BAKER

[H. Brereton Baker, distinguished English chemist.] Autograph Letter Signed [to Sir Henry Trueman Wood, Secretary of the Royal Society of Arts, London], agreeing to give three Cantor lectures.

Author: 
H. Brereton Baker [Herbert Brereton Baker] (1862-1935), distinguished English inorganic chemist [Sir Henry Trueman Wood (1845-1929), Secretary, Royal Society of Arts, London]
Publication details: 
30 July 1913; on letterhead of Latchmoor House, Gerrard?s Cross, Bucks.
£56.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightl aged. Folded once for postage. The recipient is not named, but the letter has at its head the date stamp of the Royal Society of Arts, London, and is docketed by Wood. Signed ?H. Brereton Baker?. He agrees to give ?the three Cantor lectures as you suggest, provided they can begin after the 3rd. week in February?. He gives the subject as ?Catalysis in its scientific and industrial aspects?. A pencil note at the foot gives dates for the lectures as ?Mch 16, 23, 30?.

[Sir Samuel White, explorer, discoverer of Lake Albert.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Sam W Baker') to 'Mr. Warner' (headmaster of Newton College, Devon), on an attack of gout and his decision to 'resign the Presidentship' (of the College governors).

Author: 
Sir Samuel Baker [Sir Samuel White Baker] (1821-1893), explorer, big game hunter, Ottoman Empire Pasha, Governor-General of Equatorial Nile Basin, discoverer of Lake Albert [Newton College, Devon]
Publication details: 
Sandford Orleigh, Newton Abbot [Devon]. 13 July 1891.
£220.00

3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged, with minor damage at head. Folded once. He begins by requesting with 'much respect' to be excused 'on your great day', and explains: 'I write this from my bed, where I am confined with that delectable complaint the gout, and the moment I can move I must be off somewhere, either to Bath, or Buxton, to go through a regular course -'. He complains: 'This country does not agree with one -; we arrived in England 1 May, and I have already had three attacks of gout. I was seven months absent and was entirely free from it.

[ Robert Baker Girdlestone, Hebrew scholar and first principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. ] Three Autograph Letters Signed (all 'R. B. Girdlestone'), with reference to the biblical scholars Constantin von Tischendorf and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles. ]

Author: 
Robert Baker Girdlestone (1836-1923), Hebrew scholar, first principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and Anglican cleric [ Samuel Prideaux Tregelles; Constantin von Tischendorf ]
Publication details: 
All three on letterheads of the British & Foreign Bible Society, Blackfriars, London. 5 and 7 August 1868, and 10 February 1869.
£100.00

The three items in good condition, on lightly aged paper. All three on bifoliums. ONE (5 August 1868): 2pp., 12mo. He thanks the recipient for his 'lecture', which 'gives a large amount of information in a small space'. If he would care to 'present a copy to our library, I am sure it would be valued highly'. He continues: 'One desideratum is that the libraries in Spain & at Paris should be ransacked in order if possible to find some further light as to the origin of the Rec: [sic]' He concludes: 'You have no doubt got Tischend[orf]:s. Edn. of the Cod. B. wh.

[ Collier Dock, Isle of Dogs. ] Printed 'Report of the Directors to the Proprietors, at their second General Meeting 5th April, 1827.'

Author: 
Collier Dock, Isle of Dogs [ George Byng, Chairman; W. Baker, Acting Secretary; G. Taylor, Printer, London printer ]
Publication details: 
W. Taylor, Acting Secretary, Limehouse, Middlesex, and 5, Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London. [ G. Taylor, Printer, Lamb's Conduit Passage. 1827. ]
£80.00

3pp., 8vo. Bifolium with three pages of text, with title on reverse of second leaf (printed crosswise for folding into packet). In good condition, lightly aged and worn. The first page is headed 'Collier Dock - Isle of Dogs', followed by a list in two columns of the twenty-four directors, and solicitor's details. The 'Meeting of the Proprietors' was held at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, 5 April 1827, and there was only one topic.

[ William Hamilton Gibson, American illustrator and naturalist. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('W Hamilton Gibson') to 'Mr Skinner', thanking him for a notice of a lecture

Author: 
William Hamilton Gibson (1850-1896), American illustrator and naturalist
Publication details: 
On letterhead of 132 Lincoln Place, Brooklyn. 6 March 1894.
£56.00

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. He thanks him for a notice of his lecture which is 'sympathetic and in every way adequate and helpful'. He is accustomed to reviews 'which however kindly and appreciative have nevertheless so woefully manipulated my facts'. He gives as an example his 'good friend Baker of the Union', who 'in the kindliest & most cordial spirit put words in my mouth, statements of scientific fact [...] But it is as you have so often told me. The only way to establish a truth is to pound away at it, iteration and reiteration.'

[ George Baker, connoisseur. ] Part of Autograph Letter Signed ('Geoe. Baker'), to his bookseller, regarding a set off periodicals.

Author: 
George Baker (1747-1811) of St Paul's Churchyard, connoisseur
Publication details: 
'No. 2 St Paul's Ch. Yard'. No year.
£100.00

On 8.5 x 16.5 piece of paper, cut from the conclusion to a letter. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper, laid down on a larger piece. He asks the recipient to 'make these Numbers perfect from the Waste', and gives instructions in case it cannot be done. For more about Baker see his obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, February 1811.

[The Legislative Council of Jamaica, 1855.] Packet of six manuscript documents regarding the rejection by the Council of 49 chairs ordered from Druce & Co. of London, damaged in transit from England.

Author: 
William R. Myers, Secretary, Executive Committee, Legislative Council of Jamaica [Thomson Hankey & Co, merchant bankers, London; Thomas Charles Druce; Druce & Co., upholsterers, Baker St, London]
Publication details: 
Items from the Executive Committee Office, Jamaica, and from Spanish Town, Jamaica, West Indies. All dating from 1855.
£120.00

Packet of six items, held together with a pin. Totalling 8pp., folio; 3pp., 8vo. In good overall condition, on aged and worn paper. ONE: Autograph Letter Signed from 'Wm: R: Myers | Secy' to Messrs Thomson Hankey & Co, London. Executive Committee Office; 26 December 1855. 2pp., folio. Giving details of five documents which he is forwarding, 'on the Chairs received from Messrs. Druce & Co'. He writes that he is 'directed to communicate through you, that the Chairs are not accepted and will not be paid for, but will be kept on the account and risk of Messrs.

[Lauren R. Stevens.] Autograph Letter Signed and Typed Letter Signed (both 'Lauren') to English literary critic A. Alvarez ('Al'), discussing his decision to leave Harvard and his first novel, 'The Double Axe', an inscribed copy of which is included.

Author: 
Lauren R. Stevens (b.1938) [A. Alvarez [Al Alvarez] (b.1929), English literary critic; H. C. Baker [Herschel Clay Baker] (1914-1990), Professor of English Literature at Harvard University]
Publication details: 
TLS: 430 W. Allen's Lane, Philadelphia 19, Pennsylvania. 5 October 1960. ALS: on his (cancelled) letterhead 1717 Cambridge Street, Cambridge 38, Massachusetts. 31 January 1961. Book: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961.
£250.00

TLS: 2pp., 12mo. In good condition. The letter begins: 'Dear Al: | Last Thursday morning, while sitting in a barbar chair, I asked myself a question which a number of people have been asking me recently, namely, What are you doing at Harvard? I couldn't come up with a very satisfactory answer, so I went to a friend's house on Cape Cod for the weekend. Monday I saw the head of the English Department at Harvard, H. C. Baker. He said, "Follow your star," which seemed to me a little romantic, but all the same good advice.

Autograph Letter Signed from J. W. Leach in Australia to his aunt Mrs Baker in Sidcup, England, discussing his return to 'good old Sydney', the 'frightful state' of the country post-War, and the arrival of 'a great number of English Brides'.

Author: 
J. W. Leach of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia [Mrs Baker, Sidcup, Kent, England]
Publication details: 
84 Victoria Street, Potts Point, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. 27 November 1919.
£90.00

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, on aged paper, with small rust hole to second leaf affecting two words of text. He begins in the hope that she is 'quite well & Plenty of Business'. He reports the death of his mother the previous may: 'she only lasted 5 Months after I left her'.

[Printed handbill by the National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools of Great Britain, reproducing a 'Letter from Mr. T. B. Ll. Baker, of Hardwicke Court, Gloucester, to Mr. Wm. Garnett, President of the Association.'

Author: 
[National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools of Great Britain, William Garnett, President; Thomas Barwick Lloyd Baker; Social Science Congress; Hardwicke Reform School]
National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools
Publication details: 
[Printer and publisher not stated.] Transcript of Baker's letter dated 29 April 1884; reply by the President, Manager, and Superintendent of the Association's reply dated 30 April 1884.
£95.00
National Association of Certified Reformatory and Industrial Schools

Folio, 2 pp. Printed on one side of a sheet, folded to make a bifolium, with Baker's letter on the recto of the first leaf, and the Association's statement on it, in the form of a letter to its committee (signed by the president William Garnett; manager Thomas Higgin, and superintendent Richard Gorst), on the verso of the second. Text clear and complete. On aged and worn paper. Baker's letter begins: 'My dear Garnett, | I have just been shewn the circular issued by the Reformatory and Refuge Union to the Managers of Certified Schools, of which you wrote to me, but I cannot understand it.

Autograph Letter Signed to John Baker.

Author: 
Philip Kent, Domestic Agent, British and Foreign Bible Society [John Baker; Miss Marshall of Axminster]
Publication details: 
8 April 1845; 2 West Square, St George's Road, London.
£28.00

12mo, 3 pp. Bifolium. Very good on lightly-aged paper. Giving his 'testimony in contradiction of the Statement made in the document which you read to me in reference to the late Miss Marshall of Axminster being kept by you as her professional adviser with little money at her disposal'. States that 'The general impression in the Town was directly opposed to this statement and that impression was sufficiently sustained by the success attendant upon applications to Miss Marshall for and to benevolent purposes'. Gives examples showing 'she was never in want of money'.

Harvey's improved Weymouth Guide: containing A Description of Weymouth, Portland, Lulworth Castle, and every Place in the Neighbourhood, worthy the Observation of Strangers. Likewise [...] A New Map of Weymouth, [...] beautifully Engraved by Baker.

Author: 
Harvey's Weymouth Guide [Portland; Lulworth Castle; Melcomb Regis; travel guide; Baker; M. Virtue, printer, Dorchester; Dorset]
Publication details: 
[circa 1800] Printed by M. Virtue, Dorchester.
£225.00

The subtitle reads in full: 'A List of the Members of Parliament for the Boroughs of Weymouth and Melcomb Regis, from the earliest Period. A List of Lodging Houses; and A New Map of Weymouth, Including the late Additions and Improvements; beautifully engraved by Baker.' 8vo, [iv] + 91 pp. Errata on last page. The frontispiece 'Plan of Weymouth' folds out to roughly 38 x 26 cm, with the dimensions of the print roughly 26 x 22 cm. Engraved beneath the print: 'J. Ham Delin. Engraved by B. Baker for Harveys New Weymouth Guide'. Unbound and stitched, in original plain wraps.

Archive of thirty-four Autograph Letters Signed and fifty-two Typed Letters Signed, to Baker, with two Autograph Letters Signed from Campion's wife, and drafts of three of Baker letters (two autograph and one typed), exhibition catalogue, etc.

Author: 
Sidney Ronald Campion (1891-1978), O.B.E., F.R.S.A., English sculptor, painter and author [Edward Cecil Baker (1902-), M.B.E., Post Office Librarian [Archivist?]]
Publication details: 
1953 to 1978. 22 Erridge Road, Merton Park, Wimbledon (until 1971); 13 Argyle Court, Argyle Road, Southport (from 1972).
£250.00

The archive is in very good condition, with very slight creasing and aging, and with all items entirely legible. Most items quarto, and most of two pages or more (one running to seven pages). One letter has the head and first paragraph cut away. All but the first two items, which date from 1953 and are signed 'Sidney R Campion', are signed 'Sidney'. The bulk of the correspondence dates from the 1970s. An important archive consisting almost exclusively of long, interesting and discursive letters addressed to a close and trusted friend.

Two Christmas keepsakes: 'Literary Characters', with drawings by Edwin Baker; and 'Imaginary Conversations', with cover design by Hans Tisdall.

Author: 
Jonathan Cape Limited, London publishers [Edwin Baker; Hans Tisdall; Alden Press, Oxford]
Publication details: 
Literary Characters': 1954, 'Printed in the City of Oxford at the Alden Press on paper mould-made supplied by Spalding & Hodge Ltd.' 'Imaginary Conversations', 1956, 'Printed in Great Britain in the City of Oxford at the Alden Press'.
£50.00

Literary Characters'. 12mo (leaf dimensions roughly 18 x 12.5 cm): 32 pp. Stitched with brown thread. Fore-edge and top-edge rough. Unbound as issued. Very good. Cartoon in red ink of man seated at typewriter on front cover, and another, in black ink, of a hatted-figure skulking away with a walking stick held behind his back on back cover. Initial note, with publisher's colophon, on p.2: 'This series of Literary Characters appeared in Now & Then numbers 77-87 and is here reprinted by Jonathan Cape Limited for their friends | Christmas 1954'.

Offprint entitled 'Two Remarkable Letters to Lord Beaconsfield on Trade and Peace.' ['Lord Beaconsfield and Trade' by 'JEW', and 'Lord Beaconsfield and Peace' by 'RABBI'.]

Author: 
[?] Baker; the Bolton Guardian [Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield; William Ewart Gladstone; Victorian anti-semitism; nineteenth-century judaism]
Publication details: 
Undated. 'Reprinted from The Bolton Guardian.'
£150.00

In three columns of small type on one side of a piece of unwatermarked wove paper, dimensions 39.5 x 29 cm. Text clear and complete, on aged and lightly creased paper. Four short closed tears at the extremities of folds. An unusual production, docketed in pencil in a contemporary hand at the head: 'These letters were written by Baker, Consul out in the Principalities & a great protege of Gladstone'. Begins 'We have been favoured with a copy of a remarkable letter addressed to the Premier by an old friend of his father's.

Portrait photograph by Walter Baker of Birmingham and copy of his book 'Practical Conjuring.'

Author: 
James Carl (J. A. Wakefield, 1875-1955), 'the Derby Conjuror, Member of the Magic Circle, London', 'Society Magician'
Publication details: 
The book published in Derby by E. J. Furniss, 15, Exeter Street, in 1911.
£100.00

The studio photograph, with printed label of 'Walter Baker, 159, Mosely Road, Birmingham. Highgate Studios.' on reverse, and the manuscript number '24704 | 98'. is a good clear head and shoulders portrait (dimensions roughly three and a half inches by two and a quarter wide), in very good condition. Although untitled, it seems to be Carl, as represented on the title-page of his book, without the moustache and a little younger. The book is twenty-eight pages, octavo, in original coloured printed boards. Numerous line drawings.

Note in a secretarial hand Signed to Sir H[enry]. T[rueman]. Wood, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts, together with compliments slip.

Author: 
Sir Benjamin Baker
Publication details: 
The letter, 11 June 1901; the compliments slip 17 June 1901; both on letterhead '2, Queen Square Place, | Queen Anne's Mansions, Westminster, S.W.'
£26.00

English civil engineer (1840-1907), who built the Forth Rail Bridge and worked on the Metropolitan and District Railways of the London Underground. Both items one page, octavo, on grey paper. Both in good condition, stamped and docketed. The note, signed 'B. Baker', reads 'I am sorry to say the Glasgow University Jubilee will prevent me and I have no doubt others from beingn at Marlborough House on the 14th.' The slip reads 'With Sir Benjamin Baker's Compliments.'

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