cigars

1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. In envelope with penny red stamp and postmark, addressed to Steggatt at 53 Norwich Street, Cambridge. The letter reads: 'Dear Sir | I regret that I cannot give you an order. I have no doubt of the excellence of the cigars, but I never by any chance smoke a cigar. | Believe me | Yours truly | C S. Calverley'. A nice Cambridge association, given that Calverley's most famous poem is 'Ode to Tobacco', and that it features in Cambridge on a brass plaque on the wall of the former Bacon's tobacconists.

On one side of a piece of landscape 8vo grey wove paper. Clear and complete. Discoloured and worn, with spike hole at centre. Printed part of receipt reads 'London, ..........18..... | 49, Friday Strt. Cheapside. | M............ | Bought of Joseph Webb, | Importer of Cigars.' The bill is for '2lbs. Bengal Cheroots - 9/- | 18/-', with the receipt reading '1852 | Aug 4th. paid [signed] Jo: Webb'. Docketed on reverse 'Webb | 18/'. Webb does not appear to have traded from the site for very long, and little is to be discovered about him.

English actor (1826-81). A tiny studio photograph (an inch by three-quarters of an inch) of Sothern in the role with which he is forever associated, that of Lord Dundreary in Tom Taylor's 'Our American Cousin' (1858). Head and shoulders, looking slightly to the left, sporting a monocle and a raffish look, a centre-parting, moustache, and the sideburns which gave a new word to the English language, "dundrearies". Mounted and glued to a torn sheet of paper also bearing two signatures cut away from letters, the first "E. A. Sothern" and the second "Ted".

One page, 12mo, written in purple ink on grey paper. "My dear Sir / Could you lunch with me at 2. on Tuesday at my rooms in Midland Hotel St. Pancras? / Yrs always / E. A. Sothern". With traces of previous mounting to the reverse.