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Author, Title, Summary Subject Price
Sherborne Academy, Ransam House, Sherborne, Dorset; John Kidd (c.1834-1891), Principal; William Charles Macready (1793-1873), distinguished actor

[Sherborne Academy, Ransam House, Sherborne, Dorset (John Kidd, Principal).] Printed card, with lithographic illustration of the building, and details of masters, terms and those to whom references may be sent (including the actor W. C. Macready).

A nice piece of Sherborne ephemera, in unusually good condition. Between 1855 and 1860 Ransam House had been used to board boys from Sherborne School. ‘The Sherborne Academy’ to which the present card refers was run by John Kidd (c.1834-1891), FRAS, MCP, at Ransam between the end of 1861 and...

£100.00
Sir Claude Phillips (1846-1924), first Keeper of the Wallace Collection, art critic of the Daily Telegraph [Albert Curtis Clark (1859-1937), Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Oxford?]

[‘Reeking of the dungheap’: Sir Claude Phillips, first Keeper of the Wallace Collection.] Anonymous original manuscript poem in Latin, with English translation in same hand, attacking him as a ‘lustful’ user of ‘language planted with dirty refuse'.

The circumstances surrounding this extraordinary original composition in Latin verse are obscure. See Phillips’s entry in the Oxford DNB, which notes that there was ‘an air of Proust’ about him, and quotes Oliver Brown’s description of him as ‘a stout man, immaculately dressed and heavily...

£100.00
The Bengal-Nagpur Railway Company, Limited [Sir Samuel Hoare, Chairman; Robert Miller, Managing Director; British India; the Raj]

[Railways in British India.] Printed account of ‘Proceedings at the Fortieth Ordinary General Meeting of the Proprietors in the Bengal-Nagpur Railway Company, Limited, [...] Sir Samuel Hoare, Bart., in the Chair’.

The Bengal Nagpur Railway Company was formed in 1887 and continued until 1952, when it merged with the East Indian Railway Company to form the Eastern Railway. The present item is 4pp, 4to. Bifolium. Printed in small type, in double column. In good condition, lightly aged, with one central...

£80.00
Theodore Hook [Theodore Edward Hook] (1788-1841), author, wit and hoaxer, accountant-general and treasurer of Mauritius, 1813-1817

[Theodore Hook, wit and hoaxer.] Autograph Letter Signed, to ‘Barker’, explaining the circumstances that free him to accept a dinner invitation.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, on an 11 x 14 cm piece of paper cut down from 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, with minor traces of glue from mount adhering to the blank reverse. The letter reads: ‘My dear Barker / I shall be most happy to join your agreeable party - Croker...

£45.00
William Westall (1781-1850), ARA, artist and engraver, who in his youth travelled to Australia as artist on Matthew Flinders’ HMS Investigator [Clara Angela Macirone (1821-1895), pianist and composer]

[William Westall, artist and engraver.] Autograph Letter in the third person to ‘Miss Macirone’ [the composer Clara Angela Macirone], anticipating ‘the greatest pleasure’ in attending her morning concert.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice for postage. Begins: ‘Mr. Westall presents his compliments to Miss Macirone & begs to assure her how very much obliged to her he feels for the honor she has done him in sending him two tickets...

£50.00
C. B. Fry [Charles Burgess Fry] (1872-1956), one of the greatest of English cricketers, sportsman, scholar, journalist

[‘The Ultimate All-Rounder’: C. B. Fry, one of the greatest of English cricketers.] Autograph Signature from Typed Letter written as Honorary Director of the training ship Mercury..

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, which states that he has ‘strong claims to be regarded as the greatest sporting all-rounder of his or any era since’. (Neville Cardus counted him ‘among the most fully developed and representative Englishmen of his period’.) It also seems that in 1920 he was...

£35.00 Fry
General Sir Edward Stanton (1827-1907), British Army officer who served in the Crimean War, and diplomat who was British Ambassador to Bavaria [Col. Edward Alexander Stanton]

[General Sir Edward Stanton, British Army officer and Ambassador to Bavaria.] Autograph Letter Signed to ‘Mr. Cochrane’, regarding ‘the Nile map’ and his son’s ‘explorations of the Bahr-el-zara’.

2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly worn. Folded once. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Cochrane’ and signed ‘Edwd. Stanton’. He thanks him for ‘sending me the Nile map, which is certainly more complete than any I had, though it does not give us much more information as to the rivers South of...

£70.00
Henry Williamson (1895-1977), English novelist best-remembered for his 'Tarka the Otter'

[Henry Williamson, English author best-remembered for his 'Tarka the Otter'.] 77 pages of typescript from ‘A Fox Under My Cloak’, the fifth novel in the sequence ‘A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight’, with extensive autograph emendations and deletions.

Asee image of[339]See Williamson’s entry by his daughter-in-law Anne Williamson in the Oxford DNB, together with her 1995 biography of him. The present tranche of material gives a marvellous insight into the working processes of a fine - perhaps even a great - English writer, in addition to...

Literature, Military and Naval History £950.00 Williamson
King George III (1738-1820) of Great Britain and of Ireland, the mad monarch who lost America

[King George III.] Seven examples of the king's signature on a page, six of them cut from parchment documents, the last two made while insane, with the last on a fragment of a warrant.

See image. It is hard to see how this collection could be bettered, the range of signatures from sanity to madness being of particular interest. All seven examples laid down on a folio leaf extracted from an album. The leaf is in poor condition, creased and with closed tears, but the parchment...

Royalty £1,250.00 George III
King Louis XVIII of France and Chateaubriand [François-René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand]

[King Louis XVIII of France and Chateaubriand.] Secretarial Letter Signed by ‘Louis’, and with the signature of ‘Chateaubriand’, addressed to ‘Mon Cousin’ and expressing cordial sentiments, with reference to ‘le sacré collège’.

See image. A nice item, linking two important figures in French history. 1p, foolscap 8vo, on the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium of unwatermarked gilt-edged wove paper. Aged and lightly creased, with short closed tears and wear at the head. The ten lines of neatly written text are neatly...

French £450.00 Louis