DIVORCE

[Sir Henry Taylor's 'peculiarly severe' poem on Caroline Norton.] Autograph Manuscript of untitled poem beginning 'Soft be the voice & friendly that rebukes | The error of thy way'.

Author: 
Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886), poet and dramatist, civil servant at the Colonial Office [Caroline Norton (1808-1877), social reformer and fighter for women's rights]
Publication details: 
Without place or date. [Circa 1847.]
£200.00

2pp, 12mo. On a bifolium of grey laid paper, with fleur-de-lys 'J M & Co' watermark. In good condition, lightly aged, with creases from having been neatly folded three times, and stub adhering to edge of blank second leaf of bifolium. The item derives from the collection of a notable nineteenth-century autograph collector, Lord Houghton, a friend of both Taylor and Norton.

[ Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('Charles W. Dilke'), complimenting 'Bennett' on a speech, and alluding sarcastically to the Marquess of Lansdowne.

Author: 
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet (1843-1911), Radical and Liberal politician, whose career ended in disgrace [ Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice (1845-1927), 5th Marquess of Lansdowne ]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of 76 Sloane Street, S.W. [ London ]. 6 July 1906.
£65.00

1p., 12mo. In fair condition, on aged paper. An amusingly sardonic missive, addressed to 'Dear Bennett'. He was not able to compliment him the previous night on his 'excellent speech', but is 'anxious to know what was the cryptic allusion to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who had experience of arming savages? I do not believe that Fitzmaurice ever did so, unless you intended the German use of the word “savages” for below-the-gangway Radicals?'

[ Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('Charles W. Dilke') to A. E. Skeen

Author: 
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet (1843-1911), Radical and Liberal politician, whose career ended in disgrace
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Pyrford, by Maybury, near Woking. 4 December 1894.
£45.00

1p., 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, wiht crease along one edge. The letter concerns international affairs. Regarding the United Kingdom Dilke writes: 'I think it would be quite proper for us to attempt to effect a reconciliation at any moment when it seems possible that we could be of use, and I fancy that we have made some such offer more than once, possibly along with Russia.' As it happens 'the belligerents have preferred, - which was not unnatural under the circumstances, - to avail themselves of the good offices of the United States'.

[ Frederick Andrew Inderwick, lawyer and antiquary. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('F. A. Inderwick') to

Author: 
F. A. Inderwick [ Frederick Andrew Inderwick ] (1836-1904), divorce lawyer, antiquary and Liberal Party politician
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Winchelsea, Rye, Sussex. 20 September 1894.
£40.00

1p., 8vo. In good condition, lightly aged. He is enclosing a contract, and asks to be sent a copy of 'some work on the antiquities of the Exchequer by Mr Hall'.

[ Printed pamphlet, with introduction by G. W. Foote. ] Marriage and Divorce. An Agnostic's View. By Colonel R. G. Ingersoll.

Author: 
Colonel R. G. Ingersoll [ Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), 'The Great Agnostic' ] [ G. W. Foote, Progressive Publishing Company, London ]
Publication details: 
London: Progressive Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. [ Printed and Published by G. W. Foote, 28 Stonecutter St., London, E.C. ] 1890.
£45.00

15 + [1]pp., 12mo. Disbound without wraps. In good condition, with light signs of age. Last page carries a list of 'Works by Colonel Ingersoll.' Foote's introductory note reads: 'During November and December, 1889, the North American Review printed a number of articles by representative men on the subject of Divorce. The editor framed a series of four questions, which the various writers replied to. Colonel Ingersoll answered them seriatim and fully, without the least evasion and reserve, having a habit, not only of meaning what he says, but of saying what he means.

[William Latey, QC, jurist and journalist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Wim Latey') to Clement King Shorter, regarding petitions for a civil list pension for his mother, the widow of editor John Latey.

Author: 
William Latey (1885-1976), QC, jurist [Clement King Shorter (1857-1926), editor; John Latey (1842-1902), journalist, son of John Lash Latey (1808-1891), editor of the Illustrated London News]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Lloyd's Weekly News, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London. 6 March 1908.
£56.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. A long and detailed letter, beginning: 'The situation is not quite as we thought it. Yesterday I saw Mr. Higgs at Downing Street and he explained to me all the circumstances concerning the consideration of Mrs. Latey's petitions. | The suggestion emanating from him, with the Prime Minister's concurrence, is as follows.' The plan outlined, as Mrs Latey is not eligible for the pension, is for a fund to be established for her, to which 'the Prime Minister would add [...] a sum from Royal Bounty - the whole to be sunk in an annuity for her.

Typed copy, with annotations, of depositions in the case Rex v. Mir Anwaruddin, heard at the Central Criminal Court, 1918, following a libel action against Horatio Bottomley. For 'Director of Public Prosecutions [Sir Charles Willie Mathews]'.

Author: 
[Mir Anwaruddin (b. 1888); Sir Charles Willie Mathews (1850-1920), Director of Public Prosecutions; Horatio Bottomley (1860-1933), proprietor and editor of the magazine John Bull, and fraudster]
Publication details: 
Headed 'Central Criminal Court, 25th June, 1918.' [The trial took place on 2 July 1918.]
£450.00

Folio, [i] + 49 pp. Text clear and complete. A mimeographed typescript, with text and manuscript annotations. Clear and complete, on aged and creased paper. Typed in bottom right-hand corner of covering title: 'Director of Public Prosecutions.' Anwarudding was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1913, and between that year and 1918 his marital difficulties caused him to appear before thirteen different High Court Judges in eight different courts.

Divorce Problems of To-day.

Author: 
E. S. P. Haynes [Edmund Sidney Pollock Haynes (1877-1949); Oriana Huxley Haynes; T. H. Huxley]
Publication details: 
London: Published by The Divorce Law Reform Union, 20, Copthall Avenue, E.C. 1910.
£45.00

8vo, 75 pp. In original green card printed wraps. Disbound. Text clear and complete. On aged paper, and with wear to wraps and damage to spine from disbinding. Dedicated, with no trace of irony, to Haynes' wife Oriana Huxley Haynes, T. H. Huxley's eldest granddaughter.

Two Manuscript Diaries, covering the years 1916 and 1917.

Author: 
Geoffrey Clifford Tyndale [Divorce Law; Legal History; Reading Lists; The Times of London]
Publication details: 
1 January 1916 to 3 January 1918.
£450.00

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.

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