DIARY

An opponent of appeasement and Winston Churchill's closest female friend. See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, folded twice for postage. Addressed to ‘Mr. Seyers’ and signed ‘Violet Bonham Carter’. She regrets that she is unable to accept his invitation to ‘come to Monmouth in November - as my plans are very uncertain - it is just possible I might be abroad then. / It is so good of the Monmouth Town [bench?] to invite me’. She ends by asking him to thank them for ‘their kind offers of hospitality’.

See his entry, and that of his brother, in the Oxford DNB. On one side of a 14 x 9 cm printed postcard. No stamp or address, the side that should carry them being blank. The other side carries an illustration of a British soldier in khaki firging a cannon behind a wall, as another soldier stands to attention beside a nearby flagpole, from which a large Union Jack flies, pited in red and blue. At the head of the saide is a snatch of musical notation, to the words ‘Under the British Flag well fight our way to glory’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. On post card with red stamp printed on it, addressed to ‘Martin Bretherton Esq. / Wakefield / Mortimer / Berks.’ The message reads: ‘How brilliant [last word underlined] of you to have found Willow Brook! Please bring it to Whitchall at all costs, & let me see it. I never have. / E. M. D. / 15. 1. 43.’

See his entries in the Oxford DNB (where his edition of Pepys is described as ‘an amateurish travesty’ of the transcript) and the History of Parliament. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and folded twice. Good neat signature: ‘Braybrooke’. The recipient is not named, but the name of the editor of the work mentioned by Braybrooke is given as 'C.

See Greville’s entry in the Oxford DNB, and Douglas’s in the History of Parliament, which explains the context: ‘Gambling losses, largely accruing from his turf accounting activities at Newmarket - Douglas laid the blame on ‘Peel and Huskisson ... tampering with the currency’, problems raising capital from his property and ‘keeping too large establishment of servants’ - had reduced his fortune’. 4pp, 4to. Bifolium. 44 lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged, with negligible remains of windowpane mount neatly adhering to reverse of second leaf. Folded three times for postage.

See Fry’s entry by Michael Billington in the Dictonary of National Biography. His brother survives as a rather shadowy figure: he was certainly alive in 1978, when Fry referred to him in the account of his family background ‘Can You Find Me / A Family History’ (OUP). In that volume Fry describes his ‘brother Leslie’ as a baby ‘growing sturdily’, noting that ‘though he was later called by his first name Charles, he was Leslie for many years to come’.

Tritton was educated at Winchester College, and in later life held the office of High Sheriff of Essex. He served as War Office Publicity Officer between 1940 and 1945 (the first civilian to hold the post). The present items exhibit the candour and evocative immediacy for which his wartime diaries were praised on their publication in 2012. Two long letters to 'Darling', both 2pp, 4to. Both in good condition, lightly aged, and folded twice. ONE (signed 'R.'): Thirty-eight lines of text. He is writing her a second letter of the day, prompted by boredom and the want of something else to do'.

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.

The present item is the producer Hugh Burnett's own copy of the transcript of John Freeman's interview of Cecil Beaton, broadcast in the BBC series 'Face to Face' on 18 February 1962. Duplicated typescript. 4pp, foolscap 8vo. Numbered, and headed 'CECIL BEATON', otherwise consisting entirely of the transcript, with no other details. Aged and worn, with punch holes for binder. On four leaves which were originally stapled together, but with the first and last leaves now detached. Page references 1-10 (presumably to a shorthand transcript) in the outer margin.

On one side of 14 x 2 cm slip of paper, cut from the flyleaf of a book. Aged and with contemporary blotting to one corner. The slip is neatly placed in a paper windowpane mount. Reads: 'Catalogo Evelyni inscriptus. | Meliora Retinete' Two shelfmarks deleted: 'N. 16' and 'J: 231'. A good brief description of Evelyn's book collecting is given in his entry in the Oxford DNB. As there are four catalogues of his books, identifying the work to which the two present shelfmarks are assigned should not present any difficulty.

The Greville Memoirs caused an uproar on its publication in 1874. Queen Victoria described it as a 'dreadful and really scandalous book' which should be 'severely censored and discredited'. Disraeli characterised its author as 'the vainest being—I don't limit myself to man—that ever existed; and I don't forget Cicero and Lytton Bulwer […] when he was not scandalous, he was prolix and prosy—a clumsy, wordy writer […] a more verbose, indefinite, unwieldy affair, without a happy expression, never issued from the pen of a fagged subordinate of the daily press'.

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. The letter concerns two missing postal orders, regarding which Munby reports that he has made enquiries with 'the Ripley postmaster'. He discusses the question, giving the numbers of the postal orders, and writes: 'The postmaster tells me that, as the Orders were crossed, the G. P. O. will (unless by any chance the Orders have been cashed) repay the £1. 4.

Typed transcript of 21pp., landscape 8vo, followed by six 9.5 x 12 cm. black and white photographs, captioned in pencil and detachable, with the seventh photograph on the front cover. In card landscape 8vo album with green cloth spine. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, except for the cover photograph which is heavily worn. In pencil at front: '1850 | Notes made by Anne Rolleston on a visit to her brother Robert Rolleston, Curate at Rydal.' The location of the original diary is unclear, and there is no record of its having been published. The first entry sets the tone: 'Thursday, Oct.

1p., 12mo. In good condition, on lighthly-aged paper. Reads: 'Dear Sir | I beg to enclose a cheque for the Sum of £10 . 10 . and shall feel obliged by yr returning to me a Receipt for the same | I remain | Yours truly | Braybrooke'. In another hand at top right: 'Answd'.

Wrench was the son of a clergyman, and well educated and well connected (being presented to the Prince of Wales and staying at Chatsworth in his old age). His obituary in the British Medical Journal (27 April 1912), describes how, after service in the Crimea, 'he was transferred to the 4th Lancers, went to Madras with that regiment in the following month, and served with it during the whole of the Indian Mutiny. For his services in India he received the Indian medal and clasp for Central India. He returned to England in 1860, and married in 1861 his cousin, the daughter of Mr.

Wrench was the son of a clergyman, and well connected, being presented to the Prince of Wales and staying at Chatsworth in his old age. His obituary in the British Medical Journal (27 April 1812), describes how he went out to the Crimea in 1854. 'He had been gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 34th Regiment in November, and joined it on its arrival in the Crimea. He served during the terrible winter of that year, and was present at the capture of the quarries, the successful assault on the Redan of June 18th, and the final capture of Sebastopol on September 8th, 1855.

48pp., 12mo. In illustrated coloured printed wraps, with the front cover showing a farmyard scene, and the back cover carrying a portrait of 'H.R.H. the Prince of Wales | President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1886. | President of Indian and Colonial Exhibition, 1886.' The double-page chromolithograph, between pp.16 and 17, is titled '"Since we were boys together." From a painting by A. W. Holden', and shows two eighteenth-century gentlemen, seated at a table, drinking and reminiscing.

48pp., 12mo. In illustrated coloured printed wraps. In good condition for an ephemeral item: lightly aged and worn, with slight damage to back cover and spine of wraps. The Kronheim prints are in very good condition, and consist of the frontispiece 'From the Frying-pan' (a boy caught on a wall while trying to steal apples) and 'Into the Fire' (the same boy being dragged by the ear through the orchard by the farmer).

64pp., 12mo. In illustrated coloured printed wraps, with the front cover showing a selection of well-fed farmyard animals on a green in front of what looks like Windsor Castle. With three plates printed in brown: '"Sport Provided"' (boy hiding under bridge tampering with maid's fishing line), 'An Old Offender' by G. E. Robertson (double page, man in eighteenth-century dress shaking his fist at a donkey in a pound) and '"The Omnibus Driver's Story"' (omnibus driver and four passengers). In good condition, lightly aged and worn, with slight staining to back cover.

The autograph matter within the volume covers 206pp., 4to, with a further 14pp carrying newspaper articles and printed ephemera. In fair condition on aged paper, with some leaves loose, in damaged and worn quarter-binding with marbled boards and leather spine. Large armorial bookplate of Thomas William Pixley laid down on front board. Captain Thomas William Pixley (1819-1891) of Hill Lodge, Freshwater, Isle of Wight, commanded the 850-ton merchantman Essex (belonging to Messrs.

43pp., 12mo. Closely written in a ruled black cloth notebook, titled on first page 'CHILDREN'S BOOK'. Internally in good condition, on lightly-aged paper; torn scraps of paper adhering to the waxed cloth covers. Containing such information as date and time of birth, weight of child, name of doctor and 'nurse-housemaid', teething ('R. J.s first eye-tooth'), first walk, first words ('R. J. said ("I'm a pe-pe" - this probably only imitation; since called himself Baby).

219pp., 4to. Good, on lightly-aged paper, in worn red-cloth binding. Closely and neatly written in a ruled exercise book, with frank and detailed entries throughout providing much information relating to the day-to-day life of women of the rural middle-classes ('country families') in wartime England. A few items including newspaper cuttings loosely inserted. Like her husband, Mrs Stopford came from a military family (her father was Captain G.

Manuscript diary of the purser of the Royal Navy Armoured Cruiser HMS Cornwall, describing Mediterranean and Baltic tours of duty (while Captain W. R. Hall was spying for Britain), with descriptions of golf and other sports and recreations. 'Letts's No. 46 Indian and Colonial Rough Diary Giving Half a Page a Day. 1909'. 12mo, 161pp. Good, on aged paper, in worn boards. Diary proper consists of 210pp., with entries on three-quarters (159pp.) of them (few entries for periods of leave), preceded by two pages with lists of family birthdays and of books read.

3 pp, 4to. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with minor traces of stub adhering to the blank reverse of second leaf. The year 1832 has been added in pencil in a contemporary hand. The letter is on paper watermarked 1831. Docketed at head 'Braybrooke Ld.' He begins by informing Henslow that Lord Grenville has lent him 'the Book in which his Notes upon the growth of Trees, during many years, had been made. He assures me that nothing worth your notice will be found among the MS remarks, but I am not of that opinion.

First Dublin edition. 12mo, xiv + 346 pp. Good tight copy on lightly-aged paper. In original worn tree calf binding, with remains of red label gilt on spine and no free endpapers. Subtitled 'Now first published from his Lordship's original manuscripts. By Henry Penruddocke Wyndham.' Wyndham had inherited Dodington's papers from a relative, whose will requested him 'not to print or publish any of them, but those that are proper to be made publick, and such only, as may, in some degree, do honour to his memory'.

4to, 166 pp. In ruled 'University Exercise Book'. Text clear and complete. On lightly aged paper, tight, in shaky binding with worn boards. The identity of the diarist is unclear. Her husband is named 'Berten', and their are references to 'Minie' (daughter?) and 'Kate' (South African sister-in-law?). A loosely air mail letter may provide a clue to the identity of the diary's author. Dated 30 April 1962, it is written by P. J. Duncan of Newlands to Miss Ruth Ince-Jones (diarist's daughter) of Geneva, Switzerland.

Two 8vo diaries, by Charles Letts, the first 'improved' and the second 'self-opening'. Both in heavily worn covers, lacking spines, but internally clean, on aged paper, and with the text entirely legible. Both diaries end with a brief set of accounts. The diaries are filled with details of the life of a young English lawyer in London during the Great War, including references to the many legal cases in which he was involved.