SISTERS

[Charlotte Bronte ‘did not always tell the truth’ and guilty of ‘deceit’.] Copy of Typed Letter to E. F. Benson [from her editor John Alexander Symington], criticising her, with reference to C. W. Hatfield and T. J. Wise.

Author: 
[Charlotte Bronte; John Alexander Symington (1887-1961), literary editor; E. F. Benson [Edward Frederic Benson] (1867-1940); Thomas James Wise (1859-1837), book collector and forger; C. W. Hatfield]
Publication details: 
25 April 1932.
£450.00

See the various entries in the Oxford DNB. Typed carbon copy. 1p, foolscap 8vo. Text complete, on aged piece of carbon paper, worn and chipped at edges. No signature. Addressed at foot to ‘E. F. Benson Esq.’ Thirty-one lines of text. He begins by stating that Benson, in his ‘work on Charlotte Brontë’, has ‘made a very correct study of her’. After discussing a point about Branwell Bronte, he states: ‘We cannot rely on Charlotte’s assertion that he knew nothing whatever of their ventures in publishing.

[John Bacon [John Collingwood Bacon; Brontes, English artist.] Long Autograph Letter Signed to ‘Miss Sprott’, making detailed and percipient criticisms of four books on the Bronte sisters that she has lent him.

Author: 
John Bacon [John Collingwood Bacon] (1882-1950), English artist [the Bronte sisters]
Publication details: 
17 December 1947, with postscript of 2 January 1948; The Distaff Cottages, Newport, Essex.
£180.00

6pp, 12mo, on two bioliums. A long letter, neatly and closely written. In stamped envelope, with stamps and postmark, addressed to ‘Miss Sprott / Magavelda / Blakeney / Holt [Norfolk]’ and signed ‘John Bacon’. The letter and envelope are in fair condition, on slightly discoloured paper and with short closed tears along the folds made for postage. He begins: ‘Dear Miss Sprott.

[ Mountaineering ] Victorian album, containing 82 photographs, including several large-scale images of mountaineering in Switzerland, and of the 1900 Oberammergau Passion Play.

Author: 
[Victorian mountaineering in Switzerland; Oberammergau; Tonneson Sisters of Chicago]
Publication details: 
[American?] Circa 1900.
£180.00

Album, in maroon cloth and fake leather half-binding, containing 24 leaves of thick paper (dimensions 36 x 26.5 cm). Small stamp on front paste-down: 'D.A.I. LONDON | No. 20[2]' (last digit added in manuscript). The binding is heavily-worn, with spine lacking, and the pages are somewhat discoloured with age, but the 82 photographs are in good condition, with four creased before insertion into the album, and one with slight discoloration. One photograph has been removed. Can be dated from picture of the 'Kreuzigung.

[Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, first Baron Redesdale.] Autograph humourous 'verses on the Battle of the Sunflower on "The Batsford Nondescript"', in the form of a dialogue between botanists A. H. Wolley-Dod and Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer.

Author: 
Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, first Baron Redesdale (1837-1916), diplomatist and author, grandfather of the celebrated Mitford sisters [Anthony Hurt Wolley-Dod; Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Batsford Park, Moreton-in-Marsh. Dated in another hand 28 September 1896.
£180.00

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, with thin strip from stub adhering to edge of second leaf. The page is headed 'Private & Confidential', and the poem is preceded by the following note: 'I must send you the verses on the Battle of the Sunflower on "The Batsford Nondescript". A twenty-four line poem, in six four-line stanzas, on the theme of a disagreement over the naming of a specimen, between the botanist Anthony Hurt Wolley-Dod (1861-1948) and the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer (1843-1928).

Two Autograph Letters Signed ('Diana Mosley') from Lady Diana Mosley [Diana Mitford] to the architectural historian Peter Reid, regarding the family home (Rolleston Hall, Burton-on-Trent) of her husband Sir Oswald Mosley.

Author: 
Lady Diana Mosley [Diana Mitford; née Freeman-Mitford] (1910-2003), wife of the leader of the British Union of Fascists Sir Oswald Mosley, one of the Mitford sisters [Peter Reid]
Publication details: 
On letterheads of Temple de la Gloire, Orsay, Essonne. 16 May 1972 and 13 August 1984.
£100.00

Both letters good, on lightly-aged paper. The second letter in envelope addressed by Mosley to 'Peter Reid Esq | 68 New Cavendish Street | London W1 M 7 LD [sic] | Angleterre'. Letter One (2pp., 12mo): She begins: 'My husband asked me to answer your letter. I think we have got photographs of Rolleston, but all such things are stored in Ireland, where we used to have a house. When I go through them (which one day I must) I will send you what I find.

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