THOMAS

Autographs and Manuscripts. Catalogue of a Selection of Important Historical, Literary and other Autographs, being the Third Portion of a Collection for Sale.

Author: 
Holloway & Son (M. M. Holloway) [autographs; sale catalogues; Thomas Jefferson]
Publication details: 
London: Holloway & Son, 25 Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. 1864. [G. Norman, Printer, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden.]
£60.00

Octavo: 53 pp. Stitched and unbound. Complete in itself, in alphabetical order, but lotted 554 to 846. Good, though grubby, and with the outer leaves somewhat creased. Includes letters and documents by Burns, Charles I and II, Maria Edgeworth, Frederick the Great, Garrick, Lady Hamilton, Handel, Dr Johnson, Southey, Wordsworth. The high spot is a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Earl of Buchan, described over one page.

Catalogue of the Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1792-1862), Consisting principally of Letters from Percy and Mary Shelley. Sold by Order of his Great-Nephew Major R. J. Jefferson Hogg, M.C. of Norton-on-Tees, Co. Durham.

Author: 
Thomas Jefferson Hogg [Sotheby & Co.; Percy Bysshe Shelley; autograph letters; auction catalogue]
Publication details: 
London: Messrs. Sotheby & Co., 34 and 35 New Bond Street, W.1.; 30 June 1948. [Printed by Kitchen & Barratt, Ltd., Park Royal Road, N.W.10.]
£80.00

Octavo: 21 pp. Leaf of prices and buyers' names loosely inserted. Stapled. In original yellow printed wraps. Somewhat creased and chipped, on aged, spotted paper. Two-page foreword. Maggs were the main buyers, but the three highest sellers among the 105 lots, all Shelley letters, went to other dealers: lot 13, 'quoting 36 lines of original verse', for £155 to Pickering; lot 55, 'describing the origins and method of his elopement with Mary Godwin', £175 to Quaritch; lot 65, 'dealing with many topics', £360 to W. H. Robinson.

Autograph Note Signed ('Wemyss Reid') [to Rev. E. J. F. Davies].

Author: 
Sir Thomas Wemyss Reid (1842-1905), British novelist and biographer
Publication details: 
8 July 1902; Falcon Hotel, Bude, Cornwall.
£30.00

One page, 12mo. On blue paper discoloured from glue by previous mounting. Seven-line printed biographical cutting in top right-hand corner. 'I am very happy to comply with your request [for an autograph].'

Autograph Letter Signed to the autograph collector Thomas Thompson of Church Street, Liverpool.

Author: 
John Russell Smith (1810-94), English bookseller [Dawson Turner]
Publication details: 
13 June 1840; 'No. 4. Old Compton Street, Soho, London'.
£200.00

Two pages, quarto. Very good. With traces of blue paper mount adhering to addressed verso of second leaf of bifolium. Dawson Turner having declined to buy a collection on the grounds that it is 'wholly out of his line of collecting', Russell now offers it to Thompson. They are 'not so interesting' as he anticipated when he 'bought them at an auction without looking at them till they were on the table'. Gives details of the purchase and describes the volumes, estimating their cost in binding.

Autograph Note Signed ('Herbert Trench', twice) to unnamed female correspondent.

Author: 
Frederic Herbert Trench (1865-1923), Irish poet
Publication details: 
Undated; on letterhead of the United University Club, Pall Mall East, S.W. [London].
£40.00

Octavo, one page. Good, with stains from paperclip at head. Large bold signature on top half of leaf, and body of note, with signature on bottom half. 'I have pleasure in sending my signature. Yes I am the author of "Deirdre Wedded" & "New Poems" (including Apollo & the Seaman) which Methuen published.'

Autograph Letter Signed to autograph collector 'Miss <Lull?>'.

Author: 
General Sir Francis Thomas Lloyd (1838-1912), British soldier
Publication details: 
9 October 1907; on letterhead of The Lawn, Walmer.
£40.00

Two pages, 12mo. Very good, on lightly creased paper. He is sending five autographs to add to her collection and is 'sorry not to have those of distinguished men of later dates but I am quite out of the service now'. Wonders if she knows his 'very dear friend General Nicholson who is living now at St. Andrews. He and his wife are among our dearest friends.' He 'saw the Godfreys last week - both well.'

Autograph Letter Signed ('Tho. Roffen.') to Thomas Adams of Alnwick, Northumberland; with the Bishop of Rochester's episcopal seal, in red wax.

Author: 
Thomas Dampier (c.1749-1812), Bishop of Ely and book collector [Bishop of Rochester from 1802 to 1808]
Publication details: 
Harley Street, Septr. 14. 1802.'
£150.00

4to: 1 p. Very good on the first leaf of a bifolium. A third quarto leaf carries the address, in Dampier's hand, with his franking signature 'free | T. Rochester.' Also the oval seal, c.3 cm high, a clear impression in red wax. 24 lines of text. Interesting letter. Dampier begins by thanking Adams for 'your Congratulations to me on my Promotion to the See of Rochester.

Autograph ('A Helps') on order for copies of his 'Life of Las Casas' (1868).

Author: 
Sir Arthur Helps (1813-1875), English civil servant and author
Publication details: 
Undated (but post 1868); on Privy Council Office letterhead.
£25.00

12mo: 1 p. Good, with four fold lines. Helps held the post of Clerk of the Privy Council from 1860 until his death. In large letters beneath the oval blue Privy Council crest reads 'Life of | Las Casas | 2 copies for | [signature] A Helps'. The handwriting is bold and the signature is underlined with a flourish.

Famous Literary Impostures, A Series of Essays.

Author: 
H. R. Montgomery [Henry Riddell Montgomery, 1818-1904] [Thomas Chatterton; James Macpherson; George Psalmanazar; Richard Bentley]
Publication details: 
London: E. W. Allen, 4, Ave Maria Lane, Paternoster Row. [1884]
£56.00

12mo: iv + 132 pp. Unbound. In original red printed wraps. Stapled. A poor copy of a scarce item (COPAC only lists copies at the British Library and National Library of Scotland). Dog-eared and grubby, with wraps faded and with loss to extremities and spine repaired with tape. Staples rusted and worn through prelims. Text complete and entirely legible. Five essays: 'Chatterton and the Rowley Poems', 'Macpherson's Poems of Ossian', 'The Shakspeare Forgery', 'Psalmanazar and the Formosa Imposture' and 'Bentley and the Epistles of Phalaris'.

Autograph Signature ('Thos Webster') on fragment of letter 'To the President & Council of the Royal Academy'.

Author: 
Thomas Webster (1800-1886), English artist
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£18.00

Paper dimensions 5 x 11 cm. Good. The foot of the last page of a letter with a mourning border. Reads '<...> consideration. | I am, Gentn. | Your obedt. St. | [signed] Thos Webster | To the President | & Council of the Royal Academy'.

Autograph Letter in the third person to the London printseller James Caulfield (1764-1826).

Author: 
Thomas Coutts (1735-1822), London banker of Scottish extraction [Coutts & Co.]
Publication details: 
23 January 1817; Strand.
£38.00

12mo: 1 p. Somewjhhat grubby, but with text clear and entire. Caulfield 'has been misled in supposing Mr Coutts is inclined to collect Hogarth's or any other pictures as he has hardly ever had any taste or inclination for that Line.'

Three sketches, two in pencil and one in charcoal.

Author: 
Henry Wyatt (1794-1840), English artist, pupil of Sir Thomas Lawrence
Publication details: 
One of the pencil sketches on reverse of envelope addressed to Wyatt, and postmarked 1833.
£285.00

ITEM ONE: pencil sketch (roughly three inches square) of pensive woman in full dress seated on chair beside table with vase. Good. On reverse of part of envelope addressed to 'H. Wyatt Esqre. | Newman Street | Oxford Street' and postmarked in red ink oval '2 . A NOON . 2 | MY 4 | 1833'. Another postmark in black ink, and wafer still adhering. ITEM TWO: pencil sketch (roughly one inch by one and a half) of trees around long wall with spire in distance. On visiting card of 'Mr. Henry Wyatt' (the sketch over the word 'Wyatt').

Fear. Reprinted from the "Manchester Quarterly," April 1914.

Author: 
L. Conrad Hartley
Publication details: 
London: Sherratt and Hughes. Manchester: 34 Cross Street.
£28.00

8vo: 8 pp. Stapled and unbound. In original grey printed wraps with rusted staples. Grubby and dogeared. Signed ('L. Conrad Hartley') presentation inscription dated 31 May 1915. No copy of the offprint of this short story on COPAC.

Types, Mints, and Mintmasters of the rare Coinage of the Normans and House of Blois. A.D. 1066 to 1154.

Author: 
Oliver Ratcliff [Coins and medals; Numismatics]
Publication details: 
Olney: Printed and published by Oliver Ratcliff. 1897.
£100.00

Octavo: [vi] + 24 pp. Stapled and unbound. Detached from original blue and pink printed wraps (advertising W. S. Lincoln & Son, coin and medal dealers of New Oxford Street, London). Several illustrations and tables. Good, though lightly aged, and with some wear and creasing to the wraps, which are blue on the outside and pink internally. Several other items by Ratcliff are recorded, but this item is rare, with no copy listed on COPAC.

Autograph Letter Signed to 'Miss Moseley'.

Author: 
Sir Henry Taylor
Publication details: 
7 January 1878; The Roost, Bournemouth.
£108.00

English poet, essayist and civil servant (1800-86), author of 'Philip van Artevelde' (1834). Four pages, 12mo. Very good, on somewhat grubby paper. He is glad that his correspondent's aunt 'is getting so well thro' the seventies of this winter & the changes, which are perhaps more trying than a constancy of coldness. Indeed what were in my time the established notions about the evil effects of cold weather seem to be subverted, & not without reason.

Receipted Invoice Signed "S. Hodgson", Account of "Mr Charnley" (BBTI, William Charnley) bookseller, stationer, publisher, bookbinder, librarian/owner of circulating library

Author: 
[NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE] S[olomon] Hodgson, Printer, bookseller, stationer, print seller, newspaper proprietor (BBTI 1785-1800), also publisher of Bewick.
Publication details: 
Newcastle, no date.
£350.00

One page, 4to, somewhat grubby and worn at the edge, but text clear and complete. Account total £7.16.11 paid in cash. Twenty two items listed with prices, multiple copies from "6 Hist of All Nations" to 200 Maclaurin's Spelling", subjects including educational (as above) and children's ("Mother Goose", "Mothers Chits Chats Tales"). Other items include "Traders Guide", "Robinson Crusoe", "London Cries", "Lottery Books", "Tom Thumbs Play Bills".

Autograph Note Signed ('Tho. Graham') to 'Mr. Schultze | Poland Street', printer.

Author: 
Thomas Graham (1805-1869), Scottish chemist and Master of the Mint
Publication details: 
4 Gordon Square [London]; 9 June 1851.
£56.00

One page, octavo. Carefully laid down on neatly-docketed larger piece of paper, but with the glue employed badly aged and causing staining. Closed tear across letter caused by removal from spike. Signature clear and unmarked. Reads 'Dear Sir, | I believe it will be better to set up the enclosed proofs, in sheets in the usual manner. The remainder of the Report will be sent immediately.'

Autograph Letter Signed to the poet, journalist and editor Alaric A[lexander]. Watts (1797-1864).

Author: 
Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839), English poet and song writer.
Publication details: 
Friday [no date]; 5 Wyndham Place, London.
£56.00

Two pages, quarto. Very good, on lightly aged and creased paper. He is sorry that he has not been able to 'become personally acquainted with' Watts since coming to town, but will 'very soon make another attempt', hoping to find him at home.

Stead's Wonders of Science Series. The Story of Flying Machines. The Conquest of the Air. With eleven specially selected illustrations.

Author: 
T. W. Scott [William Thomas Stead's Publishing House; Wonders of Science Series; aircraft; aeroplanes; aeronautics; ballooning]
Publication details: 
London: Stead's Publishing House, Bank Buildings, Kingsway, W.C.2. Printed by W. & J. Mackay & Co., Ltd., Chatham.
£76.00

Octavo, 48 pages. Stapled. In faded original orange printed wraps. Nine pages of illustrations, including three on wraps. Good, on aged high-acidity paper. Wraps a little stained. Unobtrusive ownership inscription at head of front wrap. Illustrations include two full-page balloons and 'A modern sea-plane: the Burgess-Dunne type'. Twelfth illustration (diving English biplane) on front wrap. Scarce: no copy on Copac.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Thos. Wright') to a female 'Christian friend'.

Author: 
Thomas Wright [Macdermid], Manchester prison philanthropist
Publication details: 
Sidney Street, C on M, Manchester; 25 June 1863.
£38.00

Three pages, 12mo. A tad aged, with some discoloration and a little glue from previous mounting to the blank verso of the second leaf of the bifolium. He was 'from home' when the note arrived, only returning on Tuesday. 'It will give me great pleasure to be with you on the day when the Foundation Stone will be your School. Sends 'every blessing' to the recipient and her 'Xcellent husband'. A life of Wright was published in 1873, with a preface by the Earl of Shaftesbury.

Engraved portrait by Augustus Fox [from painting by Nathaniel Drake].

Author: 
Thomas Gent (1693-1778), printer and topographer of York [Thomas Thorpe (1791-1851), London bookseller]
Publication details: 
Published by T. Thorpe, 38, Bedford Street, Covent Garden.' [1832]
£45.00

Dimensions of paper roughly eight inches by five; dimensions of print four and a quarter inches by three and a half. Good clean image, on paper aged and creased at extremities only. A wild-haired octogenarian Gent leans on a pile of books in a stone archway, holding open a copy of his History of Rippon (1733). Taken from Thorpe's edition of Gent's 'Life', published in 1832.

Engraving by Bolton from an illustration by Prior, of 'the Booksellers' Provident Retreat at Abbots Langley, Herts'.

Author: 
The Booksellers' Provident Institution [Thomas Bolton, wood engraver; William Henry Prior (c.1812-82), illustrator]
Publication details: 
[1848].
£250.00

Landscape. Dimensions of paper roughly nine inches by thirteen and a half. Trimmed. Clear image on aged and foxed paper. Captioned 'This ENGRAVING of the BOOKSELLERS' PROVIDENT RETREAT at Abbots Langley, Herts, erected upon ground presented by JOHN DICKINSON, ESQ.

Engraving of bearded man walking while reading a book.

Author: 
John Thomas Smith (1766-1833), artist and antiquary
Publication details: 
London Published as the Act directs December 31st 1815 by John Thomas Smith No 4 Chandos Street Covent Garden.'
£80.00

On wove paper roughly eleven inches by seven and three-quarters; dimensions of print roughly seven inches by four and a half. Image clear and unaffected, on paper aged and creased, with some staining to extremities. Smith's monogram in bottom left-hand corner. The figure is formally dressed, in frock-coat and stockings, with his hat tucked under his left arm. Clearly a portrait, but of whom is uncertain: it is not among the six works by Smith catalogued by the National Portrait Gallery. A charming evocation of print culture in the early part of the nineteenth century.

Engraved trade card.

Author: 
Thomas Payne, London eighteenth-century bookseller.
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£150.00

On thin laid paper roughly two and three-quarter inches by three and three-quarter inches wide. Good clean image, on aged paper with slight wear in bottom left-hand corner. Enclosed by a border. Reads, in a variety of hands, 'Thomas Payne | BOOKSELLER, | Near the South Sea House | BISHOPSGATE-STREET | LONDON. | Sells all Sorts of Stationary [sic] Wares.' According to BBTI the Thomas Payne who was at this address in 1750 may possibly be the eminent bookseller Thomas Payne I (1719-99) of the Mews Gate.

Autograph Letter Signed ('J. T. Calcutta.') to unnamed 'brother clergy[man] of the diocese'.

Author: 
John Thomas James (1786-1828), Bishop of Calcutta
Publication details: 
Calcutta. Feb. 14. 1828'.
£85.00

Two pages, quarto. Very good. 'It is great pleasure that I sit down to write to any one of my brother clergy of the diocese, as it seems an approach to that acquaintance with them which I hope before long to have an opportunity of making personally'. '[P]ressure of business' makes impossible 'any very specific answer' to the contents of his correspondent's letter, 'But they shall not be forgotten'. He will 'speak to the Military board as to the Bungalow appointed for public worship'. He laments that the 'situation with regard to the military' has not been adequately defined.

Portrait, 'Engraved by H. Meyer, from an original Drawing by J. Jackson'.

Author: 
Thomas Fanshaw Middleton (1769-1822), D.D., F.R.S., Lord Bishop of Calcutta [Henry Hoppner Meyer; John Jackson]
Publication details: 
[London; 1815.]
£45.00

Dimensions of paper approximately 36 x 25 cms. Good, though lightly foxed and with corners a little dog-eared. His Lordship, in full-sleeved clericals, is seated, and bare-headed, looking to his right with a piercing stare. Dated 1815 by the National Portrait Gallery.

Letters to Eminent Hands; to wit Andrew Lang, Bret Hart, Edna Lyall, F. Anstey, George Moore, Grant Allen, Phil Robinson, Rhoda Broughton, Robt. Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, W. S. Gilbert.

Author: 
i' [iota] (Joseph William Gleeson White, 1851-1898), English writer on art and founder of the 'Studio' magazine [Art Workers Guild; Arts and Crafts Movement]
Publication details: 
Derby, Leicester, and Nottingham: Frank Murray, 1892.
£180.00

Small 8vo. Pages: x + 74. In original cream printed wraps. One of two hundred copies of the 'Small Paper edition'. In the 'Moray Library'. Internally sound and clean. Light spotting and wear to wraps. Minor foxing to endpapers. Trenchant observations on an interesting selection of late-Victorian authors.

Autograph Letter Signed ('S. Leigh Sotheby') to unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Samuel Leigh Sotheby (1805-61), British auctioneer and antiquary
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£200.00

Three pages, 12mo. On aged paper, with a few closed tears and rust marking to blank verso of second leaf of bifolium. He thanks him for sending the books for examination. 'Mrs. Sotheby will take a photograph of the phiz of Peter Schoeffer, But as to the woodcut being of that I do not at present believe it - | The letters & papers are not of the time.' He asks him to translate a passage, comments further on Schoeffer, and asks if his correspondent has 'any new of Paper Factory for me.' Concludes 'Write me the full particulars of what Dutch Collection in the library of Sir Ths.

For sale by order of the trustees of the will. Hampstead Heath. The well-known Freehold Estate of the late Sir Spencer Wells, Bart., a perfect Country Seat within five miles of Charing Cross. [...] known as Golder's Hill.

Author: 
Sir Thomas Spencer Wells [Hampstead Heath; Golder's Hill House; London topography]
Publication details: 
For Sale by Auction by Messrs. Debenham, Tewson, Farmer and Bridgewater | At the Mart, Tokenhouse Yard, near the Bank of England, in the City of London. On Tuesday, the 28th day of June, 1898.
£100.00

Two unbound bifoliums stapled together. Eight pages, on four leaves each roughly seventeen inches by eleven wide. A corrected proof, stamped at head of first page 'PROOF NO.' A frail survival of a significant document in London topographical history. Aged and worn, with several closed tears. A few manuscript emendations, notes and additions in different hands. For example, concerning a right of way, 'Messrs. Debenham can ascertain this from Mr. Pinder Simpson 20 Old Burlington St. W. the Collector'.

Portrait entitled 'Thomas Hearne.', engraved by William Daniell after a drawing by George Dance.

Author: 
George Dance the Younger (1741-1825), English architect and surveyor [William Daniel (1769-1837), English artist and engraver; Thomas Hearne (1744-1817), English watercolour artist]
Publication details: 
Geo. Dance delt. Jany. 11. 1795. Published by Willm. Daniell, No. 9 Cleveland Street Fitzroy Square London, Decr. 15. 1809. Wm. Daniell Fecit.'
£76.00

Dimensions of paper roughly eleven and a half inches by eight wide. A good clean impression on grubby and lightly foxed paper. A meticulous head and shoulders view of a seated Hearne, in profile, facing to his left. One of the 72 engravings from chalk portraits by Dance of his friends which were published between 1808 and 1814.

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