VICTORIAN

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, landscape 12mo. On bifolium of grey paper. The letter is complete, on what appears to be the upper half of a 4to bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with stamp, postmark and remains of autograph address on reverse of second leaf, with traces of mount. Signed ‘J A Fuller Maitland’. Begins: ‘Dear Sir / Very many thanks for your book, the second copy of which has just come. I shall hope to be able to come & hear your lecture on a subject which is especially dear to me.

In a letter to ‘John O’London’s’ in 1921, Fletcher boasted of having ‘written (and published) seventy-three novels, twelve volumes of collected short stories, and fifteen historical and topographical works, the last-named mostly of considerable length’. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Annotated by recipient with date of response. Addressed to ‘Mr D. Webster.’ and signed ‘J. S. Fletcher.’ He thanks him for ‘the two Chichester pamphlets duly to hand’, noting that one was ‘The Accompt Cleared’ by Roger L’Estrange.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. On creased and worn paper with postage folds. The recipient is not named. Large firm signature: ‘G. W. Foote’. He will be in Plymouth on 8 April, but is in London on 1 April. ‘Mr. Burrows is down for that date on your list, but as he is nearly always in London I dare say he could easily make an exchange.’ Should Burrows do so, Foote will be glad to comply with the recipient’s request.

2pp, 16mo. Twenty-eight lines of text, in purple ink. With contemporary English translation on both sides of a separate 16mo leaf. Both items in fair condition, on aged paper, with slight damage to corners from mounts. Trust the translation, the letter is addressed to a 'Dear friend', and begins: 'My friend Graf [i.e. the antiquities dealer Theodor von Graf] arrived yesterday from Venice and brought many most interesting antiquities - His visit prevented my writing to you - but then I hope to show you some of his treasures, next time we meet. He came early and stayed late.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged, with small strip of discoloration at head of first page and traces of previous mount on discoloured blank reverse of second leaf. He thanks Lanyon for his ‘renewed kindness’ durimg his ‘recent visit to Belfast’, and extends an invitation to ‘a party of a few friends we are about to have on the 5th of May’. With respect to Lanyon’s visit, ‘and to the earlier call I hope you will make on my wife (who is generally not in from her drive till 5.0)’, he makes him a street plan (on lower part of second page).

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, and with slight discoloration to corners of second leaf from previous mounting. Folded once for postage. With large firm signature. Begins: ‘My dear Annie, / Please accept my best thanks for your kind present of a pair of slippers on the anniversary fo my birthday, & especially for your kindness of thinking of me.’ He comments on his improved health since the previous year, the long time since their last meeting, and his anticipation of their next.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. Fourteen lines. The recipient is not named. Written in a large loose hand, rendering the following reading tentative. In fair condition, lighty aged and worn, with minor traces of grey paper mount on reverse. Reads: ‘Dear Sir.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB (‘He had the reputation of being the most learned man in England’). 1p, 16mo. On aged, worn and discoloured paper, with minor damage to the four corners (at bottom-left affecting the date) from previous mounting. Reads: ‘Notice / Any Scholar, elected for classics, who does not obtain at least a Second Class in classical Moderations, will forfeit his Scholarship. / by order of / a College meeting / Mark Pattison / Rector’. Date ‘4 June 1874.’ at bottom left.

See the entry for the recipient Dawson Turner in the Oxford DNB. Farr’s entry in ‘Alumni Cantabrigienses’ reads as follows: ‘FARR, THOMAS. Adm. pens. (age 18) at TRINITY, Apr. 8, 1814. S. [and h.] of Thomas. B. at Beccles, Suffolk. School, Bury St Edmunds (Mr Malkin). Matric. Michs. 1814; B.A. 1818. Ord. deacon (Norwich) June 17, 1821; priest, Mar. 3, 1822 ('T. Farr, the younger'). Travelled in Spain during the Carlist War, 1S35-7. In 1S38 published A Traveller's Rambling Reminiscences of the Spanish War, in which he defends De Lacy and the British Legion. Died Feb. 8, 1855.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Both letters closely written. Both folded for postage. The letters concern the following statement in the Spectator, 6 February 1875: ‘Rumour says that Sir William Harcourt has ascertained from his friend, Mr. Disraeli, that while he will treat the Marquis of Hartington with all the respect due to the leader of a great party, he could not have accorded that deference to Mr. Forster. If rumour does not speak falsely, we could wish that the meeting of the Reform Club had received that very significant message.’ ONE (9 March 1875): 4pp, 12mo. Fifty-seven lines.

1p, 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded for postage. Addressed to ‘The Right Rev. Eyre Chatterton, D.D., / President, Indian Church Aid Association, / Westminster Chambers, / 5, Victoria Street, S.W.1.’ (‘My dear Bishop Chatterton’) and signed ‘Burdwan’. He is ‘indeed very interested to know’ that Chatterton is holding a meeting, 'at the Lord Mayor's invitation', at the Mansion House in London, ‘on behalf of the Anglo-Indian Schools in India, which are controlled by the Indian Church Aid Association’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of mount on blank reverse. Folded once. Addressed to ‘My dear Spielmann’ and signed ‘Harry Furniss’. He asks if Spielmann is ‘at home on Sundays’, as he will be in town between Saturday and might be able to ‘look in for a minute sometime but I’ll not say exactly when’. ‘I’ll have so much to do, but probably it will be sometime in the morning before noon. / Leave all till then. / You don’t say how you are’. Postscript: ‘Lectures going very well’ (last two words underlined four times).

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, foolscap 8vo, on recto of first leaf of bifolium. Docketted in customary style, lengthwise on reverse of second leaf: ‘Earl of Longford / War Office 29 June 68 / Army Chaplain’s Bill’. Addressed to ‘John Graham Esq / &c &c / 3 Westminster Chambers’. Small tight signature 'Longford', good and uncrowded, on creased and worn paper. Folded into packet. The rest of the document is written hurriedly in the under-secretary’s hand.

An amusing and entertaining letter from a man destined for ‘une triste vie et une triste ministère’ (see his entry in the Oxford DNB). 3pp, 16mo. Bifolium. Thirty-seven lines of text, neatly and closely written. In fair condition, worn and grubby. Folded twice for postage. Signed ‘Fred: W: Robertson’. Begins: ‘My dear Miss Smith / Could you but see the piles of books & papers that are as yet only partially disinterred from their temporary coffins you would conceive my dismay and despair at your question. I will become a disciple of Comte to please you.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The present item is clearly part of a draft of an intended biographical entry, penned by Romanes himself in his close and distinctive hand. On one side of a cm piece of laid paper with the reverse blank. Reads: ‘His extensive treatise entitled “Darwin and after Darwin,” which is now being published in successive volumes, is an outgrowth of the lectures delivered in both capacities.

See Fairholt’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The letters on either side of a 12mo leaf. In good condition, neatly placed in windowpane mount. On one side is the response: ‘Wednesday / Dear Mr Keet / I find I must not go out at night for a week to come. I ventured last night & am worse to day in consequence / You must excuse me with many thanks for your intentions / Yours very try / F. W. Fairholt’. On the reverse is a hurried and smudged ALS signed ‘Edwin Keet’ and addressed to ‘Dr. Bell F R. S. / F. S.

See the entries for Custance and Holmes in the Oxford DNB. According to the latter: ‘On his retirement in November 1910, Holmes published What is and What Might Be (1911), a condemnation of the existing education system, which stressed competition rather than co-operation, emphasized visible results, and demanded the mechanical obedience of the child. The book attracted wide public attention. [...] Shortly before his retirement, he became involved in the furore over the so-called 'Holmes–Morant circular', a highly confidential memorandum which he had issued in January 1910 to inspectors’.

See Fairholt’s entry in the Oxford DNB. ONE: Receipt by Fairholt. 1p, landscape 12mo. In good condition, in windowpane mount. Good firm signature. Reads: 'Received of Mr Clements the sum of fifteen shillings for a drawing in wood of a Candelabra. / F. W. Fairholt / £- 15s . 0d'. TWO: IOU by Rimbault. 1p, 16mo. In good condition, in windowpane mount. Reads: 'I. O. U. / Thirty pounds / Oct 20 . 1883 / C. Rimbault / to F. W. Fairholt'. Rimbault's identity (a relation of the musicologist Edward Francis Rimbault?) has not been established. See Image.

Although there is no clear connection, the present unpublished poem dates from around the same time as Edward Lear was drawing watercolours in the place referred to in it. Vidya Dehejia’s‘Impossible Picturesqueness / Edward Lear’s Indian Watercolours, 1873-1875’ (1989) describes how Lear visited ‘The two small hill-stations of Matheran and Mahabaleshwar near Bombay’. Of the former Lear wrote: ‘Matheran by the bye, has most probably been the original Eden - I don’t mean the first Lord Auckland, - but Paradise -’.

See the entries for Stanley and Smith in the Oxford DNB, the former drawing attention to Stanley’s ‘execrable handwriting’. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Nineteen lines of text. Addressed to ‘My dear “Dictionary” ’, and signed ‘A P Stanley’, but with much of what comes in between only deciperable with effort: ‘[...] salutation [...] addressing [...] Could you do anything for the enclosed? I know nothing beyond what the writer says of himself - & Duckworth’s recommendation of him which I also enclose.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. 32 lines, neatly written, including interpolations. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. Folded for postage. No signature and with recipient not named. Begins: ‘Sir / On my return from the Continent I find your letter which I should have of course acknowledged at once if I had been at home. / If the following particulars about myself are of any use for the purpose of your book they are quite at your service’. A thumbnail autobiographical account follows, beginning: ‘I am the eldest son of the late Revd.

A spirited and characteristically-forceful letter, casting interesting light on the social side of London legal practice in the Victorian period. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 8vo. On Bifolium with thin mourning border. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with some nicking and light creasing at edges. Begins: ‘D[ea]r Aspinall, / I suppose from my not having heard from you no one knows of a case in point. So, unless you tell me there is some precedent - of danger, I’ll recommend my secretary to take his chance.

See his entry, and that of Pettigrew, in the Oxford DNB. Easthope was a difficult employer, nicknamed ‘Blast-hope’. Dickens worked for him as a parliamentary reporter between 1834 and 1836. 1p, 12mo, on recto of first leaf of a bifolium. In fair condition, aged and discoloured. Reads: 'My dear Pettigrew / Will you please to leave out Lancaster letter which I'll send for tomorrow / haste / Yrs. / J E / Sunday'. The letter is addressed on the reverse of the second leaf, with slight loss to one corner from the breaking of the red wax seal. Black 'BARNET' postmark and customary frank in red.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with traces of brown paper mount adhering to the blank reverse of the second leaf. Folded twice for postage. Signed ‘Spenser Wilkinson.’ Begins: ‘Dear Mr. Bryan, / I am glad to hear from you again, for you seemed lost. My wife went to Beauchamp Place long ago to call on Mr. Bryan but found that you had left & could not learn your address.’ He accepts with pleasure the invitation to lunch with him and Colonel Durand, ‘whose book I read with much interest’.

1p, 8vo. On recto of first leaf of a bifolium. The reverse of the that leaf and recto of the second leaf carry the printed prospectus and order form for Clarke’s 1896 volume, ‘Festival Hymns, Including Three Offertory Hymns for Festival Use, Sung in S. Paul’s Cathedral, also in Exeter, Truro, and other Cathedrals, at Choral Festivals’, in which Clarke is described as ‘Vicar of Thorverton, Devon, Hon. Sec. Exeter Diocesan Board of Education’. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice for postage. Signed ‘S Childs Clarke’. The recipient is not named.

Written while Clerk of the Commons. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Joyce Violet Ilbert (1890-1957) was the youngest of his five daughters. 8pp, 12mo. Two bifoliums. In good condition, lightly aged. Addressed to ‘My Dear Joyce’ and signed ‘Yr. loving father | C. P. I.’ Begins: ‘I wish for my sake that you were on board the Cedric - for I miss my [?]-valet-secretary very much. If you were here, you would be hoping that the voyage would never come to an end’. They have had ‘almost perpetual sunshine since we left New York’. ‘The ship is extremely comfortable.

See Westland's entry in the Oxford DNB. Finlay was, as the Marquis of Crewe told the House of Lords in 1912, ‘a distinguished Indian official’, responsible for, as the Statist stated in 1914, ‘the details of the financial administration of the Empire of India. The magnitude and complexity of the financial transactions of the Government of India need not be enlarged on.’ He entered the Indian Civil Service in 1875, was made a Companion of the Order of the Star of India in 1896, and a Member the Governor-General’s Council in 1902.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, with Pettigrew’s. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of a bifolium. Reads: ‘Sir Robert Gardiner presents his compliments to Mr Pettigrew - / He begs Mr Pettigrew will forgive his taking the liberty of asking whether he is acquainted with General Anderson, and if so, he begs Mr. Pettigrew will do him the favor of calling here as soon as convenient in his round of Professional calls this morning’.

See the entry for Sir Charles Brooke in the Oxford DNB. On one side of an 18 x 9 cm piece of paper, the upper part torn from a larger sheet, with neatly-torn bottom edge resulting in a little loss to the flourish beneath the signature and the tip of the downstroke of the ‘y’ in ‘Harry’. In fair condition, lightly aged, with a central vertical fold. The text, in a bold hand, reads: ‘ “Though obstacles beset you - struggle still!” / Even a worm may climb this highest hill! / Yrs Sly / Harry de Windt’ See Image.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, and that of the recipient’s husband, the judge Sir Edward Hall Alderson (1787-1857). 4pp, 16mo. Bifolium with thick mourning border. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded for postage. Begins: ‘Dear Lady Alderson / Fresh, & very heavy sorrow has befallen us, or I wd. sooner have answered yr ot of last Saturday. The death of Captn.