VICTORIAN

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The postcards are bromide prints, and 9 x 14 cm. The two identical images of Scott, dressed for the theatre, with curled moustache and flower in his buttonhole, are both inscribed. In the bottom margin of one he has written ‘late of the D. T.’; in the same position on the other, and rather poignantly considering his later history, ‘Remember me / Clement Scott / 1902’. The former card is addressed by Scott on the reverse, with Ingatestone postmark dated 27 February 1904, to ‘Mr S. Le Sage / Maisonette / Ingatestone / Essex’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged, with several creases on folding into packet, one of which has a short closed tear to the edge. Minor traces of mount on reverse. Reads: ‘Lord Henry Petty will be obliged to Mr Gray, if he can make it convenient to call in Downing Street to-morrow at 2 oClock. / September 29th. 1806.’ Minuted by recipient on reverse: ‘29. Sept. 1806 / Lord Hy. Petty. / To be with His Ldp tomorrow. / 30th. went & recd. Instructions to work out the appointmt. of One Messenger to attend the Chancellor, whose allowce is to be 4s. P diem.’

2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly worn. Folded once. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Cochrane’ and signed ‘Edwd. Stanton’. He thanks him for ‘sending me the Nile map, which is certainly more complete than any I had, though it does not give us much more information as to the rivers South of [Faolooda?], than is to be found in The Times atlas’. He hopes that when his son ‘returns from his explorations of the Bahr-el-zara’, he ‘will be able to extend our knowledge of that part of the Nile Valley’.

An interesting item, casting light on Victorian London publishing of periodical literature. For Passmore Edwards, to whom London is indebted for innumerable public libraries (many now closed), see his entry in the Oxford DNB. ‘The Biographical Magazine’ was founded in 1852, and the first two volumes were published by ‘J. Passmore Edwards, 2, Horse-shoe Court, Ludgate Hill’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice for postage. Begins: ‘Mr. Westall presents his compliments to Miss Macirone & begs to assure her how very much obliged to her he feels for the honor she has done him in sending him two tickets for her morning concert’. He will have ‘the greatest pleasure in attending’ the concert, and is ‘quite sure he shall be very much delighted’.

A nice piece of Sherborne ephemera, in unusually good condition. Between 1855 and 1860 Ransam House had been used to board boys from Sherborne School. ‘The Sherborne Academy’ to which the present card refers was run by John Kidd (c.1834-1891), FRAS, MCP, at Ransam between the end of 1861 and 1868, when it reverted to Sherborne School. The present item is printed in black ink on both sides of a x cm piece of white card. In very good condition, lightly aged.

See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. Each item 1p, 12mo, on a bifolium. Both in fair condition, lightly aged, and both folded twice for postage. Both addressed to ‘My dear Crofton’. LETTER: Signed ‘S C H’. Presumably while working on ‘A Week at Killarney’, the book he and his wife published in London in 1843, Hall asks for ‘one or two morsels about the Palatines’ (see ‘Killarney’, pp. 78-79, a peculiar race of strangers): ‘Why were they planted in Ireland? - when precisely? by whom precisely’. NOTE. Signed ‘S. C. Hall’. ‘Godwin tells me the certificate is not “up” at the Antiquaries.

A scarce item, no other copy discovered on ViaLibri, WorldCat or JISC LHD. 4pp, 12mo. Paginated bifolium in small print. Aged and worn, with short closed tear in gutter. Folded twice.

An interesting letter, revealing the nuanced position of a liberal cleric on a difficult question. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. On bifolium. Signed ‘J. F. Oxon:’. Text clear and entire, on creased and worn paper, with two short closed tears at edges. Folded twice for postage. Minuted (by the recipient) at top of first page: ‘I read this at the Cler[ical]. meeting - (part of it)’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. On recto of the first leaf of a bifolium, the verso of the second leaf of which carries the address to ‘Messrs Vizetely [sic] Branston & Co / 135 Fleet St’. The firm, who traded between 1827 and 1837, were not only ‘engravers and oriental printers’, but publishers too: the item referred to in this letter, ‘The Young Lady’s Book’, had two editions published in 1829 and a third in 1832, and Jackson presumably contributed work. In fair condition, discoloured and worn.

Hailing from Gateshead, County Durham, Elliot was a self-made man: he began life as a colliery labourer and ended it as one of the richest men in England, his wealth at death being given as £575,000. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. His residence in Whitby containing an Egyptian mummy was visited by Bram Stoker and appears to have inspired his 'Tale of the Seven Stars' (1903). 3pp, two of them 12mo and one 8vo. Bifolium, with one page of text written across the central opening at right angles. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, with a little glue from mount along outer gutter.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Both items 1p, 12mo, and both in good condition, lightly aged, with slight evidence of previous mounting on the blank reverses. Both folded once for postage. Both letters during the tenure as Lord Mayor of London of Sir John Charles Bell (1843-1924). ONE (8 March 1907): ‘Sir Claude Macdonald has the honour to accept the kind invitation of the Lord Mayor to Luncheon on March 13th.

A good illustrated article on Groves and his boats is to be found in the magazine ‘The Gull’, March 2013, pp.19-26 (available online), emphasizing his ‘brilliant line drawings in British Seagull’s early post-war advertising’. 1p, 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged. Neatly folded twice. Twenty typed lines beneath the heading ‘A Bird Sanctuary for Lymington.’ Some lines and passages lightly underlined in red pencil. Signed at foot by Groves, as ‘Organiser and (Sec: pro-tem)’. Begins: ‘An Important Meetings is to be held in / The Assembly Room. Angel Hotel. Lymington. / on / Friday.

See both men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. With mourning border. In good condition, lightly aged. Addressed to ‘Revd Canon Richson’ and ‘Revd and Dear Sir’, and signed ‘J. P. Manchester.’ He thanks him for his pamphlet, stating that it will have his full attention, and praising Richson as ‘thoroughly conversant with education’. Being under the impression that Richson is ‘connected with the School of Art’, he is ‘sending the enclosed as I received it’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with neat ruled border from remains of windowpane mount. Folded twice for postage. Reads: ‘My dear Sir / I shall be at home tomorrow till two or will call on you any hour afterwds. do not delay the matter beyond this. / Yrs. very truly / H. L Bulwer’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. On the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium, the blank second leaf of which has been glued to the first. There are also a number of vertical creases. Folded once for postage. Reads: ‘Mrs Hodgson Burnett has much pleasure in accepting Mrs Macheles kind invitation for Tuesday July 12th / 23 Weymouth Street / Portland Place’. See Image.

See the entry for this ‘charismatic preacher and flamboyant individual’ (referred to several times in Kilvert’s diary) in the Oxford DNB, which states that, having been dispossessed out of his property and forced to dissolve his monastery in Norwich, in 1869 he was able, with the support of a wealthy benefactor, to purchase a property at Capel-y-ffin in the Black Mountains, south Wales, where he built Llanthony Abbey. 2pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. The letter is headed ‘Jesus Only.’ It begins: ‘My dear daughter in Jesus.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. On a bifolium the blank second leaf of which is laid down on part of a leaf from an album. Folded twice for postage. The recipient is ‘Henry Spicer Esq’, presumably a relation of the artist of the same name (d.1804; see ODNB), several of whose theatrical portraits are in the Garrick Club collection.

10 + [1]pp, foolscap 8vo. Customary title printed at right angles on back cover, for folding into a packet. Disbound. Text complete, but printed on aged high-acidity paper, with chipping to extremities. Front page headed 'Miscellaneous. No. 2 (1890).' No physical copy on COPAC or WorldCat, only online reproductions.

It is perhaps appropriate that we should have been left such a collection by an author who made a name for herself with pioneering works on the social history of English literature.

The present collection reflects the state of Kipling’s India during the high summer of the Raj. At the end of 1884 Lord Dufferin replaced the Earl of Ripon as Viceroy, and apart from a period of seven months between June of 1885 and January of 1886, when Lord Salisbury and the Conservatives were in power following the death of General Gordon, and Lord Randolph Churchill was Secretary of State, Gladstone and the Liberals were in power.

An interesting collection of material relating to a significant school, including thirteen items of correspondence from a notable headmaster, and four printed items, two of them scarce. Founded by Benjamin Franklin’s friend Dr John Fothergill in 1779 (see his entry in the Oxford DNB), Ackworth is the second-oldest of the seven English Quaker schools. (See Fothergill’s entry in the Oxford DNB. Franklin could ‘hardly conceive that a better man ever existed’.) Originally a co-educational boarding school, it is now a Girls’ boarding and day school.

Excessively scarce, with no copy listed on either WorldCat or JISC LHD, and absent from Parrish (1940). Not only a desideratum of a leading Victorian author (at his height only equalled in financial success by Dickens, George Eliot and Wilkie Collins), but also a fine example of eccentric Victorian zeal pushed almost to the point of insanity. The earnestness of the present item suggests that it is satirical in intent, but this is not the case.

Blackwood’s entry in the Oxford DNB quotes H. P. Lovecraft’s opinion that he was the author of ‘some of the finest spectral literature of this or any age’. On post card with printed stamp. In good condition, lightly worn, on light-brown card. Addressed to ‘Miss Cond, / Deer Park, / Honiton.’ Apart from the signature, Blackwood has added quotation marks and dealt with two typing mistakes in autograph. Good firm signature. Reads: ‘Savile Club, 69 Brook St, W. 1.

Written within days of his consecration at Lambeth on 24 June 1865. See his entries in the Oxford DNB and Dictionary of Canadian Biography. The former states that his diocese ‘covered 2 million square miles of territory, with headquarters at Winnipeg, then a hamlet with a population of 150. To assist him in the administration of the diocese he had only eighteen clergymen. In 1866 he made a difficult tour of inspection of the Native American missions’. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Signed ‘R. Rupert’sLand’ and addressed to ‘My dear Covoin’. With embossed letterhead featuring a bishop’s mitre.

A nice item of Victorian charitable ephemera. The Society (later the Hepburn Starey Blind Aid Society) was instituted in 1864, and according to p.5 of the present item the phrase ‘Hall of Light for the Blind’ was ‘Given to Somers Town Blind Aid Society by a Blind Chinese Christian lad’. No copy of this item, or of any other material relating to the Society found on either WorldCat or JISC. 24pp, 12mo. Stitched. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. The front cover is laid out in decorative fashion: ‘“The Hall of Light.” / Somers Town / Blind Aid Society.

Reading Cooperative Society Limited came into existence in the 1860s, as ‘Reading Industrial Co-operative Society’. A nice piece of ephemera from the high-tide mark of the co-operative movement. No other copy has been traced. 50 x 68 cm. A striking and attractive production in six columns, printed in red, olive-green and grey-black, and black, with border of raspberry leaves, calendar split between the outer edges. Large illustration of ‘Llandudno and the Great Orme’ beneath the heading ‘Each for all, & all for each.

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.

Singh was deposed by the British in 1889, with accusations of misgovernment, disloyal dealings with the Russian Empire, and a plot to murder his brothers and the British Resident, but as this was deemed contrary to the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar he was reinstated, but with a new ruling council was forced upon him, under the supervision of the Resident. Two slips of paper cut from a letter for display in an album. Both somewhat discoloured and a little ruckled. All the writing is in the same ink, but it is not clear whether the text of the letter is in a secretarial hand.

An attractive and apparently unique item of Victorian municipal typography, in the customary variety of fonts and point sizes. See Roberts’s entry in the Oxford DNB. (What particular connection, if any, he had with Northampton is not apparent.) 44 x 57 cm. A strip has been torn away from the top left-hand corner, resulting in the loss of the first two letters from the heading ‘COUNTY BOROUGH OF NORTHAMPTON’, otherwise in good condition, on lightly-aged and worn paper, with central vertical and horizontal folds.