ENGLISH

ay is said to have preached nearly a thousand sermons before the age of twenty-one. On 11 x 8.5 cm piece of paper. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, but with patches of sunning. At the head of the page is the order for the books, presumably in Godwin's hand: 'A Volume of Crabbe's Works - to bind / 2 Vols to match it'. Beneath this is Jay's heavily-inked response: 'Will Mr Godwin leave the ordering of the binding till I see him? / Wm Jay'. Scan on application.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 12 x 5 cm piece of paper, cut from letter for an autograph hunter. In good condition, lightly aged. On one side: ‘With much esteem, / Believe me, my dear Sir / Yours ever Sincerely / W Morley Punshon’. On the other side: ‘[...] desire, of every part of the service but the Sermon & while we would not on [...]’ Annotated in pencil: ‘An eminent Wesleyan minister not long dead’. Scan on application.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 10 x 7 cm piece of paper, cut down from letterhead. In good condition, lightly aged, with pin holes at top left. Clearly sent in response to a request for an autograph. Reads: 'Yours very truly / W. W. Jacobs'. See scan

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Signed 'Oliver Lodge' in pencil at foot of 10 x 11 cm piece of paper, in which slits have been made for loose insertion of the cigarette card. The signature is clear and clean, but the paperr and card are spotted, and the paper is worn with border of discoloration made by tape. The caricature is in colour, by Alick P. F. Ritchie. No 38 out of 50 in a series titled 'Straight Line Caricatures', issued by John Player & Sons. Scan on application

Glossy publicity portrait (‘Real Photograph’) on 8.5 x 14 cm post card with publication details on reverse. In good condition, lightly aged. Inscribed diagonally at bottom right: Best wishes / Julie Suedo.’ A black and white head-and-shoulders shot of an Mediterranean-looking Suedo, with curled hair with flower jewellery in it and toothy smile, looking joyfully to her left, with bright necklace and pearl bordered sleeveless gown.

11.5 x 16 cm image on 18 x 12.5 cm card. Signed at foot ‘Herbert Marshall.’ An urbane Marshall is seated, looking over his left shoulder while cradling his hands on his knees, in a grey pin-striped suit, in front of a plain white background. In good condition, but with a horizontal strip of the card trimmed above Marshall’s head. Scan on application.

Glossy black and white publicity photograph on 8.5 x 13 cm postcard, embossed with studio details at bottom right. ‘MISS DOROTHY WARD’ in white print at foot. Autograph inscription across foot: ‘Best wishes / Dorothy Ward / 1926’. In good condition, lightly aged. A head-and-shoulders image of Ward with right shoulder slightly forwards, looking upwards, with a laurel wreath around her head and frizzy short hair, in pearls and a white sleeveless gown. With stamp and Liverpool postmark on reverse, which is addressed to ‘F. J. Clare / 5 Delamere Grove / Leacombe / Wallasey’. Scan on application

Publicity photograph on 8.5 x 13.5 postcard. In good condition, lightly aged, with a tiny piece worn away from bottom left. Inscription diagonally at bottom left: ‘Best wishes / Elizabeth Allan’. A black and white head-and-shoulders portrait of a young Allan, against a white background, with short wavy hair and side parting gazing to her left with beatific smile.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. ONE: Five engravings from the ‘Comic Alphabet’. All about 8 x 12 cm. Uncoloured. Originally part of a long single piece of paper, fan-folded. In good condition, lightly aged. Two laid down on pieces of grey paper (cut from an album).

7.5 x 11.5 cm black and white publicity photograph by ‘ “Philco” London W.C.1.’ Expansive genuine signature ‘Gladys Cooper’ across bottom part of image, in addition to facsimile signature in white at bottom right. In good condition, on postcard with border trimmed. Dark sepia-toned image. A head-and-shoulders portrait, with Cooper staring to her right, with short frizzy hair, in fashionable gown. Scan on application

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. Good bold signature ‘Gracie Fields’, underlined and rising upwards. On 11.5 x 9 cm piece of thin light-grey card. In good condition, lightly aged, but with border of discoloration created by tape, a tiny part of which has encroached on the initial ‘G’ of the signature.

Hale is best-remembered for singing ‘Spread a Little Happiness’ in the musical ‘Mr. Cinders’ (1929), and for strarring in ‘No, No, Nanette’ (1925). 9 x 13 cm postcard, printed in light-brownish grey. In good condition. Nice signature ‘Binnie Hale’ running diagonally across lower right-hand corner. She looks wistfully at the camera, with a Marcel wave and pursed made-up lips. Not among the 32 images of Hale list on the National Portrait Gallery website. Scan on application.

On 14 x 9 cm plain printed postcard, addressed (by the recipient) to ‘Norman Wetton / 7 Claremont Road / Forest Gate / Essex’. On the plain side of the card she writes: ‘With pleasure here is the sign-manual of your’s [sic] faithfully / John Strange Winter. / (Henrietta. E. V. Stannard.) / Aug 24. 1905 -’.

See his entries in the Oxford DNB and History of Parliament. Frank cover, laid out in the customary fashion, on 12.5 x 7 cm panel cut from front of envelope. In fair condition, on lightly aged paper. Usual red frank postmark: ‘FREE / 29JA29 / 1831’. Reads: ‘London January twenty nine 1831 / Willm. Smith Esqr. / at Smith Wright’s Esqr / Kempston / Loughboro Notts / per / R Bernal’. See Image. On reverse, in contemporary hand: ‘R. Bernal. MP for Rochester / Chairman of the Committee / of the House of Commons / on the Reform Bill.’

Bailey’s entry in the Oxford DNB describes the ‘remarkable popularity’ of the second edition of Festus in America: ‘seventeen ‘editions’ of a version pirated in Boston were called for in the first nine years, and it was also reprinted numerous times in Philadelphia, Louisville, and New York. Bailey became something of a 'lion' for visiting Americans of the transcendental stamp’, with Hawthorne visiting in the 1850s. 1p, 8vo. On brittle woodpulp paper, now discoloured with chipping to edges (resulting in loss to the word ‘Festus’ at the head) and with closed tears to the two folds.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, foolscap 8vo. Thirty lines of text. Signed ‘Stan Barstow’. One of a number of letters to Furness by writers, responding to his enquiry about socialist authors and British pubs. Barstow begins by discussing ‘The Fenton in Woodhouse Lane, Leeds’, which had ‘proximity to the BBC, where Alfred Bradley ran the radio drama studio.

See his entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Taylor's in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, and folded once. In worn envelope with Penny Red stamp and postmark, and slight loss around flap. The envelope was no doubt retained because it was addressed by Delaunay to 'Sir Tom Taylor / Lavender Sweet [sic] / Wandsworth'. A neatly laid written and laid out communication, addressed to ‘Cher Monsieur Taylor’ and signed ‘Yours truly / L Delaunay / de la Comedie française’.

See his entry, and that of his father the civil engineer, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On separate letterheads. The recipient is not named and there is no salutation (though the letter is complete). Signed ‘Brassey’. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Begins: ‘I have two maxims for [hourly?] use. / I do the little I can do and leave the rest to thee / What thou livest live well. The rest commit to Heaven / Nor should the last message of the greatest sailor since the world began ever be forgotten / England expects that every man this day will do his duty’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The first letter, and probably the second, were written around the time when his ‘Down the Garden Path’ (1932) and its two sequels had made Nichols wildly popular, eliciting several parodies. ONE (TLS to ‘Mr. Bryon’): 1p, 12mo. Discoloration along top part of outer edge, otherwise in good condition. Folded once. Good clear signature ‘Beverley Nichols’. He thanks him for sending the interview. ‘I think it is admirably written, and expresses my views very clearly.’ TWO (conclusion of TLS): 1p, 12mo. Twenty-nine lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged.

2pp, 16mo. Thirty lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Addressed to ‘My dear Gordon’ and signed ‘love to you all / D.’ The letter concerns the noted ceramic manufacturers Royal Doulton, whose headquarters were at Lambeth in London. Begins: ‘My dear Gordon, / I looked in at Doultons on Tuesday morning on my way down to Corfe Castle & saw “the living skeleton” & Mr Wackrill. He told me that you had been there & taken a tile with you. Which one did you choose?

Betjeman’s daughter Candida Lycett Green, in her edition of her father’s later letters, refers to Moore as the his ‘gentle secretary’, ‘whom he always called “Dorinda,” and who lived on the other side of the street’. She also states that after his stroke in 1981, the poet could no longer sign his name, and dictated letters to Moore. 1p, foolscap 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and creased. Folded once for postage. On his letterhead (‘Sir John Betjeman’ at top left, and address at top right) printed in brown ink on cream paper. Addressed to ‘Mr. Furness’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased, with one short closed tear to an edge. Folded twice for postage. The salutation (‘My dear old “Phil,” ’) and the signature ‘Landon Ronald’ are in autograph, the rest typed. The recipient is ‘Dr. W. J. Phillips, / “Kelvinside,” / Malcolm Road, / Wimbledon, S.W.’ He sends a ‘thousand thanks’ for Phillips’s ‘delightful telegram’. ‘It was indeed good of you to think of us all down here. It was a great night, and one I shall never forget.

See his entry, and those of his father and Cooke, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 16mo. In fair condition, lightly aged, with dab or red wax to one corner, and part of another corner torn away, presumably in breaking open the seal. Folded diagonally for postage. Addressed to 'My dear Mr Cooke' (the recipient's identity is beyond doubt) and signed 'Richd Westmacott'.

Coleridge was the nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. See his entry, and that of Cranworth, in the Oxford DNB. The letter relates to Palmerston’s first ministry. 1p, 16mo (cut down to a 12 x 10 cm piece of wove paper). In fair condition, lightly aged and discoloured, with traces of glue from mount adhering to one edge of blank reverse. Signing himself ‘J. T C’, Coleridge writes: ‘My dear Awdry / I have been with the Chancellor in consequence of the above - & promised to send him a minute in writing - where we have had trouble. Can you help me with your recollection. / In haste.

See his entry, and that of his father, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with neatly-trimmed remnants of a windowpane mount adhering to the edges of the leaf. Folded twice for postage. Addressed to ‘My dear Madam’ and signed ‘R. W:’, followed by odd flourish.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, which describes how she accepted Max Reinhardt's offer ‘to play the Madonna in a mime play, The Miracle. This was first staged in the USA from November 1923 to the following May, and again for the following three autumns and winters. It toured Europe in 1927, and London and the provinces in 1932; the last performance was in January 1933.

Power made his Broadway debut in 1922. The film role for which he is perhaps best remembered is as Gregory Peck's boss in 'Roman Holiday' (1953). A 15 x 12 cm black and white image, printed on 17 x 14 cm matt card. In good condition, lightly aged. A head and shoulders shot of a pensive Power, pipe in mouth, trilby on head, in pin stripe suit jacket with white shirt and tie. At top right, against the plain background, in green ink, Power has written: ‘Best Wishes / Hartley Power.’

See his entry in Grove’s, and Percy A. Scholes’s obituary in the Musical Times, June 1941. 2pp, 12mo. Addressed to ‘Messrs. T. Seeley Clark & Co:’ and signed ‘Stewart Macpherson’. On bifolium of grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. They have led him to understand that he would have a revised proof of his ‘biography for Modern Makers of Music’ in time for the publication of the work in the autumn would be published that autumn, and is writing to remind them that he has ‘not yet received the revise’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The poem, one of Watkins’ best, is printed under the heading ‘VERNON WATKINS | Poet and Goldsmith’ on both sides of a 12mo leaf, paginated 13-14. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased. On the lower part of the second page is a reproduction of an attractive pen drawing of Richmond Bridge by Eleanor Poore. After the end of the poem and above the illustration is Watkins’ assured signature, good and clear: ‘Vernon Watkins’.

See his entry, and that of Bishop King, in the Oxford DNB. For the context of the present item - a chapel ‘built by an ingenious use of a portion of the Old Palace ruins’ - see Randolph and Townroe, ‘The Mind and Work of Bishop King’ (1918), chapter 6: ‘The entire furnishing and decoration of the chapel was undertaken by members of the English Church Union, in response to an appeal made by the President of the Society. The consecration took place in 1888.’ (The Bishop’s letter of thanks to Lord Halifax is quoted.) 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice.