POCKET

[The first English travelling chess set, invented by Peter Mark Roget; TWO from Family archive] The Roget family copies of ‘The Economic Chess-Board, Being a Chess-Board provided with a complete set of Chess-Men,’

Author: 
[The first English travelling chess set.] P. M. Roget, M.D. [Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), doctor, scientist, inventor and lexicographer, compiler of the celebrated ‘Thesaurus’]
Chess
Publication details: 
Invented by P. M. Roget, M.D. And Registered according to Act of Parliament, November 10th 1845.
£1,500.00
Chess

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, and the biography by Joshua Kendall, ‘The Man Who Made Lists’ (2008). Roget’s travelling chess set was first marketed in April 1846 by De La Rue. Roget had parted company with the firm by October of the same year, moving to Longmans, while De La Rue continued to market their own rival version. Rarely found complete and undamaged.

Autograph Letter Signed ""Coblence" to John Bellows, Printer and publisher (of a pocket French Dictionary), Gloucester.

Author: 
Victor Coblence
Publication details: 
Paris, 19 Rue des Missions, le 11 Juin 1877. En francais.
£195.00

Printer ("electrotype"). Four pages, 8vo, a few letters masked by a strip of brown paper on the last page, mainly good condition. A stamp (timbre) is stuck top left of page 1, with the image of an electrotype machine surrounded by the name "Victor Coblence" and the word "electrotypie". The contents of the letter indicate a close business relationship and contain many technical (printing) terms. In the first paragraph he discusses Sutton & Co and "la caisse renfermant la forme [a?] la cliche".

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