TWENTIETH

Spaziergange im Reiche des Autographen. Ein Anregung zum Autographensammeln. Mit einer Titelzeichnung von Hans Thoma und 58 anderen Abbildungen.

Author: 
Professor Dr. Eugen Wolbe (1873-1938), Studientrat [autograph collecting; autographs]
Publication details: 
Berlin: Richard Carl Schmidt & Co. 1925.
£120.00

Quarto: 196 + xii pp. 58 facsimiles in text, but lacking frontispiece. No dustwrapper. In original cloth binding, decorated on the front board in yellow, grey and black. Good, with spotting to edges and boards. Concentrating exclusively on German autographs. Wolbe was removed from his teaching post by the Nazis in 1933.

[Catalogue 550] A Selection of Books, Manuscripts, Engravings and Autograph Letters remarkable for their Interest & Rarity, being the five hundredth catalogue issued by Maggs Bros [...].

Author: 
Maggs Brothers [booksellers' catalogues]
Publication details: 
London: Maggs Bros, 34 & 35 Conduit Street, W. 1928.
£100.00

[viii] 237 pp., fol.m, original grey and red printed wraps, numerous plates and illustrations in text, some staining of cover around spine, a few pencil markings, top of spine damaged, mainly good condition. It includes Cortes, "Carta de Relacion" (1522), other important Americana, and the first edition of "Don Quixote".

[Catalogue 555] A Selection of Books, Manuscripts, Bindings and Autograph Letters remarkable for their Interest & Rarity, being the five hundred and fiftyfifth catalogue issued by Maggs Bros [...].

Author: 
Maggs Brothers [booksellers' catalogues]
Publication details: 
London: Maggs Bros, 34 & 35 Conduit Street, W. 1931.
£100.00

Folio: iv + 237 pp. In original grey and red printed wraps. Numerous plates and illustrations in text. Grubby and spotted, in heavily-worn wraps. One plate slit along fold and repaired with tape. Presentation copy, inscribed 'With Compliments from E U Maggs'. Covetable items, accurately described, from a complete set of Addison and Steele's 'Spectator' (£105) to the first edition of both volumes of Wordsworth's 'Lyrical Ballads' (£185). Contains 'twenty-four autograph letters signed [by Charles Dickens] on "The Village Coquettes" to John P. Hullah, the musical composer' (£650).

Autograph Note Signed ('Donald Mackenzie Wallace') to unnamed female correspondent.

Author: 
Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace (1841-1919), foreign correspondent of the London 'Times' who published an important work on Russia
Publication details: 
29 June 1907; on letterhead St Ermin's Mansions, Caxton Street, S.W. [London].
£25.00

One page, 12mo. Good, on aged and lightly spotted paper, but with blank verso showing traces of previous mounting. Nine-line printed biographical cutting laid down in top left-hand corner. Reads 'Madam, In accordance with your request I enclose my autograph'.

Autograph Note Signed ('Owen Rhoscomyl') [to the autograph hunter Rev. E. J. F. Davies].

Author: 
Arthur Owen Vaughan (1863-1919, born Robert Scourfield Mills, and writing under the names 'Owen Rhoscomyl' and 'Owen Vaughan'), Welsh author and adventurer
Publication details: 
6 May 1909; on letterhead of the Welsh National Pageant, Pageant House, Cardiff.
£35.00

Quarto, one page. Good, on lightly aged paper spotted by paperclip, with some creasing to extremities. 'If you will let your list down to this level, here you are'. The letterhead carries the names of the Pageant's officers with a Welsh dragon in red in the top left-hand corner. From the collection of Rev. E. J. F. Davies.

Autograph Note in the third person to autograph collector 'Mr. Barker'.

Author: 
Arthur William de Brito Savile Foljambe, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1870-1941), 1st Governor-General of New Zealand
Publication details: 
27 November 1908; 44 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW. [on embossed House of Lords letterhead].
£30.00

Two pages, 12mo. Very good. A formal letter written in the third person. 'Lord Liverpool presents his compliments to Mr. Barker and in answer to your [sic] letter regrets that his father has been dead two years and therefore he cannot comply with Mr. Barker's request for his signature.'

Autograph Letter Signed ('Sarath Kumar Ghosh') to unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Sarath Kumar Ghosh (born 1883), Indian writer
Publication details: 
26 March 1906; on letterhead '28 Elgin Avenue, [London] W.'
£60.00

One page, 12mo. Grubby, and with traces of previous mount adhering to reverse. Small circle containing '170' in red in top left-hand corner. He is sending his autograph, 'which I could not do while at . I am glad you have read some of my stories; I presume those now in book form as "1001 Indian Nights." '

One Typed Letter Signed and two Typed Notes Signed (all 'Hanns Vischer'), to W. Perry, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Sir Hanns Vischer (1876-1945), Anglo-Swiss educationist and linguist, Honorary Secretary General of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures
Publication details: 
1928 (2) and 1930 (1); one on embossed Colonial Office letterhead and two on letterhead of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures.
£85.00

All three items very good, and the first bearing the Society's stamp. Item One (15 June 1928, foolscap, 1 p, 12 lines): He has received a notice of a meeting by 'the Dominions and Colonies Section Committee' and asks Perry to 'please explain the position to me'. 'I am not quite clear why I am being asked as I cannot remember ever having been put on this Committee. True, Sir Humphrey Leggett suggested over a year ago that I should join the Society again as he thought I might be of some use to your Committee.

One Autograph Letter Signed, one Typed Letter Signed, one Autograph Note Signed and one Typed Note Signed (all 'E. N. da C. Andrade'), to G. K. Menzies (3) and K. W. Luckhurst (1), Secretaries, Royal Society of Arts, with carbon of one reply.

Author: 
Professor Edward Neville da Costa Andrade (1887-1971), English physicist, poet and historian of science
Publication details: 
1931, 1932, 1933 and 1948; the autograph letter on letterhead of 69 Exeter Road, London N.W.2, and the other three items on University College, University of London letterheads.
£120.00

All items good. Two bearing the Society's stamp. Item One (typed note, 15 October 1931, 4to, 1 p): He is sending 'short summaries of the two lectures, in a form which I prefer to mere headings'. Item Two (autograph letter, 17 January 1932, 8vo, 1 p): He is sending 'summaries of the two lectures'. 'As you seemed in a hurry I have not waited to have them typed. I think that they are legible, but I will look at a proof if you like.' He has left it to Menzies 'to add any preliminaries or conclusions that may be necessary'.

Autograph Signature.

Author: 
Noel Coward (Sir Noel Pierce Coward, 1899-1973), English actor, playwright and song writer
Coward
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£35.00
Coward

On leaf of light blue paper, 8.5 x 12 cm, removed from an autograph album. Very good.

Autograph Signature ('J B. Hobbs.').

Author: 
Jack Hobbs [Sir John Berry Hobbs, 1882-1963], English cricketer
Hobbs
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£18.00
Hobbs

On piece of paper roughly 2.5 x 5 cm. Laid down on leaf of cream paper, 8.5 x 12 cm, from an autograph album. In slightly faded blue ink, and with a crease to the bottom left-hand corner, affecting the lower loop of the 'J'.

Autograph Card Signed and Autograph Note Signed (both 'Margot Asquith'), both in French, to unnamed male correspondent ['Cher trest Cher Coq'].

Author: 
Margot Asquith [nee Margot Emma Alice Tennant], Countess of Oxford and Asquith (1864-1945)
Publication details: 
Card 1 July and Note 3 July [both no year, but before 1919]; both with printed address '20 Cavendish Square, W. [London]'.
£76.00

Dimensions of card roughly 8 x 12 cm. Very good though lightly aged. Asking her correspondent to dinner in the following week. Note, addressed to 'Cher tres Cher Coq', on one side of 8vo grey paper. Very good, though lightly creased. She will be 'enchante de vous voir chez moi' on Wednesday [6 July] at 1 o'clock. Both items written before the Asquiths 1919 move from Cavendish Square to 44 Bedford Square. Two items,

Autograph Signature.

Author: 
Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972), French actor and entertainer
Chevalier
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£35.00
Chevalier

On piece of pink paper roughly 8.5 x 11 cm. Laid down on slightly larger leaf from an autograph album. Good with a little paper and glue staining to the mount. Good bold signature, diagonally across the page.

Autograph Signature.

Author: 
Henry Hall (1898-1989), English bandleader best known for his recording of the song 'Teddy Bears' Picnic'
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£18.00

On piece of light green paper, 8 x 11 cm. Laid down on leaf of slightly larger paper, taken from an autograph album. A little grubby and ruckled. Written in green ink.

Autograph Signatures ('Laurence Olivier' and 'Gladys Cooper').

Author: 
Laurence Olivier (1907-1989), English stage and film actor; Gladys Cooper (1888-1971), English actress
Olivier
Publication details: 
Dates and places not stated.
£48.00
Olivier

On piece of cream paper, roughly 8.5 x 12 cm, removed from an autograph album. Good, on paper with a few light marks. Bold, firm signatures in pencil, one on each side of the leaf. Two signatures,

Autograph Signatures ('Gertrude Lawrence.', 'Ivy St. Helier' and 'Joyce Carey').

Author: 
Gertrude Lawrence (1898-1952), Ivy St Helier (1886-1971); Joyce Carey (1898-1993); English actresses associated with Noel Coward
Publication details: 
Dates and places not stated.
£45.00

On a leaf of cream paper, 8.5 x 12 cm, part of a bifolium taken from an autograph album. Very good. All three signatures are bold and clear. The signatures of Lawrence and St Helier are on one side of the leaf, and that of Carey is on the other. Lawrence's signature is in ink, and the other two in pencil. Three signatures,

Autograph Note Signed ('John Murray') to 'my dear Williams'.

Author: 
Sir John Murray (1884-1967, 'the fifth'), member of a notable London firm of publishers
Publication details: 
4 June 1932; 'as from 50 Albemarle St W.1', on letterhead of Tithe Farm, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire.
£45.00

8vo: 1 p. Good, with creasing towards right-hand margin. 'Very many thanks, my dear Williams, for your most kind congratulations. I feel that my honour is some recognition of the publishing trade & I take it as such'. Murray was created KCVO in 1932, following his publication of the ninth and final volume of the letters of Queen Victoria.

Typed Letter Signed ('Juliette') to 'Dick' [Frank Richard Cowell, b.1897], together with carbon of typed reply.

Author: 
Juliette Huxley [Lady Marie Juliette Baillot] (1896-1994), wife of the English scientist Julian Huxley (1887-1975) [Frank Richard Cowell]
Publication details: 
Letter, 27 January 1966; on letterhead 31, Pond Street, Hampstead, N.W.3. Reply, 29 January 1966.
£125.00

Juliette Huxley's letter is 4to: 2 pp. Good, though lightly creased and attached to the other items by a paperclip. The correspondence mainly concerns a book by Cowell's eventually published under the title 'The garden as a fine art: from antiquity to modern times' (1978). She begins by describing Mary Wellesley: 'quite a character [...] lives in a small house off St. James's Palace, and entertains by candlelight.

Fabian Society. Syllabus of a Series of Lectures to be given at Essex Hall, Essex St., Strand, London, on alternate Fridays, January to April, 1926, at 8 p.m.

Author: 
[The Fabian Society; H. St. J. B. Philby; Arthur Greenwood; Sidney Webb]
Publication details: 
London: The Fabian Society, 25, Tothill Street, Westminster, S.W.1. [1925 or 1926.] [The Garden City Press Ltd., Letchworth.]
£45.00

4to: 4 pp. Unbound bifolium. On lightly discoloured and spotted paper, lightly worn at extremities. Central horizontal fold. Gives details of eight lectures, by, successively, H. Finer ('Impressions of America'), Montague Fordham ('The Rural Problem'), R. B. Forrester ('Co-operative Marketing'), Professor R. Peers ('Can we educate the Community?'), Arthur Greenwood, M.P. ('The Present Position and Future Policy in regard to Housing'), C. S. Orwin ('Land Tenure'), Rt. Hon. [sic] Sidney Webb, M.P. ('Poor-Law Reform'), and (with the 'syllabus' covering an entire page) H. St. J. B.

Cyclostyled signature ('Laura Knight') on receipt.

Author: 
Dame Laura Knight (1877-1972), English impressionist painter [The Artists' General Benevolent Institution]
Laura Knight
Publication details: 
2 June 1937; 5 Vigo Street, London, W.1. [printed by Vacher & Sons, Ltd., Westminster House, S.W.1]
£56.00
Laura Knight

On blue paper 10 x 18 cms. Good, with trace of previous white paper mount on reverse. Printed receipt, filled in in manuscript. Reads 'No. [32] 5, VIGO STREET, | W.1. | [June 2nd 1937] | Received a DONATION of [One Guinea] | from [The Misses Ruck] | for the ARTISTS' GENERAL BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION. | £[1] : [1] | [-] | [next word deleted] Secretary | [next two lines cyclostyled in purple ink] most gratefully | Laura Knight'.

Autograph Signature.

Author: 
Seiji Ozawa (born 1935), Japanese conductor
Publication details: 
Undated.
£23.00

Good, in felt-tip pen on piece of blue paper, roughly 8 x 13 cms, with the slightest discoloration at extremities.

Fear. Reprinted from the "Manchester Quarterly," April 1914.

Author: 
L. Conrad Hartley
Publication details: 
London: Sherratt and Hughes. Manchester: 34 Cross Street.
£28.00

8vo: 8 pp. Stapled and unbound. In original grey printed wraps with rusted staples. Grubby and dogeared. Signed ('L. Conrad Hartley') presentation inscription dated 31 May 1915. No copy of the offprint of this short story on COPAC.

The Neophyte and the High Priest. Reprinted from the "Manchester Quarterly," January, 1915.

Author: 
L. Conrad Hartley
Publication details: 
London: Sherratt & Hughes. Manchester: 34 Cross Street. 1915.
£28.00

8vo: 11 pp. Unbound and stapled. In original beige printed wraps. Grubby and dogeared, with rusted staples. Signed (L. Conrad Hartley') presentation, dated 31 May 1915. No copy of the offprint off this short story on COPAC.

Typed Letter Signed ('Dorothy Black') to [Kathleen Cruise O'Brien] O'Duffy, the wife of the Irish writer Eimar O'Duffy.

Author: 
Dorothy Black (Delius) (1899-1985), English romantic novelist, travel and short-story writer [Ladies' Home Journal; Eimar O'Duffy]
Publication details: 
26 June 1925; La Chaumiere, Shillong, Assam.
£85.00

4to: 3 pp. Text clear and entire on creased, chipped airmail paper. A chatty, vivacious and entertaining letter, casting light on the state of mind of an English colonial wife. Thanks her for her 'kind remarks about my stories.

Memories of A. E. Housman. From the Magazine of King Edward's School, Bath, The Edwardian, Vol. 17, No. 3, Sept., 1936.

Author: 
Mrs. E. W. Symons [A. E. Housman]
Publication details: 
Printer - J. Grant Melluish, 27 Broad Street, Bath. [1936]
£20.00

Octavo: 8 pp. Unbound, stapled pamphlet of six leaves. Dogeared, with rusted staples and with horizontal band of discoloration and two vertical closed tears (2 cm and 1 cm) at head.

Collection of around twenty-seven Typed Letters Signed and seventeen Autograph Letters Signed, to K. W. Luckhurst, Secretary, and other officers of the Royal Society of Arts, together with some drafts and copies of responses.

Author: 
Oswald Partridge Milne (1881-1968), English architect [The Royal Society of Arts]
Publication details: 
1936-65; Wigmore Street and Hampstead, London.
£250.00

The collection is in good condition, with very occasional minor creasing, staining and loss. Majority of items quarto. Milne was a leading Fellow of the Society, a Chairman of Council in 1959-61 and Vice-President. The collection provides a valuable insight into the day-to-day workings of the Society, from the first letter discussing the R.I.B.A., and whether the Society might set up 'a somewhat similar organisation with similar prestige could be built up for industrial artists', to the last letter commending G. C. H.

Thirteen Typed Letters Signed to G. K. Menzies, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts, with one Autograph Note Signed to Menzies, and a printed prospectus for Adams-Acton's 'Domestic Architecture and Old Furniture'.

Author: 
Murray Adams-Acton (1886-1971), English historian of art and architecture
Publication details: 
5 October 1927 to 14 August 1933; most on letterhead of Acton Surgey Ltd., 'London, Paris & Crews Hill'.
£180.00

Sizes range from quarto (nine items) to 12mo (two items). Very good. Subjects include a request for 'a photograph of the winning design for the petrol filling station', the award of a Hyde Travelling Scholarship ('Mr. Mitchell appears to have so greatly distinguished himself'), 'Mr. Bossom's suggestions for the wording and particulars for the Proscenium opening for Cinema', the drafting of a reply to Morley Horder's comments ('he errs when he declares the screen is not of the period as I think only a small section of it was added by Mr.

Handbill headed 'Souvenir. Street Library Book Fund.', consisting of a monologue entitled 'Lord Beaconsfield speaks before the curtain'.

Author: 
Laurence Housman [The Street Library, The Crispin Hall; Somerset; English libraries]
Publication details: 
Crispin Hall, July 8th, 1931.'
£56.00

One one side of a piece of laid paper, 26.5 x 21 cms. Aged and creased, with chipping to extremities and staining on reverse from repair to one of two closed tears. Thirty-six lines, with facsimile of Housman's signature at foot. An appeal for 'money for the Library - your Library'. Somewhat poignant, considering the present neglected state of the British library service. '[...] The question is - do you want to give money to your Library? [...] But, for my own part, I ask - why, why Libraries? What are they for? What there do you read?

Card carrying Autograph Inscription to Charles Wilson.

Author: 
Alec Waugh (Alexander Raban Waugh, 1898-1981), English novelist, elder brother of Evelyn Waugh
Publication details: 
31/07/48
£23.00

On one side of the card. Dimensions, 8.5 x 11 cms. Very good. Neat inscription reading 'For Charles Wilson | with Alec Waugh's best wishes | July. 31. 1948 /.'

Typed Letter Signed ('H A McClure Smith') to T. H. Rowney of Messrs George Rowney & Co., Ltd., London.

Author: 
Hugh Alexander McClure Smith (1902-1961), Australian diplomat, journalist and editor of The Sydney Morning Herald
Publication details: 
4 April 1950; on engraved letterhead of The Sydney Morning Herald.
£65.00

One page, quarto. On aged and creased paper. Letterhead illustrated with engraving of the paper's headquarters. Thanks him for the copy of Rowney's 'Artists' Almanac'. 'Like yourselves, we are an old family firm and as such have always taken a live interest in the Arts.' Endorses the Empire Art Council, feeling that '[t]here is a great deal that can be done in the exchange of art exhibitions, etc., between the various parts of the Empire'. Docketed with London address on reverse.

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