SKETCHLEY

[ 'Arthur Sketchley' (i.e. George Rose), 'Mrs Brown' and the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. ] Autograph Note Signed ('A. Sketchley') to 'Jno. Kinloch Esq', requesting 'A Box for this evening'.

Author: 
'Arthur Sketchley', pseudonym of George Rose (1817-1882), dramatist, creator of the once-celebrated 'Mrs Brown' [ The Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London ]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London. 5 November 1864.
£30.00

Having left the Church of England for Roman Catholicism, Rose had had a number of well-received plays produced on the London stage before the huge success of his creation 'Mrs Brown'. 'Mrs Brown at Home and Abroad' was performed at the Egyptian Hall in 1864, and the 'Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance' refers to 'Mr. Arthur Sketchley's snug little auditorium at the Egyptian Hall' for a performance of 'Mrs Brown at the Play'.

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[ T. J. Wise: Proof of what would be the first volume of his Tennyson bibliography, with Signed Autograph Inscription to W. M. Rossetti. ] A Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Author: 
'T. J. W.' [ Thomas James Wise; T. J. Wise ] (1859-1937), book collector, forger and thief [ William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919); Rose Esther Dorothea Sketchley (1875-1949) ]
Publication details: 
'Of this Book One Hundred Copies Only have been Printed.' London: Printed for Private Circulation. 1907. [ Printer not named, but with date stamp of Richard Clay and Sons, Bread Street Hill, E.C. [ London ], and Bungay, Suffollk, 1 November 1907. ]
£950.00

Alan Bell, in his entry on Wise in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, characterizes him as 'both a careless and a dishonest bibliographer' (see also Simon Nowell-Smith, 'T. J. Wise as Bibliographer' in the Library, 1969). One of Wise's aims was clearly to legitimize his forgeries, and as John Collins states in 'The Two Forgers' (1992), his bibliographies are all 'more or less tarred with Wise's own publications'.

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Autograph Letter Signed by the dramatist George Rose, both in his own name and that of his pseudonym 'Arthur Sketchley', to 'My dear Frith', on the death of his brother.

Author: 
George Rose [pseud. 'Arthur Sketchley'] (1817-1882), dramatist, novelist, and humorous entertainer
Publication details: 
96 Gloucester Place, Portman Square [London]. 22 June [post 1874].
£56.00

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium on mourning paper watermarked 'JOYNSON | 1874'. Good, on lightly-aged paper. The letter, signed 'George Rose', covers both sides of the first leaf, with the following written lengthwise on the recto of the second leaf: 'Yrs very truly | [signed] Arthur Sketchley'. He informs Frith that the 'long impending blow has fallen' on him, and that his 'very dear brother died on Wednesday last & will be buried tomorrow'. He would 'willingly send on some autographs', but cannot lay his hand on any. 'I am sorry to be able only to send as pr opposite page', i.e.

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