EDWARDIAN

Reading Cooperative Society Limited came into existence in the 1860s, as ‘Reading Industrial Co-operative Society’. A nice piece of ephemera from the high-tide mark of the co-operative movement. No other copy has been traced. 50 x 68 cm. A striking and attractive production in six columns, printed in red, olive-green and grey-black, and black, with border of raspberry leaves, calendar split between the outer edges. Large illustration of ‘Llandudno and the Great Orme’ beneath the heading ‘Each for all, & all for each.

An attractive and apparently unique item of Victorian municipal typography, in the customary variety of fonts and point sizes. See Roberts’s entry in the Oxford DNB. (What particular connection, if any, he had with Northampton is not apparent.) 44 x 57 cm. A strip has been torn away from the top left-hand corner, resulting in the loss of the first two letters from the heading ‘COUNTY BOROUGH OF NORTHAMPTON’, otherwise in good condition, on lightly-aged and worn paper, with central vertical and horizontal folds.

3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Signed ‘Lauriston . E . Shaw / Dean of the Medical School & Asst Physician to Guy’s Hospital’. Begins: ‘Mr A. K. Matthews M.R.C.S LRCP has been known to me as a student at Guy’s Hospital during the last five years.

From the Macqueen-Pope papers. See both their entries in the Oxford DNB. The four items in good condition, lightly aged and creased, with slight spotting to one corner of Item. Folded for postage. ONE: ALS dated 28 December 1950. 2pp, 12mo. Before sending seasonal greetings she begins: ‘My dear Popie / I returned home to find your wonderful book waiting for me.

From the Macqueen-Pope papers (see his entry in the Oxford DNB). 2pp, 8vo. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, and folded three times for postage. She asks him to send ‘3 or 4 more copies’ of his ‘nice write up in the “Sunday Chronicle” March 13th.’, as she would like to send ‘a copy to Australia, Canada & America, as there is some talk about my going to America in the near future’. She has ‘tried all over Streatham and Brixton and it seems impossible to get a copy anywhere’, and will be happy to pay the cost.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, landscape 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Signed ‘Marie Belloc Lowndes’ and addressed to ‘My dear Mrs Doubleday’. Begins: ‘This is only a line of very very grateful thanks for our delightful stay with you and the Great Effendi!’ They ‘enjoyed every minute’ of their visit, and she wants the recipient to have their ‘London address and telephone no. so that we may meet at once when next you are in England!’ She will write if she has ‘any authentic news as to Lord Grays book’.

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.

A scarce item: the only other copy located is at the Foundling Hospital, London. 30pp, 4to, with a further 7pp of advertisements at the back. Stapled into grey wraps printed in red. A delicate survival, on browing high-acidity paper, in worn wraps chipped around the edges. On the front cover the item is described as ‘Book of Words & Programme for the Rehearsal Day’.At top right-hand corner of the title-page are the pleasing ownership initials of ‘A. G.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged with patch of light sunning. Folded once. The recipient is not named. Reads: ‘Dear Madam / Forgive me for my delay in answering your letter. I have been laid up for a week or two with influenza & my correspondence has suffered in consequence. / And please believe that your words have given us sincere pleasure & that I am / Yours very faithfully / A. T. Quiller-Couch’. The hyphen in the signature is almost imperceptible. See image.

An attractive artefact of a pioneer of women’s rights. See her entry in the Oxford DNB. On 14 x 9 cm post card. In good condition, lightly aged. Addressed by Faithfull, with two stamps and postmarks, to ‘Miss Muriel Lewis / Greyhound Hotel / Carshalton / Surrey’. In neat hand and with good firm signature: ‘1 Campden Grove Kensington / I hope to see you to lunch to-morrow Monday at 1. pm. / Yrs. / L. M. Faithfull’.

3pp, 12mo. On bifolium with mourning border. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Rough pencil floorplan on verso of second leaf. Twenty-eight lines of neatly-written text. Signed ‘Agnes Macdonell.’ She has seen Mrs Blair’s name ‘in the list of subscribers to the Government Benevolent Institution’, and writes a line ‘to beg, if you have not already given your vote and kindly interest to any Candidate - to do this in favour of the poor lady whose card I enclose’ (not present).

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. The recipient, whose name Jacobs gives as ‘D. H. Denselow Esq’, was the commercial artist and autograph hunter Douglas Harold Hellier-Denselow, whose studio was in Gunnersbury, West London. The note reads: ‘Dear Mr. Denselow / I am much obliged for your letter & its accompanying illustration. I shall not follow your example & affix my eye to my autograph / Yours very truly / W. W. Jacobs’.

Weyman was, as his entry in the Oxford DNB states, ‘one of the most popular and skilled of the historical romance novelists of the cloak and dagger school’. Oscar Wilde recommended his novels as reading for convicts. The present item is on an 11 x 9 cm piece of watermarked laid paper. In good condition. A neat attractive two-line inscription for an autograph collector, underlined and sloping upwards. Reads: ‘Stanley J. Weyman | Nov. 2. 1899’. See image.

See his appreciative entry in the Oxford DNB, concluding with praise of his ‘undeniable’ achievements. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with the blank reverse carrying very slight staining to one edge from glue from mount. Folded once. Neatly and firmly written, with the underlined signature with a deliberate upwards slope. Clearly sent in response to a request for an autograph. Reads: ‘ “A man dies but once, a woman twice - the first time when she marries, and then, as at the last, wondering at the thereafter.” / Lady Bountiful. / Act IV. / Arthur W. Pinero. / 23rd. February 1897.’

See her entry and that of Macqueen-Pope in the Oxford DNB. The two items are in fair condition, on aged and lightly-worn paper. Both with the valediction and signature in a large flowing hand, and the second letter also with an autograph postscript. Both are 1p, 4to, and folded three times. ONE (7 July 1952): Addressed to ‘Popie my dear’ and with autograph valediction ‘Yours always / Julia’. She has ‘not been too well for over a year’, and the previous year her ‘stupid heart did foolish things’, and she was ‘ordered to bed for six weeks or more’. She is still ‘not allowed to do too much’.

An excellent letter, in which Caine evaluates his wartime activities, criticises those of others, and gives his opinion of the the standing of the man of letters in the England of his time. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. A long letter: forty-two lines in Caine’s distinctive close hand, with the first two pages on the rectos of the leaves, and the third page written lengthwise on the verso of the first leaf. Signed ‘Hall Caine’ and addressed to ‘My dear Sladen’.

2pp, 12mo. Seventeen lines of text, with a few lines and the signature written lengthwise on the second page. On bifolium. Accompanied by the letter’s stamped and postmarked envelope, addressed by Power to ‘Mrs Lane / 67 Addison Road / W14’. (Note that she lives in the same street.) Both letter and envelope in good condition, lightly aged. Letter folded once. Signed ‘Geo. Power’. He explains that a friend of his, Rev. Eric O. Norman’, ‘who is a fine musician & pianist is trying to get together a small orchestra for a concert on the 24th. May’ and he wonders whether she would ‘care to join’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, landscape 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and with slight creasing to one edge. Folded once. In his view de Winton’s ‘investigation will certainly successfully appease Lord Cross, & avert the indignation of the Northerners. It certainly most satisfactorily justifies your suggestion.’ He ends in the hope that ‘we are now fairly well advanced towards the completion of our Scheme.’

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, and in particular the section headed ‘A great actress’. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Very nice letterhead with engraving of the imposing hotel. In her large, bold hand, the note reads: ‘I have found it! / & am so glad - / Hoping you are much better / Yrs. sincerely / Ellen Terry: / 7 December . 97:’.

Berry was hugely popular during the Edwardian period and into the First World War. His greatest success was as ‘Mr Meebles’ in ‘The Boy’ (1917). See the recipient’s entry in the Oxford DNB. Both letters signed ‘W. H. Berry’, and the second with long postscript on separate 12mo leaf signed ‘W. H. B’. In fair condition, aged and worn. ONE: 30 December 1947. 4pp, 4to. ‘This letter will be quite a “rat-tat from the past” (as Geo. Graves used to say), & its many a long year since I last saw you - & much has happened since “those were the days” & carriages were at 11.

See the entries on the various members of the Tree family in the Dictionary of National Biography. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Thirty-eight lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged, with pin holes to corner. Folded once. Good firm signature ‘Maud Tree’. She does not want her to think that she is ‘losing sight of the Sunday Matinée’. She had to wait for Sir Oswald Stoll’s answer, ‘& it was kind, but it said regretful No’. She then wrote to Sir Alfred Butt ‘for the Palace or the Empire. His answer was also a sad No. - But now Mr. George Grossmith has offered me His Majestys or the Winter Garden.

On 17.5 x 11.5 cm leaf of pink paper, with rounded edges, removed from autograph album. In good condition, lightly aged. Written in a large, expansive hand, diagonally and upwards. Reads: ‘With all / good wishes / Oda Slobodskaya’. See image.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. In good condition, lightly aged. In the following transcript, the parts in Masefield’s autograph are in square brackets, and the first printed sentence (‘I [...] letter.’) has been scored through: ‘PINBURY PARK, / CIRENCESTER. / Dear [Sirs,] / I thank you for you letter. / [I shall be obliged if you will send me No 98 of your list / Du Maurier. Trilby / London, 1895.] / With all good wishes, / Yours sincerely, / John Masefield.’ (Note that this ‘signature’ is printed.) See image.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. On aged and worn paper; folded four times. Signed ‘Clement Shorter’. The letter is headed with Sayers’ Totnes address. He begins by explaining that the Sphere’s ‘Children’s Supplement’ has been abandoned due to ‘the high cost of paper’. Turning to Sayers’ other letter, he thanks him for offering to lend him a copy of Baring Gould’s ‘Strange Survivals’, but that he will obtain his own copy. He ends by thanking him for ‘the various information’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. The valediction reads ‘Yours alway faithfully / Arthur W. Pinero’, and it is written with quite a flourish: the ‘y’ of ‘faithfully’ hooks downwards in a long squiggle, exrending downwards past the right of the termination of Pinero’s signature, which rises upwards, being dotted above and below the signature’s underlining. He feels that her ‘kind letter is all the more welcome inasmuch as it gives signs’ that she is recovering from her recent illness.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On rectangular slip of paper, roughly 11 x 3 cm, cut from the end of a letter. In fair condition, lightly aged, slightly spotted and laid down along one edge on thicker piece of paper. In an elegant calligraphic hand he writes: ‘Believe me / Yours truly / Geo du Maurier / Apr. 26, 83’. The ‘eo’ of the ‘Geo’ of the signature is presented as a stylish squiggle, looking a little like a ‘W’. See image.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, and that of his brothers the architect Leonard Scott Stokes and the inventor of the ‘Stokes Gun’ Sir Wilfred Scott Stokes. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Signed ‘Adrian Stokes’. He has added the word ‘at’ above the letterhead, indicating that the residence is not his (it is in fact the house that his brother Leonard designed for himself).

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient, the educationist Thomas Lloyd Humberstone (1876-1957), was a prominent member of the Convocation of the University of London. Both items in fair condition, on lightly aged paper, the second with slight loss along one edge due to removal from mount. Both signed ‘Simon’. ONE: 17 January 1948. 1p, 12mo. Folded once. ‘I do not for a moment believe that the adverse vote carried at a depleted meeting of the General Committee represents the broad view of the Club [clearly the National Liberal Club] as a whole, but I have to take things as I find them.

1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged, with unobtrusive grease stain stain to one blank corner. Folded twice. Good bold hand with large signature. ‘My dear Miss Atkins - / How very kind of you to return me my old book. It was very valuable to me, & I was wondering where it was - so I am very glad to have it back again. / Hoping we shall meet before long / With kindest regards & many thanks / Yours very sincerely / Ethel Henry Bird.’

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Begins: ‘Dear Curzon, / I have sent, with great pleasure, a fiver to the Literary Fund in honour of your chairmanship; but not [last word underlined] as a successful man of letters.’ He explains that had he been dependant on his books for a livelihood, he would ‘long ago have starved, and, by the Grace of the present Government, I may yet be a burden to the Royal Literary Fund.’ Curzon has minuted the letter at the head of the first page: ‘Hon J Fortescue £5’.