CUTTINGS

Fifteen items. On heavily aged paper. All but two clear and complete, but a few items in pieces. Titles include 'Descent or Ascent? Monkey Trial in America' (and two others on the same subject), 'An Epoch Man. Darwin and his work.', 'Darwin's Centenary Celebration' (and others on the same subject), and 'Darwin. (By H. N. Brailsford.)'.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, which carries a quotation pointing out her ‘unerring sense of admiration for herself’. What the present collection of well over a thousand cuttings assembled by her from newspapers and magazines appears to indicate is that the admiration was to a certain extent also felt by the general public; and taken as a whole the collection serves as a memorial to a once-celebrated English public figure, a woman making her mark on society in the age of suffrage. The first volume (1887-1899) is 117pp, folio: firm and tight in brown leather half binding.

Three items, including two substantial albums containing in excess of 500 newspaper cuttings. The first album was commenced in 1906 by Pepys scholar Walter Henry Whitear, and completed by Chappell after Whitear's death in 1932, the last cuttings in it dating from the following year.

Gilruth was the author of seven crime novels: 'Sweet Revenge' (1951), 'Death in Ambush' (1952), 'Postscript to Penelope' (1954), 'A Corpse for Charybdis' (1956), 'To this Favour' (1957), 'Drown Her Remembrance' (1961) and 'The Snake is Living Yet' (1963). The material in this collection is in good overall condition, lightly aged and worn. Most of the material is laid down on 41pp. of a 25 x 38 cm. album (ownership signature on front pastedown), with press cuttings of reviews grouped around the cut-down dustwrappers of the first six of Gilruth's books.

In a 28 x 22 cm album, with 'PREMIER PRESS SERVICE' label on cover, also carrying 'PERCY NASH, Esq' in manuscript. Cuttings and album in fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Of the 55 cuttings, 28 are laid down in the album, with the other 27 loosely inserted, some of the latter backed with card, and others with labels of Durrant's and other cuttings agencies. Publications include: Star; South Wales Echo; Era; Stage; Glasgow Citizen; Nottinghamshire Guardian; Yarmouth Independent; Bioscope; Evening News; Sunday Express; Aberdeen Evening Gazette; Daily Telegraph; Kinematograph Weekly.

An interesting collection, casting light on media attitudes to the British Royal family and news management in the interwar years. Dawson was clearly mindful of publicity. As his entry in the Oxford DNB explains: 'It was Dawson who composed on a menu card the celebrated lines, ‘the King's life is moving peacefully towards its close’, having modified this from what he described as "a very commonplace" final bulletin used for Edward VII.' Penn's attendance during the King's final illness was controversial: it was later revealed that he hastened his end with morphine and cocaine.

Several hundred images (most illustrations rather than photographs and most in colour), many carefully cut out, all laid down on 68pp. in an album made up from a ruled exercise book roughly 20 x 16 cm, including three fold-outs (the first, beneath a decorative flap that reads 'Birds Unfeathered | Worth A Bit Of Study', carrying eight 1930s illustrations women in underwear). The album has been attractively customised with printed illustrations of motor racing over board covers.

Quarto (leaf dimensions roughly 19.5 x 15.5 cm). Ruled with twenty-eight lines to the page. Written in a close, neat hand, covering the first ninety-one pages of the notebook. Loosely inserted are twelve pages containing a further thirty stories, on three bifoliums each headed 'Anecdotes &c'. In black-leather half-binding, marbled boards. Good and tight, with text clear and complete on lightly aged paper. Calligraphic design printed on front free endpaper. A charming collection, casting amusing and entertaining light on nineteenth-century English social history.