Manuscripts

Autograph manuscript of the poem 'To Helena on her Birth day' by the English author Thomas Haynes Bayly, addressed to his wife, and apparently unpublished.

Author: 
Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839), English poet, after Thomas Moore the most popular songwriter of his period in England
Publication details: 
Without place. [1830]
£120.00

1p., 4to. On laid paper watermarked 'G & R TURNER | 1829'. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. Docketed on the reverse 'Bayley [sic] | 1830' and 'By Thomas Haynes Bayly, Poet | Author of "I'd be a butterfly etc etc'. The poem is sixteen lines long, and begins: 'My own Love! my true Love! here's health & joy to you Love, | A happy year without a tear & sweet smiles not a few Love! | Of all my anniversaries, I prize your Birth day best.

Autograph Memorandum by the artist John Piper, describing how Vollard's biography of Cézanne inspired him when he read it as a teenager.

Author: 
John Piper (1903-1992), English painter [Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), art dealer and connoisseur; Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)]
Piper
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Fawley Bottom Farmhouse near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Undated.
£100.00
Piper

1p., 12mo. In fair condition, on aged and lightly-creased paper. Clearly responding to an enquiry regarding what books had had a formative influence on his life, Piper writes: 'Vollard's Life of Cézanne, because it showed me, in my teens, that an artist can be dedicated, unbohemian, unworldly, against the tide and absolutely true to his instincts, which happened to be right. The book - by a dealer, too!

Manuscript Fair Copy, in an eighteenth-century hand, transcribing two poems: 'Prize Monody on the Death of David Garrick Esqr. ffor the Vase at Bath-Easton, By Miss [Anna] Seward.' and 'To Miss Seward | Impromptu' by 'W[illiam] H[ayley].'

Author: 
Anna Seward (1742-1809), poet known as 'The Swan of Lichfield'; William Hayley (1745-1820), poet and patron of William Blake [David Garrick (1717-1779); Bath Easton, villa of Sir John Riggs Miller]
Publication details: 
Seward's poem dated 'Bath-Easton (the Villa of Sir John Miller,) near Bath | ffeb. 11. 1779.' Hayley's poem without place or date.
£220.00

Totalling 5pp., 4to, with Seward's poem on the first 3pp., and Hayley's on the following 2pp. Disbound from a notebook. In good condition, on lightly-aged and worn paper which has been cropped at the foot, resulting in the loss of two lines of text from Hayley's poem, and with the strip with the trimmed line from the foot of the first page of Seward's poem laid down at the head of the second page.

Memorandum, signed twice by Rudyard Kipling, of a deposit made by him at the London City and Midland Bank Limited's Newgate branch, with corresponding receipt signed for the branch manager by J. H. Coulson.

Author: 
Rudyard Kipling [Joseph Rudyard Kipling] (1865-1936), English writer and poet; J. H. Coulson, Manager, London City and Midland Bank Limited, Newgate Street, London
Publication details: 
The London City and Midland Bank Limited, Newgate Branch [London]. Both documents dated 7 December 1910.
£250.00

The two documents were originally attached along a perforated line, and both bear the serial number 115476. Having been detached, they have been reattached by a strip of light brown paper. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Both are forms, printed in red and black, and both are filled in by Coulson, regarding a deposit by Kipling of '£500 (Five hundred pounds) Grand Trunk Pacific Branch Lines Co. First Mortgage Sterling Bonds' and '$2500 (Two thousand five hundred dollars) Northern New Brunswick & Seaboard Rly Co. 4% Gold Bonds'.

Document Signed "Cha: Wager"

Author: 
Charles Wager (1646-1743), Admiral and First Lord of the Admiralty between 1733 and 1742
Publication details: 
26 Nov. 1725
£120.00

One page, 15 x 19cm, corners missing at base with loss of part of first letter of witness signature, "John Eden". Payment of "six months Annuity" payable under a certain Act (duty on Wrought Plate, money arising from sale of forfeited estates, etc.

[Verse] Thought (Signed at end "Ann S. Stephens").

Author: 
Ann S. Stephens, American "dime" novelist.
Publication details: 
Washington, 29 June 1866.
£100.00

One page, 17.5 x 12cm, 8 lines, heavy grey paper, corner smudged, good condition. Title "Thought". "Give me thought - glorious thought [...] | To the sight of a flower; | Though it trembles and shrinks | From the touch of its thorn." Note: She was not known for her verse.

Five poems by Captain H. W. Windsor Aubrey, R.A.M.C.: two holographs (including 'The Yellow Peril. Dedicated to the German Emperor'), one with typed copy, two others typed and one mimeographed; four concerning Delhi Barracks, Tidworth.

Author: 
Captain Henry Wentworth Windsor Aubrey (c.1859-1934), M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. [R.A.M.C. Delhi Barracks, Tidworth, Wiltshire; Brimstone Bottom]
Publication details: 
One of the six items on R.A.M.C. letterhead, Delhi Barracks, Tidworth, Salisbury Plain [Wiltshire]; dated 20 February 1918. Four of the others also 1918, and the sixth 1904.
£180.00

Henry Wentworth Windsor Aubrey was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Dorset Regiment Militia on 21 April 1875, and resigned his commission three years later. He qualified as a Doctor in 1885 and practiced in Clifton, where he was a keen cricketer and golfer. During the First World War he served in the RAMC, reaching the rank of Temporary Captain (Home) on 1 December 1917. The six items (including Item Four, a typescript of Item Three) are in very good condition, on lightly-aged paper.

'Registre' (account book), in French, of Remy de Montfort, Châtelain de la Motte, Bazoches-au-Houlme, Orne, and of his son Philogène de Montfort. Containing information about crops, livestock, servants, rents and matters pertaining to his estate.

Author: 
Remy de Montfort (1765-1848), Châtelain de la Motte, Bazoches-au-Houlme, Orne, France; his son Philogène de Montfort (1806-1883), grandfather of the symbolist poet Remy de Gourmont
Publication details: 
Pub, Date: La Motte, Bazoches-au-Houlme, France. 1801 to 1835 (Remy de Montfort); and 1850 to (Philogène de Montfort).
£650.00

186pp., 8vo. Paginated 1-186, with pp.44-45 and 113 blank, and three other three unpaginated pages: front pastedown and facing page, and rear pastedown. Five pieces of paper with manuscript are inserted, two loosely. Internally in very good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with occasional slight worming; in worn and damaged vellum binding with rope ties. 'Registre' in manuscript on front board. The volume is paginated by Remy de Montfort, and consists of a number of chronological sequences working inwards from both ends.

Typescript titled 'William Wordsworth. | his Books.' Divided into 19 'lots'.

Author: 
[The Library of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Poet Laureate]
Publication details: 
Without place or date. [1910s?]
£150.00

8pp., on eight leaves of foolscap 8vo, with a ninth leaf carrying the title (headed 'Library' in manuscript). Fair, on aged and creased paper. The first page carries four entries, all beginning in 'A', from W. P. Alison's 'Remarks on the Poor Laws etc of Scotland, 1844' to a total of 54 volumes of the Annual Register. The four items are attributed the lot numbers 1, 3, 2 and 4 in manuscript. The second page carries seven items beginning with 'B' (ending with 'Border Laws 1705.'), with the first and second given lot numbers in manuscript.

Holograph extract of a translation from the German of Wieland's 'Oberon' by the English poet William Sotheby, beginning 'Sweet Isle! methinks once more I hear'.

Author: 
William Sotheby (1757-1833), English poet and translator [Christoph Martin Wieland, German author of 'Oberon']
Publication details: 
No place. 26 September 1804.
£120.00

1p., 8vo. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with traces of previous mounting along two edges. Headed, in a contemporary hand: 'Given to Mrs. Richards by Miss Calhoun Fanshawe'. 22 lines of verse, in couplets. Signed in the bottom right-hand corner, apparently at a later date than the rest of the text: 'William Sothbey | Sepr 26 - 1804'. The extract - possibly written out by Sotheby for an acquaintance - begins: 'Sweet Isle!

Autograph Translations by Robert Proud of Pennsylvania, of 'On Gardens, From the Latin of Lord Bacons Essays &c' and the 'Laus Mortuli' of Virgil. With printings of Proud's 'Autobiography' and Charles West Thomson's 'Notices'.

Author: 
Robert Proud (1728-1813), English-born American loyalist, author of 'The History of Pennsylvania in North America' [Charles West Thomson]
Publication details: 
The autograph of 'On Gardens': 'Translation by R. P. Anno. 1802.' Thomson's 'Notices': 'Read before the Council, August 16, 1826.' The 'Autobiography' from the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, January 1890.
£350.00

ONE: Autograph translations by Proud. 14pp., 12mo. Unbound, stitched into a booklet of laid watermarked paper, with deckled edges. In very good condition, neatly and closely written on lightly-aged paper. Upwards along the inner margin of the first page Proud has written: 'Translation by R. P. Anno. 1802.' The translation of 'On Gardens, | From the Latin of Lord Bacon's Essays &c' covers the first 12pp., paginated 1-12; the 'Laus Mortuli. Translated at Hackney near London from a Lat. Epigram of Virgil, abt. the year 1752. by R. P.' covers the last two pages, and is unpaginated.

Holograph Poem by American author George Steele Seymour, titled 'Emerson's House, Concord, Mass.'

Author: 
George Steele Seymour of the Order of Bookfellows, Chicago [Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American essayist, lecturer and poet]
Publication details: 
Presented 'to Mrs. Steele in Los Angeles - August 23, 1918.'
£250.00

1p., 8vo. On yellow paper. On lightly-aged paper, with slight wear and creasing along one edge, and thin stub from previous mounting adhering to the reverse. The poem is twenty lines long, arranged in five stanzas, and signed at the foot 'George Steele Seymour'. Beneath this, in Seymour's hand: 'Special greetings to Mrs.

[Manuscript Notebook] "Rebecca Diary" [Notes concerning the libretto of the opera "Rebecca", music by Wilfred Josephs], based on the Daphne du Maurier novel

Author: 
[Wilfred Josephs, composer (1927-1997)] Edward Owen Marsh, librettist, author, translator (Anouilh, Cocteau, Gogol, etc)
Publication details: 
[Opera matinée 1983]
£280.00

Circa 78pp., used, some pages added, text worked over, red boards, hinge strain, mainly good condition. Indexes to Acts, lines through manysections. Contents include: questions for Wilfred [Josephs] ("Sets? | Scenes? | Act II???"]; stage directions; suggestions about characters; directions; music ("(5) Mrs v H [van Hopper] tells A. she is hopeless against Rebecca"); "final faults"; sets; dialogue; problems; phone numbers and addresses; more (detailed) points for Wilfred [Josephs]; suggested lines for a duet; characters with actors' names e.g. Mrs v. H[oppen] Nuala Willis (as happened); etc.

Holograph copy of poem (signed 'R. M.') by Richard Mant, beginning 'Bow, Britons, Bow the haughty head' ['War Song'], written out for Anna Maria, wife of George Parker, Vicar of Bampton, and like Mant a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.

Author: 
Richard Mant (1776-1848), Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore [Anna Maria [née Parker], wife of George Richards (1767-1837), Vicar of Bampton; Oriel College, Oxford]
Publication details: 
Oriel College, Oxford. 15 June 1803.
£85.00

3pp., 4to. On bifolium. Very good, on lightly-aged paper, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to reverse of second leaf, which is addressed, with half of a black wax seal, 'For | Mrs. Richards | Bampton.' This copy was made within a month of the composition of the poem, for the wife of a fellow Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. The recto of the second leaf carries the following note by Mant: 'with Mr. Mant's best compliments to Mrs. Richards. | Oriel Coll. June 15th.

Autograph 'Register of Cases' by Dorothy J. Johnson, midwife, in 'Central Midwives Board' register, giving details of 250 births in the Stoke-on-Trent area between 1951 and 1953.

Author: 
Dorothy J. Johnson, Certified Midwife, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire [England: Central Midwives Board; midwifry]
Publication details: 
Register by 'Messrs. Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd., 1 New Street Square, London, E.C.4.' The births in Stoke-on-Trent occuring between 25 February 1951 to 13 February 1953.
£350.00

The register proper consists of 50pp., foolscap 8vo, with ten births described over each of the 25 openings (total 250). It is preceded by a page carrying Johnson's details (her address is given as 9 Ashlands Crescent, Harpfield, Stoke-on-Trent, and her certificate number is 106889), facing the reverse of the front wrap, which carries a notice headed 'On no account must this Register be destroyed. It may be of importance for the defence of the Midwife herself.' In buff wraps, with 'Central Midwives Board. | Register of Cases' and the printing details on the front.

Unpublished holograph poem (signed 'J. F. Hollings') by the Leicester poet and local historian James Francis Hollings, entitled 'Edgehill', regarding the English Civil War battle, 1642.

Author: 
James Francis Hollings (1806-1862), poet and local historian, President of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society [Leicestershire; English Civil War; Battle of Edgehill, 1642;]
Publication details: 
Without place place or place, on paper with watermarked date 1831. [Leicester, 1830s?]
£120.00

3pp., 4to. Bifolium. On wove paper watermarked 'R TASSELL | 1831'. 56 lines, arranged in seven eight-line stanzas. Presentable, despite wear and age, closed tears along crease lines, and traces of yellow-paper mount on blank reverse of second leaf. There is no sign that this item was ever published, which is surprising, as it is a superior effort, written with some conviction, the subject being one on which Hollings was regarded as an authority.

Field notebook compiled by J. H. Driberg, later Lecturer in Anthropology, Cambridge University, compiled while a British colonial official, and dealing with local, linguistic and other matters.

Author: 
Jack Herbert Driberg (1888-1946), Lecturer in Anthropology, Cambridge University, 1934-42; and brother of the Labour MP and gossip columnist 'William Hickey' Tom Driberg (1905-1976); Uganda; Africa]
Publication details: 
The earliest dated entry from Longarim, Uganda, 27 March 1923; and the latest from Loriya HIll, 15 January 1925.
£250.00

A significant item, written, as his biographer Roy Abrahams explains, by a man who was 'almost single-handedly responsible for keeping academic social anthropology, and one might add the place of African research within it, alive in the small Archaeology and Anthropology Department in Cambridge in those otherwise rather barren days of the 1930s'. 45pp., 12mo. In a ruled, stitched notebook without cover. Written in pencil on stained and aged paper. Some of the text is faded.

Pencil sketch of George Washington's home Mount Vernon by 'G E Blenkins', with leaf from the orange tree planted by Washington, and explanatory Autograph Note by Blenkins.

Author: 
Mount Vernon, Virginia home of George Washington, first United States President [George Eleazar Blenkins (d.1894), Assistant Surgeon, Grenadier Guards, and Member of the Royal College of Surgeons?]
Washington
Publication details: 
Sketch made and leaf taken by Blenkins on a visit to Mount Vernon, Virginia, in 1840.
£450.00
Washington

While only a rough pencil sketch, the drawing is an attractive one, landscape on a piece of wove paper, 20 x 25 cm, with 'JESSUPS' watermark. In good condition, on lightly-aged and creased paper, folded into a packet for postage, with remains of red wafer. Beneath the drawing, in ink in a shaky contemporary hand: 'Lawn view from the backs of Mount Vernon | This is from the Orange Tree planted by himself.' The reverse carries the following note: 'I made the enclosed rough sketch of Mount Vernon the residence of Genl.

[Small archive] First World War Relief from Mrs A. M. Driberg to Allied Prisoners of War: Food Parcels to PoW

Author: 
[Amy Driberg, mother of Tom Driberg; Food Parcels]
Publication details: 
1915-1918,
£400.00

A collection including an autograph notebook, photographs, receipts, circulars, received by Mrs Amy Mary Irving Driberg (d.1939) [née Bell], of Uckfield Lodge, Crowborough, wife of J.J.S. Driberg, and mother of Labour politician Tom Driberg (Baron Bradwell) (1905-76), in connection with her efforts on behalf of allied prisoners of war. An interesting and informative collection, casting light on a generally-overlooked aspect of the Great War. In good overall condition, on lightly-aged paper.ONE. Notebook in the autograph of Mrs A. M.

Three financial documents from 1880 on 'Vanity Fair': holograph 'Report' by the editor Thomas Gibson Bowles, accompanying 'Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Account' and 'Comparative Statement of Income and Expenditure' by accountants Masson & Lewis.

Author: 
Thomas Gibson Bowles (1841-1922), editor of the London society magazine 'Vanity Fair', founded by him in 1868 [Masson & Lewis, Accountants, 27 Leadenhall Street, London]
Publication details: 
Bowles's report dated 10 November 1880. 'Balance Sheet' and 'Comparative Statement' both by Masson & Lewis, Accountants, 27 Leadenhall Street, London, and both for the half-year ending 30 September 1880.
£450.00

The three items, all in manuscript, are in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. All three are folded into the usual packets, with the two items by the accountants each titled in manuscript on the outside. Item One (Gibson's report): 'Report to accompany the Accounts of "Vanity Fair" for the six months ending 30th. Septr. 1880'. In Bowles's autograph, and signed by him at the foot, 'Thos. G. Bowles | 10 Novr 1880'. 1p., foolscap 8vo.

Nine manuscript documents relating to the death and estate of Major Anthony Coane, 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot, who died in Kandy, Ceylon [Sri Lanka], in 1819, including an inventory and account, and a covering letter from Lieut. Minter.

Author: 
Major Anthony Coane (d.1819), 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot [Kandy, Ceylon [Sri Lanka]]
Publication details: 
The nine items all from Kandy, Ceylon [Sri Lanka], and dating from October 1817 to January 1819.
£180.00

The nine items in this collection provide valuable information regarding the management of the estate of a Georgian colonial British army office. Coane's battalion had served in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land between 1812 and 1814, and had been in Ceylon (under Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Giels) since 1814 by the time Coane died on 5 January 1819, his demise much regretted by his superiors. The nine items are on aged and worn paper with chipping to extremities. ONE: Autograph Letter Signed from 'G[eorge]. Minter' to unnamed recipient. Kandy; 29 December 1818. 4pp., 12mo. Bifolium.

Part of a Manuscript, review of John Chetwode Eustace's "Tour in Italy [London, 1813) (reviewed in Edinburgh Review, 1813)

Author: 
Henry Peter Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord Chancellor of England (1778-1868)
Publication details: 
[1813]
£280.00

Full article published in Edinburgh Review, vol.21, pp.378-424. Manuscript, two pages, 4to, trimmed at bottom with loss of text, with light corrections and additions, giving the text for pp.407-8, excluding two lengthy quotations from the book to which Brougham gives the reference only. The trimming had led to the loss of the passage from "In the Conservatorii or charity schools [...] He gives as an instance one Conservatorio where four hundred ... where four hundred...",apart from a few words (subject of pasage partly "repentant women" and vice in Naples).

[Manuscript] Memorandum of an Agreement [with Henry S. King, publisher, for her "new novel", 'Felicia'], signed "M. Betham-Edwards

Author: 
Matilda Betham-Edwards, novelist
Publication details: 
[London], 25 July 1873
£90.00

Two pages, sm. folio, fair condition, giving details of an advance and the holding of the copyright of "The Sylvesters" if they should decide not to go ahead and want their money back. Minor change apparently initialled "HSK" [= King].

Holograph Poem (signed 'Henry van Dyke') by the American author and educator Henry Jackson van Dyke, a sonnet titled 'Richard Watson Gilder'.

Author: 
Henry van Dyke [Henry Jackson van Dyke] (1852-1933), American author, educator and clergyman [Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909) of New York City, poet and editor of 'The Century Magazine']
Publication details: 
Without place or date [written on Gilder's death in 1909].
£180.00

1p., 4to. A fair copy, on a piece of aged high-acidity paper, with chipping and loss to edges (not affecting text). Signed at foot. The poem begins: 'Heart of a hero in a poet's frame, / Soul of a soldier in a body frail, - / Thine was the courage clear that did not quail / Before the giant champions of shame'. Gilder is praised as a 'poet, patriot, friend', the poem concluding: 'Thou leavest two great gifts that will not die, - / Amid the city's noise, thy lyric cry!

Part of Document Signed "W Scott", as one of the Principle Clerks of the Court of Sessions.

Author: 
Sir Walter Scott, lawyer and author.
Part of Document Signed "W Scott"
Publication details: 
No date or specified place.
£150.00
Part of Document Signed "W Scott"

Two pages, c.17 x 14cm, paper trimmed with loss of text, staining making it difficult ro read some of text, text in another hand unless Scott's legal hand differed from his novelist's (see image on my website). Text of recto: "appears to be justly due at the date of the sequestration with all the expenses thereon And I the said George Brown Bind and Oblige myself and my foresaid to free and relieve the said James Orr and his foresaid of the cautionary Obligation above written and of all loss damages and expenses which he may incur or sustain in consequence thereof.

Leaf from the notebook of the Victorian artist George Cruikshank, carrying two pages of serious sketches, each signed by him 'Geo Cruikshank'.

Author: 
George Cruikshank (1792-1878), English caricaturist and illustrator
Leaf from the notebook of the Victorian artist George Cruikshank
Publication details: 
Undated, but on paper with watermarked date 1824.
£450.00
Leaf from the notebook of the Victorian artist George Cruikshank

In ink on both sides of a 4to leaf of wove paper, watermarked 'J GREEN & SON / 1824'. None of Cruikshank's drawing or writing is affected, but one corner of the leaf has been cut away, and there is another thin strip cut from another. Fair, on aged paper. One page carries a full-length drawing of a bearded athletic man in shorts and sandals, making a sweeping theatrical gesture with his right hand, and holding a spear in his left. Beneath the drawing is Cruikshank's signature, and a study of the left foot.

Leaf from an early edition of John Dryden's translation of Plutarch's Lives, marked up with autograph emendations for a revised edition by the Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough, with leaf carrying longer emendation's in Clough's hand.

Author: 
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), English poet, critic, translator and educationalist [John Dryden's translation of Plutarch]
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), English poet
Publication details: 
Undated [early 1850s?]
£1,200.00
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), English poet

The two leaves were evidently disbound from a copy of an edition of Dryden's Plutarch, in which the grey 4to leaf of writing paper following the 12mo printed leaf was one of those that interleaved the volume. In fair conditon, on lightly-aged paper. The two leaves are tipped in onto a larger leaf removed from an album. The printed leaf is 12mo, from volume 5 of Dryden's translation, with the pages numbered 511 and 612 [sic]. The two sides of the leaf carry a total of approximately 25 emendations and deletions.

Autograph Manuscript of the poem 'The Thunder Storm', in the autograph of its author William Bourne Oliver Peabody.

Author: 
Rev. William Bourne Oliver Peabody (1799-1847), pastor of the Unitarian church in Springfield, Massachusetts, educated at Harvard and Cambridge Divinity School
Publication details: 
Place and date not stated.
£100.00

2pp., 12mo. Fair, on aged paper. In pencil at head: 'Autograph of the Rev W. B. O. Peabody'. In ink in a contemporary hand, between the title and body of text: 'Autograph of Mr Peabody '. Twenty-four lines, arranged in three eight-line stanzas. The text presented here differs in certain respects from that printed in A. P. Putnam's 'Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith' (1875). In the present version the first stanza reads: 'Black the heaven is overcast! | Breathless is the sultry blast.

Holograph Latin poem by the Rev. John Keate, Master of Eton College, written while a student at King's College, Cambridge.

Author: 
Rev. John Keate (1773-1852), DD, Headmaster of Eton College [King's College, Cambridge]
Publication details: 
Without date or place [Cambridge. Written between 1791 and 1797.]
£80.00

2pp., 12mo. On a leaf of wove paper with Britannia watermark. In fair condition, on aged paper with slight wear to extremities. In pencil at head 'Rev. J. Keate | Head Master of Eton'. Tipped in at the head is a slip of paper with an entry from a Victorian manuscripts catalogue describing the item, reading: 'KEATE (The Rev. John, D.D.). Head Master of Eton.

Manuscript of humorous poem 'The Chapter of Fashions | Written by T Dibdin' [Thomas John Dibdin], on the history of clothing and Regency dress, with variations from the printed versions, including an extra stanza.

Author: 
Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841), playwright, illegitimate son of dramatist Charles Dibdin (1745-1814), brother of songwriter Charles Dibdin (1768-1833) [Regency dress; Georgian clothing; fashion]
T.J. Dibdin
Publication details: 
Undated [circa 1802?].
£180.00
T.J. Dibdin

2pp., 4to. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Divided into eight four-line stanzas, each with the same two-line refrain. The first stanza: 'Fashion was formed when the World began, | And Adam I am told was a very smart man, | As for Eve I shall say nothing more or less. | |But that Ladies of Fashion now copy her dress. | Yet barring all pother of this that & tother we all bow to Fashion in turn'. Containing witty references to the fashion for hunting boots and crops, New Bond Street, Tudor and Stuart clothing, Whigs and Tories.

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