STUDIES

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, landscape 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged, with curling to inner edge. Central vertical fold. She thanks her for writing about ‘Broome Stages’, and is glad she enjoyed it. ‘You are quite right, it is a pleasure and an encouragement to hear that a book makes friends.’ She concludes, ‘Yes, I suppose the name did come from the Church: it gave me the idea, but it was pure chance, there is no association.’

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Twenty-three lines of text. In fair condition, lightly aged, but with slight creasing at head of leaf. Folded twice. Financial calculations written lengthwise underneath signature, with light smudging.

An characteristic letter by the author of 'Our Village', written in the year of her move from Three Mile Cross, Berkshire, to nearby Swallowfield, itself eight miles from Pearson's home in Sonning. See the entries on Mitford and Pearson in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 16mo. On the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium which has been unfolded with the fore-edge of the second leaf attached to a nineteenth-century stub. In good condition, lightly aged.

See Forster’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The postcard carries on one side a photograph of a ‘famous entrance hall’, part of the series ‘Simon McBride’s England’. In fair condition, a little browned and worn, with small pin hole at head. Addressed to ‘Miss Margaret Forster / 11 Boscastle Road / LONDON NW5 1EE’. Begins: ‘How nice you are to write about the C4 review of “Lady’s Maid”. She was ‘so pleased’ to see Trollope’s novel ‘The Lady’s Maid’ ‘sitting deservedly in the top ten for so many weeks - roll on the paperback!’ Concludes: ‘And I love the look of your garden. / Joanna T.’

She is noticed in her the entry for her father Derwent Coleridge in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of bifolium of grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Addressed to ‘My dear Mr. Pearson’ and signed ‘Christabel R. Coleridge’. Her journey was comfortable and she found ‘all well’ on her return. She does not believe her cold ‘will be of any consequence and the weather is quite fine’. Her ‘two head lady school teachers are laid up with colds’. She ends: ‘I think more things are alive in the garden than I expected to see’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On grey paper. In fair condition, with blocks of discoloration. Addressed to 'Dear Madam' and signed ' M Yonge'. She cannot tell her 'how late the final proof must be, as it depends on the printers, and the Christmas week so disturbs arrangements that they generally wish to have all finished earlier than usual'. She suggests sending he a card 'when the proofs come in to me', as there will be a few days to spare, 'while the other ladies are correcting them'.

See is noticed in her the entry for her father Derwent Coleridge in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, on grey paper. Folded once. In a vigorous and youthful hand, considering the fact that she would be dead in a few months. Reads: ‘Miss Christabel Coleridge presents her compliments to the Secretary of the Royal Literature [sic] Fund, but is compelled to decline the honor they have done her, as she is unable to travel to London. She will endeavour to send a small subscription later on’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. The valediction of a letter, cut away for an autograph collector. On a slip of paper, around 7.5 x 1.5 cm. On lightly discoloured paper, with tear through signature, attached to piece of card with archival tape. Reads: ‘Very sincerely yours / Ellen Wood’.

An uncommon signature. See her entry in the Oxford DNB. The valediction of a letter, cut away for an autograph collector. On a slip of paper, around 7.5 x 2 cm. Somewhat aged and worn, backed with discoloured card. Reads: ‘Very truly yours / Elizabeth M Sewell’. See Image.

See the entries of members of her extraordinary family in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice for postage, and accompanied by envelope with stamps and 1950 Edinburgh postmark, addressed by her to ‘Adam Dickson Esq. Junior / 28 Comely Bank Grove | Edinburgh’. Signed ‘Winifred Peck’. Responding to an autograph hunter, she writes: ‘Dear Sir, / How kind of you to like to [sic] my books & to say so.

See his entry, and those of his siblings, in the Oxford DNB. A 15.5 x 20 cm black and white print, on glossy paper. Worn at edges, and with staining to blank area at top left. Stamped by the publishers on the reverse with ‘Sir Osbert Sitwell. Bt. / 25. 8. 49.’ There is a possibility that this is a signature by Sitwell, but the letter ‘O’ and other features are not quite right.

The last paragraph of McKenny Hughes’s entry in the Oxford DNB deals with his marriage, noting that his wife was ‘a keen amateur archaeologist, a botanist, and a distinguished artist, and under his tuition she became a valuable geologist’, and that the couple ‘travelled together on field excursions’, being accompanied on a trip to the Balkans by an armed guard. Six boxes of her papers are among the rest of those of the Hughes family in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge. The present item is 64pp, 4to, mostly on the rectos of a ruled ‘Universal Exercise Book.

From the Macqueen-Pope papers. (See his entry in the Oxford DNB.) 2pp, 4to. Signed ‘Michel Kovatchévitch’. On aged and worn paper. Folded twice for postage, with closed tears at edges of vertical fold, and nicks and creasing along one edge. He is working on a biography of Frederick Aldridge, ‘tragédien noir de langue anglaise (1807-1867)’, and asks for help in establishing the date of his debut, ‘dans le rôle d’Othello, au Royalty Theatre’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. On bifolium In fair condition, lightly aged, with stub from mount adhering to the inner margin of the recto, and obscuring a few words of text. The male recipient is not named: the letter is signed ‘Agnes Strickland / Historian of the Queens of England and Queens of Scotland’. By the advice of the publisher, Daldy, she is enquiring after ‘quiet comfortable lodgings at Warwick next Monday 25th till Tuesday August 2nd during the Archaeological Meeting in your antient historical town at which I have promised to be sent’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, which does not accord her name a hyphen, although she does in this letter. 2pp, 12mo. On grey-paper bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Signed ‘M Bethan-Edwards’ and addressed to ‘Dear Miss Birkett’. She apologises for having to decline her kind invitation: ‘I never can lunch out being busy till 1 pm’. Since ‘the afternoons are now so very short’, and she does not like ‘climbing the hill in the dark’, she proposes calling on her at 4pm. ‘It will then give me much pleasure to see you.’

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In fair condition, on lightly-browned paper. Folded four times. The recipient is not identified. Signed ‘Henrietta E. V. Stannard’ and addressed to ‘Dear Lady’. She thanks her for ‘the kind help you have provided for my old lady’. The ‘very generouos responses’ she has met with have exceeded her expectations, and she hopes that her ‘dear old friend’s future comfort and independence are now assured, for the rest of her life’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The obituary of the recipient Andrew Block (1892-1987) in ‘The Private Library’ was subtitled ‘the doyen of booksellers’; his business was established in 1911. 1p, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged. Signed ‘A N L Munby’ and addressed to ‘Dear Block’. Folded twice. He is sending ‘the volume of playbills, all Lyceum ballad-operas’, which he estimates comprises fifty-eight in total. ‘Send me along whatever they are worth to you.’

Four pages, 12mo, very good condition, in a generous hand. Text: The Queen writes to me this morning to ask if you would like to be appointed Groom in Waiting to her, & says that is she would have great pleasure in naming you as such. | The duties are to attend the Queen when at Windsor Castle & Buckinghamd Palace. | Lorne [Marquess] wishes me to add that attendance on horseback is not one of the duties, as that is the Equerries' particular office, & that you could still employ half the year in studying Glaciation.

2pp, 12mo. Bifolium with mourning border (her mother had died the previous December). In good condition, lightly aged, with traces of paper to which the item was glued still adhering to reverse of second leaf. Having been informed by her sister ‘Miss Kingsley’ (her elder sister Rose) that Combe is ‘kind enough to wish for my autograph’, she has ‘much pleasure in sending it you - but I wish my pen was a better one, more befitting this serious occasion!’

See Anna Gurney's entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient and her husband had spent some time in Rome in 1842, and in 1838 had befriended the Alpinist Henriette d'Angeville at Geneva. 4pp, 4to. Bifolium with mourning border and watermark year 1840. In good condition, lightly aged, with minor traces of glue from label on outsides of gutter. The letter begins: 'My dear Lady Cullum | I think You & Sir Thomas may be home by this time & I must wish to enquire how you both are after your long wanderings.

3pp, 4to. Bifolium. On wove paper with Whatman watermark dated 1820. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with slight loss of paper at one corner of second leaf, resulting in loss of one word of text. Folded twice. From the papers of William Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette, who published the poem with one other ('In the Ivy'), in the edition of 23 June 1821, giving the identity of the author given in a footnote: 'We have to thank the elegant pen of MRS. HEMANS, for these two exquisite poems. Ed.' Heman's manuscript is endorsed by Jerdan: 'Poetry origl | 231 | W J | Mrs. Hemans'.

3pp, 16mo. Bifolium. Aged and ruckled, with light damp staining. No salutation, but apparently complete. From the papers of Lady Ann Cullum (1807-1875), wife of Rev. Sir Thomas Gery Cullum of Hardwick House. ]Begins: 'I am very sorry, that I could not keep my promise to day to call upon You, - Believe me that it was impossible, but I cant leave Carlsbad without telling You at least how glad I waws to have made Your acquaintances.

3pp, 16mo. On bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged. Phillipps's letter (or draft letter) is a reply to a dinner invitation from the wife of the eminent Worcester physician Sir Charles Hastings. It occupies the reverse of the first leaf, and both sides of the second leaf of the bifolium. The recto of the first leaf carries the invitation, in manuscript, with the text in square brackets printed in copperplate: 'Sir Charles & Lady Hastings [Request the pleasure of] Sir Thos & Lady Phillipps' [Company at Dinner] on Thursday the 28th. Inst.

Three slips of paper cut from letters. All in good condition, lightly aged, and each with minor evidence of previous mounting. ONE: Hannah More. On both sides of 4 x 15.5 cm slip. On one side: '[…] I am this moment come from Charlotte she is vastly well only her eyes have some remaining weknesses | Adieu my dear Madam believe me with all possible regard your ever obliged and affectionate | Servant | H More'. Other side: '[…] the good People here enough to be all concerned any of their judgment or their Actions where Taste has any thing to do.

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with rust-spotting at foot and to one margin. An interesting document relating to the early days of women's admission to British universities. The recipient is the geologist Ernest Westlake (1855-1922), and the subject is his daughter Margaret Agnes Westlake, who would become a diploma student at St Hugh's. Westlake's papers are held at the Museum of Natural History, Oxford. Marett thinks it is 'a bother about your daughter not being able to enter Somerville, but Somerville is not Oxford'.

On one side of 10.5 x 14.5 cm grey-blue card. In very good condition. Inscription in blue ink, beneath the letterhead (which includes email address and phone number): 'This is for the Autograph Auction next March. | Good luck, | Nina Bawden'.

In good condition, lightly aged. Addressed to 'Eric Dingwall Esq | 19 Grange Court | Grange Rd | Cambridge'. Written in a neat close hand. She gives details of a 1744 Italian translation of Richardson's Pamela she has found of a Parisian catalogue of 1774: 'Translator's name not given'. She adds: 'Pamela was v. popular in Italy in the second half of the 18th. century. It inspired two of Goldoni's comedies Pamela Fanciulla and Pamela Maritata'. In a postscript she explains that she brought the present postcard 'into the U[niversity]. L[ibrary].

1p., 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged. She thanks her for her 'tribute to my book', adding: 'Fancy you thinking that I lived in Australia! My brother to whom I gave a dedication lives there. I never get further than Monkstown which is part of Dunlaoghaire.' She ends by observing that Cond's letter 'seems to have been a long time travelling'. Beatrice Coogan was the daughter of a policeman, a Dublin socialite who was crowned Dublin's Civic Queen of Beauty in 1927. She was the author of 'The Big Wind', won the Frankfurt Book Fair’s 'Novel of the Year' in 1969.

1p., 4to. She thanks her for her letter, and agrees to inscriber her bookplate. 'I am so glad that you have got "The Malady in Madeira"; I do hope you will enjoy it, especially as you know Madeira.

The forty cards are printed in black on one side, engraved in the customary copperplate, and laid out in the conventional way. Dimensions 5.5 x 8.5 cm. In good condition, lightly aged. Most are arranged in pairs, separated with tissue leaves. In 'drawer' inside 9.5 x 6 x 2 cm box, printed on all sides with the firm's details. On front: '50 Finest Quality De La Rue's Thin Ivory Visiting Cards' and the firm's address. Written on the front, presumably by Jamison is 'Lady Margaret Hall Oxford'.