AUTHORS

[Cecil Day-Lewis, poet laureate; Nicholas Blake.] Autograph Card Signed to D. Kilham Roberts, casting his vote for Osbert Sitwell as the next chairman of the Society of Authors.

Author: 
Cecil Day-Lewis [C. Day-Lewis] (1904-1972), Anglo-Irish poet and British Poet Laureate who wrote crime fiction under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake [D. Kilham Roberts, Society of Authors, London]
Publication details: 
9 August 1944. Letterhead of ORION, 26 Manchester Square, London, W.1. (with address cancelled)
£50.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. An unillustrated post card, apart from the letterhead. Addressed, with stamp and Paddington postmark, to ‘Dr William Roberts / Briarlea / Mortimer / Berks.’ The message reads: ‘I vote for Osbert S. [i.e. Osbert Sitwell] as next chairman Soc. Authors [etc?] / Yrs / C. Day Lewis’. Image on request.

[ Bookseller's catalogue. ] Literary Ladies of the Nineteenth Century. A Catalogue of Books: Autograph Letters: Illustrations: etc.

Author: 
Ian Hodgkins & Co. Ltd, booksellers [ English nineteenth-century women writers; British Victorian female authors ]
Publication details: 
Ian Hodgkins & Co. Ltd., Upper Vatch Mill, The Vatch, Slad, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL6 7JY. Catalogue 81. Summer 1995.
£56.00

40pp., 8vo. Stapled in printed wraps with illustration on front cover. In fair condition, somewhat aged and worn. Hodgkin was known for his meticulous catalouging, and 500 items are described, by a range of authors, both prominent and obscure, ranging from Grace Aguilar to Mrs Mary Wood-Allen. There are sub-sections for Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Fanny Burney, Jane Welsh Carlyle, Eliza Cook, Marie Corelli, Maria S. Cummins, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, Maria Edgeworth, George Elliot, Mrs.

[ Strawberry Hill Press. ] Engraving ('C. Grignion sculp.') depicting 'Earl Rivers presenting his Book & Caxton his Print to Edw. 4'.

Author: 
Charles Grignion the elder (1721-1810), Huguenot engraver [ William Caxton, English printer; Horace Walpole; the Strawberry Hill Press ]
Publication details: 
Frontispiece to Horace Walpole's 'Royal and Noble Authors', published by the Strawberry Hill Press, 1758 [ 1759 ].
£45.00

Printed in black ink on one side of a piece of 18 x 11 cm piece of laid paper. Dimensions of image 15.5 x 10 cm. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The image forms the upper part of the engraving, within a decorative border, with the caption, covering eleven lines, as the lower part, within its own lapidary border. The image is, as the caption explains, from 'a curious M.S. in the Archbishop's Library at Lambeth'.

[Harriet Maria Gordon Smythies, Victorian novelist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('H. M. Gordon Smythies'] to a male correspondent, regarding the London publishers Darton and Company and the sale of her copyrights.

Author: 
Harriet Maria Gordon Smythies (d.1883), Victorian novelist [Darton & Company, London booksellers]
Publication details: 
108 Stanley Street, Pimlico. 12 September 1862.
£56.00

2pp., 12mo. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. 'It has just struck me that I ought to have let you know that Mr. Hodge went from the bargain he had himself proposed'. She thinks that 'Mr Darton feared to make any purchase, in these bad times - I have some hopes of selling the Copyrights

and I will let you know directly I find I can do so.' Darton's had published Smythies's books 'The Breach of Promise' and 'The Marrying Man'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Laman Blanchard') from the dramatist E. L. Blanchard [Edward Litt Laman Blanchard] to 'Carpenter'.

Author: 
E. L. Blanchard [Edward Litt Laman Blanchard] (1820-1889), English dramatist, writer of numerous pantomimes for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£90.00

2pp., 12mo. Good, on aged paper. He writes to decline Carpenter's 'flattering' offer: 'I now find my acceptance of an office in your Society though purely honorary, would be apt to be misinterpreted [...] I have another reason - that I am taking some part in endeavouring to form a great Author's Society of another kind, and it would look rather <?> and impudent to be playing the fiddle in all parts of the orchestra.'

Autograph Letter Signed ('E. Lynn Linton') from the author Eliza Lynn Linton to an unnamed editor or publisher, calling for 'a brilliant critical notice of Massinger's works', and suggesting that W. E. Henley write it.

Author: 
Eliza Lynn Linton [Elizabeth Lynn Linton] (1822-1898), author [W. E. Henley [William Ernest Henley] (1849-1903)]
Publication details: 
Rodney House, Littleston [Littlestone] on Sea, Kent, on letterhead of Queen Anne's Mansions, St. James's Park; 27 March [no year].
£65.00

2pp., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper. She hopes that she may, 'without being needlessly intrusive', suggest that 'someone, well up on the Elizabethan dramatists, should write a brilliant critical notice of Massinger's works'. She thinks that it would be 'a means of advertisement of great value' if the recipient could 'find the writer & the vehicle'. She suggests 'W. G. Henley of the New Review', who 'has all the literature of that time, & before, at his fingers ends.

Autograph Letter Signed ('E. Lynn Linton') from the author Eliza Lynn Linton to her young friend 'Dearest little Alice'

Author: 
Eliza Lynn Linton [Elizabeth Lynn Linton] (1822-1898), author and opponent of women's suffrage.
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Whittington Hall, Carnforth, 'c/o the Countess Ossalinsky | Musgrave Hall | Penrith'; 7 September [1882].
£56.00

4pp., 12mo. Fair, on lightly-aged paper with slight discoloration to inner margins from previous mounting. She thanks Alice for her 'sweet letter', and declares that she has had 'a very very pleasant visit here. I like my friends here extremely. They are my sort for all that they are strong conservatives, and they are so simple, so homely, so gentle, & I get on with them as well as - what shall I say? . as well as with you!

Typed Letter Signed from J. B. Priestley to E. M. Forster, accusing him of being 'in the wrong' regarding a Society of Authors questionnaire on National Service. With Autograph Copy and Typed Copy by Forster of letters by him to the Society.

Author: 
J. B. Priestley [E. M. Forster; Denys Kilham Roberts (1903-1976), of the Society of Authors]
Publication details: 
Priestley's letter to Forster: 3 The Grove, Highgate Village, London; 25 May 1939.
£220.00

Forster's main objection is that the National Service questionnaire, sent out by the Society of Authors 'at the suggestion of the Ministry of Labour', asks members to 'give general particulars of their political opinions' (see Hansard, 25 May 1939). Four items. ONE. Priestley's letter, addressed to 'My dear Forster' by 'J. B. Priestley'. 1 p, 4to. Twenty lines. Fair, on aged paper.

Autograph Letter Signed and Typed Letter Signed (both 'Geo. R. Sims') from the journalist and playwright George R. Sims to Lillie Ross-Clyne of Manchester.

Author: 
George R. Sims [George Ross Sims] (1847-1922), journalist, dramatist, novelist and poet [Lillie Ross-Clyne]
George R. Sims [George Ross Sims]
Publication details: 
Autograph Letter: 27 September 1911. Typed Letter: 12 February 1915. Both on letterhead of 12 Clarence Terrace, Regent's Park, London.
£56.00
George R. Sims [George Ross Sims]

Both 4to, 1 p. Texts clear and complete. Both on aged and worn paper. Autograph Letter: He apologises for not acknowledging her letter ('I have been so busy and away a great deal') and regrets that he does not 'for the moment remember anything which would be of service to you'. Typed Letter: He regrets that 'the present is rather a bad time for what we call the free lance in literature'. He is not himself 'very much in Fleet Street and the neighbourhood', the 'bulk' of his work being done 'far from the madding crowd'.

[Pamphlets; part issues] The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham, pt I & II (of 12)

Author: 
George Markham Tweddell, author of Shakspear: His Times and Contemporaries
The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham
Publication details: 
Stokesley: Published by the Author, 1864 (later published by John Russell Smith)..
£56.00
The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham

Parts I & II (of 12 = Series 1), pp.40[6 advts]; 76[6 advts], original blue wraps, frayed and spotted, one wrap dulled, one corner of pages turned, pencil annotation on front covers (inc. library no.), library stamps (withdrawn from Newcastle University Library),

Signature, John A. Hobson, added to printed circular promoting Gilbert Murray's candidacy as Burgess of the University [Oxford]

Author: 
J.A. Hobson [John Atkinson Hobson] (1858-1940), economist
Signature, John A. Hobson
Publication details: 
[Oxford, 1929].
£65.00
Signature, John A. Hobson

Three pages, 4to, bifolium, not bound, very good condition. Election to Burgess apparently means being the MP to represent the University at that time, apparently elected by some sort of proportional representation. In the circular, Murray's achievements, alignments, principles, and views (Liberal) are summarised (including how dangerous a continuance of the Conservative Government would be, listing their failures). Advice on voting is given, bearing in mind PR system.

Autograph Letter Signed ('J. Ashby-Sterry') to 'Mary H. Tennyson' [pseudonym of Mary H. Folkard], 6 Saint George's Square, Regent's Park, N.W.

Author: 
Joseph Ashby-Sterry (1836-1917), English novelist, poet, journalist and painter ['Mary H. Tennyson', i.e. Mary H. Folkard]
Publication details: 
17 June 1904; on letterhead 8 Saint Martin's Place, Trafalgar Square, W.C. [London].
£28.00

Two pages, 16mo. Very good. Twenty-two lines, attractively written in purple ink beneath a letterhead printed in bright red. With postmarked envelope, addressed in autograph and carrying a penny stamp. He thanks her for sending him a copy of her book 'The Luck of John Seaton'. 'It reached me down in the country where, strange to say, I was already half way through it. I bought it at the railway station & had not arrived at the name of the author, when I received your letter. They ought to always put the name on the cover.' He enjoyed the story 'from beginning to end'.

My friend Henry Miller.

Author: 
Alfred Perles
Publication details: 
London: Neville Spearman, 1955.
£120.00

8vo. Pages: xi + 242. 11 plates. Good, despite one bump at head of back board. Dustwrapper good, despite fraying at head and tail of spine and show-through sellotape discolouration . Dustjacket discoloration to free endpapers. Neat inscription, presumably by Perles, in green ink on front free endpaper 'To | Jack Mitchell | from Alfred Perles | & | Henry Miller | London March, 56.'

Autograph Signature on fragment of letter.

Author: 
Edna Lyall (Ada Ellen Bayly)
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£18.00

English novelist (1857-1903). Paper dimensions roughly four and a quarter inches by two and a quarter inches. Very good, but grubby and with a few light glue stains. From autograph album and mounted on larger piece of light blue paper. Reads '[...] | it will save confidencce. | In gt. haste | Yrs. truly | A. E. Bayly.' Docketed '(Edna Lyall)' in pencil beneath signature.

Autograph Signature on fragment of letter.

Author: 
George Payne Rainsford James [G.P.R. James]
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£20.00

English novelist (1799-1860). On fragment of paper approximately 4 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. In poor condition: creased and discoloured from previous mounting. Reads 'Your most faithful Servant, | G. P. R James'. Docketed on reverse 'March | - | Ap 28 | a 2 May'.

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