ELEGY

[‘Gray’s Desk on which he wrote the Elegy’: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London auctioneers.] Letters and accounts from Sotheby’s to Mrs Sarah Turpin, relating to the 1915 sale of ‘Letters and Relics’ by Thomas Gray, including priced catalogue entries

Author:

Thomas Gray (1716-1771), poet, author of 'Elegy written in a Country Churchyard' [Mary Antrobus; Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London auctioneers; Sarah Turpin, wife of organist Edmund Hart Turpin]

Publication details:

Eleven items dating from 1914 and 1915. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, Auctioneers, 13 Wellington Street, Strand, London, W.C.

£450.00

A nice collection of ephemera, relating not only to one of England’s best-loved poets, but also to Sotheby’s auction practice during the Great War. The provenance of the Gray letters put up for auction by Mrs Turpin is given in a New York Times article of 27 June 1915 (‘To sell relics of Thomas Gray; many letters by the poet will also be put up at auction at Sotheby's’), which stated in a report on the forthcoming sale that the letters ‘were transmitted to the present owner, Mrs.

Keywords:

[ Richard Bentley the younger. ] Two Autograph Letters Signed to Sir Ambrose Heal, 're Writing Masters' and Buckinghamshire local history. With presentation copy of 'Some Stray Notes upon Slough and Upton collected from Various Sources'.

Author:

Richard Bentley the younger (1854-1936), London publisher and antiquary [ Sir Ambrose Heal (1872-1959) furniture designer and proprietor of a celebrated London store, Heal's of Tottenham Court Road ]

Publication details:

Both letters on letterheads of Upton, Slough, Bucks. 4 May 1927 and 4 June 1928. Book limited to 200 copies: 'Privately Printed | 1892'.

£120.00

All three items are in good condition, lightly aged. Both letters are signed 'Richard Bentley'. ONE (ALS, 4 May 1927): 2pp., landscape 12mo. Annotated by Heal at head of first page: 're Writing Masters'. Begins: 'My dear Sir | I thought you MUST have the mezzo of Tomkins! The private schools being adjacent to that of St. Pauls is hardly accidental? It would seem to imply a connection of duties (though not of schools.) and in former times people lived close to their work. No railways – no omnibuses even then. Stage Coaches, pre-Palmer, also slow'.

Keywords:

ELEGY

[‘Gray’s Desk on which he wrote the Elegy’: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London auctioneers.] Letters and accounts from Sotheby’s to Mrs Sarah Turpin, relating to the 1915 sale of ‘Letters and Relics’ by Thomas Gray, including priced catalogue entries

[ Richard Bentley the younger. ] Two Autograph Letters Signed to Sir Ambrose Heal, 're Writing Masters' and Buckinghamshire local history. With presentation copy of 'Some Stray Notes upon Slough and Upton collected from Various Sources'.

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