertical folds, resulting in occasional loss of text.

[Sir Edward Baines, editor of the Leeds Mercury and Liberal MP.] Autograph Letter Signed to James Silk Buckingham, regarding whether the latter’s son might lecture in Yorkshire, and Buckingham’s ‘immense service’ to ‘the Total Abstinence cause’.

Author: 
Sir Edward Baines (1800-1890), editor of Leeds Mercury, Liberal Member of Parliament, nonconformist, abolitionist [James Silk Buckingham (1786-1855); his son Leicester Silk Buckingham (1825-1867)]
Publication details: 
15 March 1853; Leeds.
£65.00

An interesting letter linking two similar individuals (like Baines, Buckingham had also served as a Yorkshire Member of Parliament, in his case for Sheffield as a radical between and 1835; and both men were newspaper proprietors). See the entries for Baines, with those for Buckingham and his son, in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and folded for postage. Addressed to ‘J. S. Buckingham, Esq’ and signed ‘Edw Baines’. He begins by saying that he will try and promote Buckingham’s ‘son’s introduction to this part of the country, as a Lecturer’. (According to L.

[ Fleet Street in the Thirties: Sir Robert Donald of United Newspapers and Ernest Outhwaite, editor of Leeds Mercury, Viscount Rothermere, Lord Harmsworth, Ernest Benn. ] TLsS from Donald and Outhwaite; copies of Rothermere and Benn letters.

Author: 
Sir Robert Donald (1860-1933), editor, Daily Chronicle, and Managing Director, United Newspapers; Ernest Outhwaite, editor, Leeds Mercury [ Viscount Rothermere; Lord Harmsworth; Ernest J. Benn ]
Publication details: 
Donald: on letterhead of 12 Thorney Court, Palace Gate, W.8. [ London ] 24 March 1932. Outhwaite: on letterhead of La Dragonniere, Cap Martin, A.M. 8 April 1930. Rothermere copies from 1929 and 1930. Benn copy from 1932.
£150.00

Six items from the Rothermere papers, on disparate subjects, casting light on the workings of 1930s Fleet Street. In good condition, lightly aged. The six are described below in chronological order. ONE: Typed Copy of letter, '(sgd) ROTHERMERE', to Donald. Hotel Splendide, 105 Piccadilly, W.1. 12 November 1929. 1p., 4to. The letter begins: 'My dear Donald, | I quite understand all the peculiar difficulties with which you are surrounded in connection with the Anglo-Foreign Newspapers Ltd.

[ 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.

[William Scott Cameron, editor of the Leeds Mercury.] Autograph Letter Signed ('W S Cameron') to George Bell, giving his reasons for decling his 'verses'.

Author: 
William Scott Cameron (c.1843-1914), editor of the Leeds Mercury [George Bell]
Publication details: 
On letterhead to the 'Weekly Supplement to The Leeds Mercury, Leeds'. 10 April 1891.
£45.00

1p., 12mo. On aged and worn paper. Cameron writes: 'Dear Sir, | I regret that the enclosed verses would occupy too much room for our space, but I return them with our thanks to you for bringing them under our notice'. The recipient is not the London publisher, who died in 1890.

[Printed pamphlet.] Fourth Report of the Managing Committee, and of Proceedings at the General Half-Yearly Meeting Of General Council and Friends, held at the Guildhall, Plymouth, 5th December 1871.

Author: 
[Plymouth Mendicity Society, 5, Frankfort Street, Plymouth; Western Daily Mercury; Devon]
Publication details: 
'Reprinted from the Western Daily Mercury, 6th December 1871.' Plymouth: Western Daily Mercury Offices, Frankfort Street.
£120.00

10pp., 12mo. Stitched and unbound. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. In small type. Scarce: no copy traced. (The Bodleian holds seven of the Society's reports, from the sixteenth (1884) to the twenty-second (1892), but none so early as this one.)

Long Typed List [by Rolfe Arnold Scott-James?], with numerous emendations and additions in manuscript, headed 'List of Reviewers [in the London Mercury] since October, 1934.'

Author: 
[Rolfe Arnold Scott-James (1878-1959), editor of The London Mercury from 1934, succeeding Sir J. C. Squire [Sir John Collings Squire] (1884-1958]
Publication details: 
Without place or date. [London, 1938 or 1939?]
£250.00

2pp., 4to. In fair condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. The first page consists of a typescript in two columns, with names scored through and a few added in pencil. The second page has a few typewritten names, together with dozens added in pencil, clearly at different times. From 1919 the London Mercury's original editor J. C. Squire promoted the traditional verse of the Georgian Poets and their prose counterparts; on taking over in October 1934 Scott-James embraced the more fashionable modernist writing, and that change is reflected in the present list.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Allen Brockington') from Cecil Sharp's collaborator the Rev. Alfred Allen Brockington to a Roman Catholic priest at St Andrew's, inclosing a holograph of a 'carol for Easter'.

Author: 
Rev. Alfred Allen Brockington (1872-1938) of West Kirby, Cheshire, poet and collaborator with Cecil Sharp in the collection of folk-songs
Publication details: 
On letterhead of The Haven, West Kirby, Cheshire. 'St Paul [29 June] 1938'.
£120.00

4pp., 12mo. In very good condition, on lightly-aged paper. The letter is addressed to 'My dear Father'. He begins by thanking him for his letter: 'I can picture the long-nailed Neb. sitting down to answer your request for an autograph. Strange, that you should have been hearing of Vaughan Williams just at that time!' He reports that he has been 'doing many poems for The British Weekly. The Editor saw something of mine & asked me to send whatever I liked. And his nonconformist readers do not seem to jib.

Autograph Note Signed "B/L/ Farjeon", novelist, to A. Williams of the "Liverpool Mercury".

Author: 
B.L. Farjeon, novelist
Publication details: 
12 Buckingham St, Strand, London, 12 Feb. 1879.
£35.00

One page, 12mo, good condition, saying that illness and the consequences of an accident have prevented him responding courteously to the "notice of my Xmas story in Liverpool Mercury".

Corrected Autograph Manuscript of the final draft of an article entitled 'London's Broadest Highway' (which appeared in the Strand Magazine, 1931).

Author: 
R. A. Scott-James [Rolfe Arnold Scott-James] (1878-1959), journalist, editor of the 'London Mercury', and friend of Wyndham Lewis [River Thames; Strand Magazine]
Publication details: 
[In envelope postmarked 5 September 1930.]
£180.00

In an envelope with label and compliments slip of Hilda Neal, Copying Offices and Secretarial Training School, by whom the article had been typed up for the printers. On one side each of thirty-two A4 leaves (dimensions roughly 25 x 20 cm). The text is complete, although there are wormholes to the latter leaves, and damage and loss at the head of the last leaf.

Autograph Note Signed to [Captain Rolfe Arnold] Scott-James.

Author: 
Georges Lafourcade
Publication details: 
15 May 1937; on letterhead of the Universite de Grenoble.
£35.00

French authority on English literature, and in particular on the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. The recipient (1878-1959) was editor of the 'London Mercury' at the time of writing. One page, quarto. In poor condition, with fraying and closed tears to edges. 'I herewith return revised proofs of my French Novelists. | May I remind you that I should be glad to have some galley proofs if it can be easily arranged?' Signed 'Georges Lafourcade'.

Syndicate content