Manuscript notebook, titled 'Anecdotes &c.', containing several hundred humorous stories (transcribed and 'Related'), with a few newspaper and magazine cuttings.

Quarto (leaf dimensions roughly 19.5 x 15.5 cm). Ruled with twenty-eight lines to the page. Written in a close, neat hand, covering the first ninety-one pages of the notebook. Loosely inserted are twelve pages containing a further thirty stories, on three bifoliums each headed 'Anecdotes &c'. In black-leather half-binding, marbled boards. Good and tight, with text clear and complete on lightly aged paper. Calligraphic design printed on front free endpaper. A charming collection, casting amusing and entertaining light on nineteenth-century English social history. Perhaps compiled by a cleric, as many of the anecdotes relate to the clergy. Titles include 'Colman's Mustard', 'Disraeli & the Duchess of Teck', 'A Vulgar Snob', 'The Rev. A. B. Evans.' Occasional anecdotes are dated and with the source given. Most of these are transcribed from newspapers and magazines, but a couple indicate that others may have been transmitted orally: 'How to get Rich. The present Lord Overstone on one occasion asked a little boy (T . . . .) who was his godson, if he would like to be a rich man. The boy, imagining that he was about to have a handsome present given him, immediately replied that he should. "Then" added his lordship, "never spend a penny when a half-penny will do." (Related in Wales Aug 1866)' and 'High & Low Church. A gentleman informed his servant that he was expecting some guests for dinner. "Are they high or low church?" coolly asked the slavey; "for if high they will drink a deal, but if low they are sure to be large eaters." (Related 1867).' Also a thirty-two-line manuscript poem (8vo, 2 pp) entitled 'The Bachelor's Bridal' ('Provincial Paper. 9 July 1853.'). Around twenty newspaper and magazine cuttings laid down. Also a further thirteen cuttings loosely inserted, and five small loose manuscripts. Previously grouped with an item indicating that the notebook may have been compiled by A. S. S. Sidney of Wobaston House, Wolverhampton.