READER

[Ralph Reader, Broadway and West End theatrical impressario.] Typed Letter Signed to theatre historian W. J. Macqueen-Pope, thanking him for writing about ‘the new Award’ [perhaps the Novello?] and giving his news.

Author: 
Ralph Reader (1903-1982), Broadway and West End theatrical impressario associated with Scouting movement Gang Show and FA Cup Final community singing [Walter James Macqueen-Pope (1888-1960)]
Publication details: 
26 June 1957; on his letterhead, 14b Fitzjohn’s Avenue, NW3 [London].
£42.00

From the Macqueen-Pope papers. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition. Signed ‘Ralph’ and addressed to ‘Dear Popie’. It was ‘extremely good’, ‘and typical too’, of MP to write to him ‘about the new Award’. He is ‘at Newcastle now with the Val Parnell Summer Show and we ring up on Monday’. MP will know ‘what we shall be going through at the moment!’ He ends by thanking him ‘VERY [sic] much for writing’.

[German Romanticism reaches England.] Count Benyowsky, or the Conspiracy of Kamtschatka, a Tragi-Comedy, in Five Acts, [by A. von Kotzebue] Translated from the German by Rev. W. Render, Teacher of the German Language in the University of Cambridge.

Author: 
[August von Kotzebue (1761-1819)] Rev. W. Render, Teacher of the German Language at the University of Cambridge
Publication details: 
Cambridge: Printed for the Authour, [sic] and sold by J. Deighton, and J. Nicholson; also by W. H. Lunn, no. 332, Oxford Street, and T. Conder, Bucklersbury, London. 1798.
£600.00

[3] + 210pp, 8vo. Disbound, and wrapped in brown paper. A tight copy, on aged and spotted paper, with small closed tear to title-leaf, which also has manuscript misidentification of the author as 'J Kotz[...]' in one margin. There is no copy of this first edition at Cambridge University Library, and the only two copies found on COPAC at Leeds and the British Library. The same year saw a 'Second edition, with an elegant frontispiece', published in London and 'printed for W. J. and J. Richardson; J. Harding; Shepperson and Reynolds; H. D.

['Stuart Cumberland' [Charles Garner] (1857-1922), Victorian 'Mentalist' or 'Muscle Reader'.] Twelve Autograph Letters Signed ('Laura') from his wife to her father and sister, written during tours from Egypt, India, Spain and Australia.

Author: 
Laura Nina Webb (née Cumberland) (fl. 1885 and 1947), wife of 'Stuart Cumberland' [Charles Garner] (1857-1922), Victorian 'Mentalist' or 'Muscle Reader' (i.e. mind reader)
Publication details: 
Trieste, Egypt (Cairo), India (Calcutta, Bombay, Agra), Australia (Sydney) and Spain (Madrid). 1885, 1886 and 1887.
£500.00

Of the twelve letters, nine are to her sister Ellen Alice Webb ('Nell'), two are to her father the Oxford gunmaker George Webb (d.1892, of 85 High Street, and later 36 Iffley Rd), and one is to both father and sister. They total 57pp, in a variety of paper shapes and sizes (10pp., 32mo; 20pp., 16mo; 23pp., 12mo; 4pp., 4to). In good condition, on aged and worn paper. One letter lacking the final section, including signature. As Barry H.

[Dr Helen Holme Bancroft, Oxford agricultural botanist.] Three Autograph Letters Signed to 'Dr. Francis', regarding 'the difficulties of archaeological research at Southend' and palaeobotany.

Author: 
Dr Helen Holme Bancroft ['Nellie Bancroft'] (b.1887), Reader in Agricultural Botany, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Publication details: 
Two from the School of Rural Economy, University of Oxford (one on letterhead), and one from 5 St Edward's Passage, Cambridge. All dating from 1930.
£90.00

All three items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Letter One: School of Rural Economy, Oxford. 18 August 1930. 2pp., 4to. She sympathises with 'the difficulties of archaeological research at Southend [...] for I know only too well how the people who hold the ultimate strings can "do one down" when their interests don't happen to coincide with one's own'. She recalls that in 1913 she 'put in a lot of time on some fossils for the B.M. - they turned out to be pieces of fossilised timber; & because the Keeper of the Palaeobotanical Dept.

Collection of correspondence, membership cards and other ephemera tracking Carey's career as Newspaper Reader.

Author: 
[Sunday Graphic/Times] L.G. Carey, Newspaper Reader
Publication details: 
1939-1988
£250.00

All items freshly mounted in a photo album, very good condition. The core of the collection is a full series of membership cards for the Association of Correctors of the Press (1949-1965), London Typographical Society (1966), National Graphical Association (1967-1988). With their variant typographical features.design and colour, these make an attractive display.

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