BUBBLE

This collection of 113 items, dating from the middle of the eighteenth century, relates to a notable London landmark. Until the end of the nineteenth century the Old South Sea House, headquarters of the South Sea Company (Company of Merchants Trading to the South Seas and other Parts of America), stood on the corner of Threadneedle Street and Bishopsgate Street. A young Charles Lamb worked here for nearly six months in 1792, and wrote the first of the ‘Essays of Elia’ about the place.

1p., 8vo. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Reads: 'Westminster Feb. 18. 1711/12. | Sr | I desire you will buy and accept five Hundred Pounds Stock in the Capitall Stock of the Company of Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas for my Account and in my name; which will oblige | Sr | Yor. Affect. Brother & Servt | Ofsp. Exon'. Annotated in a nineteenth-century hand at bottom-left: 'Dr Ofspring Blackall.' At the time of writing the South Sea Company had only just been created. It would collapse spectacularly in 1720.

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. The letter begins: 'Want of health induced me to retire from Parliament in opposition to the wishes of my kind constituents and hurrying me from Town as soon as my votes had been given for the Liberal candidates at the Kent Surrey Essex and Middlesex Elections - unavoidably deprived me of the interesting though mournful pleasure of attending your final lecture at Finsbury Chapel.

Folio pamphlet: 8 pp. In brown wraps with 'TO MR. LAW. BY ALLAN RAMSAY.' on the front wrap and the publication details on its reverse. On aged and lightly-creased paper, in worn, creased wraps. Nicely printed, with the long s, at the University Press. Originally published anonymously in 1720. Facsimile of title ('EDINBURGH: Printed for the AUTHOR at the Mercury, opposite to Niddrey's-Wynd, MDCCXX.'). A scarce (unattributed) Oxford University Press item: of the thirty copies COPAC lists four: at the British Library, Oxford, Cambridge and the National Library of Scotland.

On piece of paper roughly 3.5 x 5.5 cm. Good firm signature, on lightly discoloured paper. Reads '<...> date hereof. | [signed] J. Aislabie'. Lightly docketed in pencil 'of South Sea notoriety'.