Literature

Autograph Letter Signed ('W Beattie') to R. Hepburn.

Author: 
William Beattie (1793-1875), M.D., poet and biographer
Publication details: 
Friday mg.' [date not stated]; Upper Berkeley Street.
£35.00

One page, 12mo. Black bordered. Very good and with the verso of the blank second leaf of the bifolium laid down on a leaf detached from an autograph album. Nine lines. He thanks him for 'a brace of splendid grouse - which are now so rare as not to be had for money. It was therefore doubly generous [...] Endulging [sic] the pleasing hope of "Revenge" - & with kind regards to your House circle'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('W Beattie. MD.') to the editor of the 'Naval and Military Gazette'.

Author: 
William Beattie (1793-1875), Scottish physician and poet
Publication details: 
13 August [1858]; St James's Street, London, on embossed letterhead of the Conservative Club.
£56.00

16mo (11 x 9 cm) bifolium, 3 pp, 16 lines of text. Mourning border. Good, with slight discoloration to the external pages. He is sending a manuscript 'At the suggestion of the Author, an officer residing in Paris'. If 'on examination' the recipient considers it 'unsuitable for the pages' of the Gazette, he asks for it to be returned to him at 13 Upper Berkeley Street 'when your messenger happens to pass that way'. The author 'is a man of high character and well acquainted with Paris & the Parisians'.

Typed Note Signed ('O. H. Mavor. | James Briddie') to Rev. E. J. F. Davies.

Author: 
James Bridie' (Osborne Henry Mavor,1888-1951), Scottish playwright, screenwriter and surgeon
Publication details: 
20 February [no year]; on letterhead 6 Woodlands Terrace, Glasgow, C.3.
£30.00

One page, 12mo. Very good. 'Do forgive my delay. I had lost your letter!'

Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs Wedderburn; and Autograph Note to Mr and Mrs G. Wedderburn.

Author: 
Catherine Sinclair (1800-1864), Scottish novelist
Publication details: 
Letter, 13 February [no year or place]; Note, 23 March [no year], 133 George Street [Edinburgh].
£28.00

LETTER: One page, 12mo. Good, on aged, creased paper, with trace of stub on blank verso. Crest at head. 'It will give my brother & me much pleasure to accept your kind invitation for Tuesday evening the 16th. - I dine that day with Lady Sempill which will make me later than I should wish, but I hope to reach your house soon after 10'. NOTE: One page, 12mo, good, with fraying at head and traces of mount adhering to blank verso. A formal note written in the third person. 'Miss Catherine Sinclair will be happy to have the honor of accepting Mrs. Wedderburns & Mr.

Autograph Letter Signed to Dr Thompson, Edinburgh.

Author: 
James Thomson (1768-1855), editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1795-6); from 1805 parish minister in Eccles, Berwickshire [Rev. Thomas Lewis (d.1852) of the Union Chapel, Islington]
Publication details: 
Date not given (before 1852). 17 Stamford Street, Blackfriars.
£56.00

12mo, 2 pp. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with thin strip of black mount adhering at head on reverse (not affecting text). He has received Thompson's note 'intimating to me the necessity under which the Revd Mr Lewis and the Committee of Union Chapel find themselves reluctantly placed, to refuse our deputation an opportunity of pleading the Cause of our Society on the present occasion'. Refers to the 'great liberality of the Members of the Union Chapel' and 'their attachment to the good Cause'.

The Abbotsford Subscription.

Author: 
R. A. Dundas, Secretary, Royal Society of Literature [Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Scottish novelist and poet]
Publication details: 
St. Martin's Place, Dec. 7, 1832.'
£80.00

Disbound. Octavo: four pages. Good: slightly aged and with some creasing to extremities. Thirty-one lines of text, followed by a double-column list of subscribers, and amounts subscribed.

Autograph Letter Signed to his publisher and friend Alexander Macmillan.

Author: 
William Black (1841-1898), Scottish journalist and novelist [Alexander Macmillan (1818-1896), publisher; Colin Hunter (1841-1904), Scottish painter]
Publication details: 
1 February [no year]; on letterhead of Paston House, Paston Place, Brighton.
£28.00

12mo, 1 p. Six lines of text. Good, on lightly aged and creased paper. Inviting Macmillan to join him and 'some of the lads' in a dinner at the Reform Club, 'on the occasion of Colin Hunter's being made an Associate'.

Autograph Letter Signed to Lockyer.

Author: 
William Black (1841-1898), Scottish journalist and novelist [Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (1836-1920), Alexander Macmillan (1818-1896); astronomer; Altnaharra Hotel; angling; fishing]
Publication details: 
29 March [no year]; Altnaharra, Lairg, N.B. [Scotland]
£38.00

16mo bifolium (leaf dimensions 11 x 9 cm): 2 pp. 17 lines of text. Very good on lightly aged paper. Wonders whether Lockyer would like to spend his Easter holidays at Altnaharra, for a fortnight from 14 April. (The Altnaharra Hotel was used by anglers visiting the nearby lochs.) 'It is an expensive journey; but the sport is good - at least it has been good this last fortnight, but now we are sadly in want of rain. The weather is like June, only more so.' Forty salmon have been killed 'in these two weeks, averaging 11 lbs each'. Black's publisher was Alexander Macmillan.

Autograph Letter Signed ('W Maccall') [to the publishers W. S. Sonnenschein & Co.].

Author: 
William Maccall (1812-1888), Scottish writer and lecturer [W. S. Sonnenschein & Co.]
Publication details: 
14 November 1882; Stanhope Cottages, Bexley Heath.
£85.00

4to, 1 page and 12mo, 2 pp (single 4to leaf, folded as to give two 12mo pp on one side). Thirty-seven lines of text. Maccall is 'willing to accept any proposal which is reasonable and just' concerning his 'Christian Legends' (published by Sonnenschein in 1882), and also 'to make sacrifices for the sake of obliging [...] As the one manuscript is about twice the length of the other - I speak from memory, - it might honestly claim better remuneration'.

Autograph Note Signed to unknown correspondent [David Brewster?].

Author: 
Walter Scott.
Publication details: 
No place or date (trimmed away), [1820?]
£300.00

Page trimmed of peripherals, c. 4 x 3", removed from an album, text as folllows: "Dear Sir // I fancy the Society should pay the [inclosed ??] in the first instance & recover from the gentlemen who a: [new line] vail [avail?] themselves of the tickets which I sent to you. / We will hear of our Address today Yours truly / W Scott [underlined]" David Brewster, scientist (DNB) had a hand in the growth of the collection of autographs in which this appeared.

Autograph Letter in the third person to 'Dr. Taylor', accepting election to the Society of Arts.

Author: 
William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck (1768-1854), 4th Duke of Portland, British politician [Charles Taylor, Secretary, Society of Arts]
Publication details: 
9 July 1812; Fullarton.
£28.00

12mo, 1 p. Fair, on aged paper. Reads 'The Duke of Portland presents his Compliments to Dr. Taylor, and has the honor to acquaint him that he will be very proud of the honor of being elected a member of the Society of Arts -'.

Autograph Letter Signed [to the publishers Messrs George Routledge & Sons].

Author: 
Beatrice Harraden (1864-1936), British novelist and suffragette [George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.]
Publication details: 
29 July [no year]; on letterhead 3, Fitzjohn's Mansions, Netherall Gardens, Hampstead, N.W. [London]
£100.00

Two pages, 12mo. Good, with minor effects of damp. Text clear and entire. Twenty-five lines. Harraden has found an old acquaintance, Mrs Charles Routledge ('the widow of the son of Colonel Robert Warne Routledge'), in 'very distressing circumstances; she had been very ill from blood poisoning in the leg, had been in hospital, & in the work house'. Mrs Routledge has 'done her very best [...] to fight an adverse fate', working hard 'as a house keeper, maid of all work, servant of lodging house'.

The Description and Explanation of a "Universal Character;" or, Manner of Writing, that may be intelligible to the Inhabitants of every Country, although ignorant of each others Language; and which is to be learnt with facility, [...].

Author: 
[anon.] [Bath, Somerset; provincial printing; pasigraphy; linguistics; universal language]
Publication details: 
Bath: Printed by J. Hollway, Engraver and Copper-Plate Printer, Union Street.' [1830? 1833? 1835?]
£450.00

4to: 48 + [3] pp of letterpress, with additional leaf after title of 'Errata of Letter Press' and 'Errata in Plates'. Twenty numbered plates (the first two transposed), including one fold-out, and a final seventeen full-page unnumbered plates ('Examples'). Apparently complete. In original brown quarter binding, with cloth spine and paper boards. Ownership inscription of 'Lady Rolle' (1796-1885, born Louisa Barbara Trefusis) on front board. Text clear and complete. On aged and lightly-spotted paper, with wear to extremities and wraps, and cloth spine torn and worn.

Signed Autograph Manuscript testimonial ('Philip Gibbs') on behalf of G. K. Chesterton's candidacy for the Rectorship of the University of Glasgow.

Author: 
Sir Philip Gibbs [Sir Philip Armand Hamilton Gibbs] (1877-1962), writer and journalist [G. K. Chesterton; Glasgow University]
Publication details: 
Undated [1925].
£45.00

8vo: 2 pp. Fifty lines. Text clear and complete, on two pieces of aged and spotted paper, with rust spots from paperclip. Untitled. Begins: 'I should like to see Chesterton as Lord Rector of a university which stands for Liberal thought. Some people, limited in imagination and hostile to unconventional character, would as soon give their votes to a modern Don Quixote who by some miracle has acquired the corporeal structure of his own Sancho Panza.

Offprint from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature: 'On Two Events which occurred in the Life of King Canute the Dane.'

Author: 
John Hogg, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society of Literature [John Lee (ne Fiott) (1783-1866), of Hartwell House]
Publication details: 
London: Printed by W. Hughes, King's Head Court, Gough Square. 1855.
£75.00

8vo: [ii] + 18 pp. In worn original buff wraps with white printed label on front. Clear and complete. On aged, damp-stained paper. Presentation copy, with note on title-page: 'To John Lee Esqre. L.L.D. | with the Author's kind regards.' Ownership inscription of 'J. Lee. Hartwell. 3 May 1856.' also on title. Scarce.The only copies on COPAC at the British Library and the Society of Antiquaries.

The Powys Family. Being a lecture given by him to the Swansea and South Wales Bookman's Association in May, 1945, with some additions.

Author: 
Littleton C. Powys [John Cowper Powys; Llewelyn Powys; Theodore Powys]
Publication details: 
This reprint [of the original lecture] issued April, 1953.' Western Gazette, Yeovil.
£56.00

12mo: 27 pp. Stapled. In original brown printed wraps. Good, on lightly-aged paper with rusted staples. Divided into five sections: 'Our Ancestry', 'Our Father', 'Our Mother', 'Montacute' and 'The Children'. A scarce item, the only copies on COPAC being at the British Library, Cardiff and St Andrews.

[The Writings of Leo Tolstoy. Edited by V. Tchertkoff. No. 2.] The Spirit of Christ's Teaching.

Author: 
Leo Tolstoy [V. Tchertkoff (Vladimir Grigorevich Chertkov), 1854-1936]
Publication details: 
Purleigh, Essex: Free Speech Publishing House. 1899.
£56.00

12mo: [iv] + 35 pp. In original green cloth printed wraps. Text clear and complete. On aged high-acidity paper, and with four staple holes throughout. Creasing to front wrap and slight loss at head of title (not affecting text). In the 'Editor's Preface' (p.iii, dated 'V. TCHERTKOFF.

Poems of Rural Life in Common English.

Author: 
William Barnes [Dorset dialect poetry]
Publication details: 
London: Macmillan and Co. 1868. [London: Printed by Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square and Parliament Street.]
£65.00

First edition. 8vo: xii + 200 + [iv] pp. (the last four pages an unpaginated publisher's catalogue). In original blue cloth, gilt. Fair, tight copy, on lightly-aged paper, with some spotting to endpapers. Binding with dulled spine and minor spotting. Bookplate of the Rev. English Crooks. Binders ticket ('BOUND BY BURN & CO.') to rear pastedown. Half-title reads 'RURAL POEMS'. The 'translation' of the three collections beginning with 'Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect' (1844).

The first four numbers of 'The New Athenian Broadsheet'. No.1, 'Festival Issue - Scottish Poems of Place'. No.3: 'Spring and Summer Poems'. No.4: 'Scottish Lore and Legend'.

Author: 
The New Athenian Broadsheet [The Favil Press; Lewis Spence; William Soutar; Sydney Goodsir Smith; George Campbell Hay; Edwin Muir; Naomi Mitchison; Maurice Lindsay; Scotland; Scottish poetry]
Publication details: 
No.1: August 1947; No.2: Christmas 1947; No.3: April 1948; No.4: July, 1948'. All printed for 'The Editor, The New Athenian Broadsheets, 45 Plewlands Gardens, Edinburgh, 10' by The Favil Press Ltd., 152 Kensington Church Street, London.
£165.00

All four items printed on both sides of a piece of paper roughly 57 x 25 cm, folded twice to make 6 pp, each 19 x 25 cm. Aged and a little grubby and creased. The second number with title printed in red, the third with title in green, and fourth with title in blue. Each with engraving of park with neo-classical buildings by William McLaren. No.1: poems by Lewis Spence, R. L. Cook, Joe Corrie, W. H. Hamilton, Alexander Buist, A. V. Stuart, Hugh N. Maclachlan, A. A. C. Blackie, Dorothy Margaret Paulin and Helen B. Cruikshank. No.2: poems by William Soutar, Alexander Buist, A. V.

The Traveller's Oracle; Or, Maxims for Locomotion: Containing Precepts for Promoting the Pleasures and Hints for Preserving the Health of Travellers. [Part II: 'By John Jervis, An Old Coachman.] [Including sheet music of eight songs by Kitchiner.]

Author: 
William Kitchiner ['John Jervis, An Old Coachman.']
Publication details: 
London: Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street. Second Edition, 1827. [London: Printed by J. Moyes, Took's Court, Chancery Lane.] [Sheet music engraved by Sidney Hall, Bury Street, Bloomsbury.]
£300.00

2 vols, 12mo. Vol.1: viii + 264 pp. Vol.2: viii + 336 pp. Complete, with all the engravings of sheet music listed in the contents (vol.1: five two-page plates and one four-page plate, with one more piece of music 'printed with the letterpress'; vol.2: one two-page plate). Both volumes good and tight, on lightly-aged and spotted paper. In worn contemporary half-calf binding, marbled boards, with the first volume rebacked. Each volume with bookplate of Frederic Perkins, Chipstead Place, Kent.

[Pickering's Diamond Classics.] Quintus Horatius Flaccus.

Author: 
The Pickering Horace' [Quintus Horatius Flaccus; William Pickering, London publisher; Charles Corrall, printer; Pickering's Diamond Classics; miniature books]
Publication details: 
Londini: Typis C. Corrall; Impensis Gul. Pickering, 31, Lincoln's Inn Fields. MDCCCXX.' [London: William Pickering, 1820. Printed by Charles Corrall.]
£450.00

A bibliographical landmark: the first issue of the first volume in Pickering's series of 'Diamond Classics' 32mo: [ii] + 185 + [i] + [i]. Engraved frontispiece portrait of 'Horace' by R. Grave, facing engraved titlepage, which precedes the letterpress titlepage. On the reverse of the leaf with p.185 on its recto is a portrait of Sir Francis Bacon, captioned 'Advancement of Learning.' On the page facing this are the 'Corrigenda.' Tight copy, on aged paper, with a few dogeared pages, in contemporary black russia binding with boards and spine ornamented in gilt and title 'HORATIUS'.

The Art of Poetry, Written in French by The Sieur de Boileau. In Four Canto's. Made English By Sir William Soames, Since Revis'd by John Dryden, Esq;

Author: 
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux; Sir William Soames; John Dryden; Henry Hills junior, London printer
Publication details: 
London: Printed and Sold by H. Hills, in Black-fryars near the Water-side. 1710.
£400.00

12mo: 40 pp. Disbound. Good, on lightly aged paper. Contemporary ownership inscription of 'William Francklyn" on title-page. This edition is scarce: no copy in the British Library, and the only copy on COPAC at Liverpool.

Victorian type-facsimile [by John Camden Hotten or H. J. Bellars?] of 'Joe Miller's Jests Or, The Wits Vade-Mecum. [...] now set forth and published by his lamentable Friend and former Companion, Elijah Jenkins, Esq. [i.e. John Mottley]

Author: 
Joe Miller's Jests; 'Elijah Jenkins' [John Mottley] [H. J. Bellars; John Camden Hotten]
Publication details: 
Title-page reads 'London: Printed and Sold by T. READ, in Dogwell-Court, White-Fryars, Fleet-Street, MDCCXXXIX. [1739]', but in fact a type facsimile [by John Camden Hotten or H. J. Bellars?], circa 1861].
£45.00

8vo: [ii] + 70 pp. Internally sound and tight, on lightly-aged paper. In worn contemporary burgundy quarter-binding with heavily-worn spine, recased with repair to rear endpapers. COPAC lists an entry for a copy in Cambridge University Library described as 'Probably the Lithographic facsimile by H.J. Bellars. London, reprinted 1861'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('J Bowles') to 'Mr Wright | Piccadilly', confirming his authorship of the 'Letters of the Ghost of Alfred'.

Author: 
John Bowles (1751-1819), barrister and author [John Wright (1770-1841) of Piccadilly, bookseller and publisher of Gifford's 'Anti-Jacobin']
Publication details: 
Tuesday' [no date, but circa 1798]. Place not stated.
£120.00

12mo, 2 pp. Bifolium with address on second leaf. Twenty-five lines. Text clear and complete. On aged, spotted and repaired paper. A significant letter, confirming Bowles's hitherto-tentative authorship of the 'Letters of the Ghost of Alfred', which was printed by Wright in 1798. Bowles informs Wright that he will 'receive some Copies of ye. Ghost of Alfred' the following morning. 'The price [I conceive] should be only 2/6 in boards there being but about 130 pages including thhe advertisements'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('R. Brimley Johnson') [to Swan Sonnenschein], proposing a work for publication, and outlining his literary achievements.

Author: 
R. Brimley Johnson [Reginald Brimley Johnson] (1867-1932), English author and editor [Swan Sonnenschein, London publishers]
Publication details: 
19 February 1893; on embossed letterhead of Llandaff House, Cambridge.
£65.00

12mo, 4 pp. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. He was introduced to the recipient 'by Mr. Philip Malleson of Croydon, when I wanted to send an Essay to The Albemarle'. Asks if he 'might be disposed to let me write a volume on Jane Austen or Leigh Hunt for your Dilettante Library', Austen being 'specially before the public just now'. He has edited Austen's novels and two 'well received' volumes of selections from Hunt for 'Mr. Dent's Temple Library'. 'If you do not care to arrange for either of these authors I would suggest Miss Burney[,] Hazlitt or T. L. Peacock.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Martin Armstrong') to Thorpe.

Author: 
Martin Armstrong [Martin Donisthorpe Armstrong] (1882-1974), English novelist and poet [Thomas Thorp, Guildford bookseller]
Publication details: 
15 January 1933; Sutton, Pulborough, Sussex, on cancelled letterhead of 37 Great Ormond Street, London.
£45.00

12mo, 2 pp. Good, on lightly-aged and creased paper. Giving the details of three titles from Thorp's 'large catalogue' which he hopes are still available (one is ticked in pencil and the other two marked as sold). 'Also can you let me have a cheap copy of John Masefield's "Sea Life in The Time of Nelson" and J. R. Hutchinson's "The Press Gang Afloat & Ashore." Publishers and prices of both items are noted in pencil, with 'Cheque Noted' in margin.

Autograph Note Signed ('George A Lawrence') to unnamed publisher [Tinsley?].

Author: 
George A. Lawrence [George Alfred Lawrence] (1827-1876), English novelist
Publication details: 
Undated. On monogrammed letterhead of 25 Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, London.
£35.00

12mo, 1 p. Six lines. Mourning border. Text clear and complete. Aged, creased and a little grubby. Asking to be sent '4 copies of "The Butterfly", if ready', and if not to be told 'when it will be'. Lawrence published his 'Breaking a Butterfly; Or Blanche Ellerslie's Ending' anonymously by Tinsley in 1869.

Autograph Letter Signed ('George A Lawrence') to an unnamed publisher [George Routledge?].

Author: 
George A. Lawrence [George Alfred Lawrence] (1827-1876), English novelist [Miss Caulfield; George Routledge]
Publication details: 
22 March 1858; Plymouth.
£35.00

16mo (leaf dimensions 13 x 10 cm), 3 pp. Bifolium. Twenty-eight lines. Text clear and complete. On aged and lightly creased paper with small closed tear in margin (not affecting text). He has been asked by 'Miss Caulfield' to 'perform the ceremony of "introduction" with a view to your publishing (if you approved of it) a work she has lately written [...] <"Janet de Rinzy?">'.

Autograph Signature ('F. Palgrave') on fragment of letter.

Author: 
Sir Francis Palgrave (1788-1861) [born Francis Ephraim Cohen], English historian and antiquary, best-known for his poetry anthology 'The Golden Treasury'.
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£25.00

On piece of grey wove paper cut into a rough rectangle, 5 x 8 cm. Good, but with light traces of glue from previous mounting on reverse. Reads '<...> | I have honour to remain | Dear Sir | Yr obt. & hble. Servt | F. Palgrave', with the flourish to the 't' of 'Servt' forming the top horizontal stroke to the 'F.' in Palgrave's signature. Reverse reads '<...> | In conformity <...> | my letter to you <...> | July last, I requir<...> | my name may be <...>'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Thos: Day') to 'Edmund Taylor Esqe | Castle Yard Windsor | Berkshire', including original unpublished forty-line manuscript poem by Day entitled 'Lines address'd to Windsor', in which he has 'spit his spite' on the town.

Author: 
Thomas Day [Edmund Taylor; Windsor, Berkshire; Oxford Street; Georgian London; John Romney?; Matthew Cotes Wyatt?]
Publication details: 
25 March 1810; Oxford Street.
£40.00

The work of a cultured and witty man, but not by the author of 'Sandford and Merton', who died in 1789. While possible authors include the 'Mr. Thomas Day, solicitor, Woburn, Bedfordshire', whose death at the age of 47 on 18 February 1824 was reported in The Times (5 March 1824), and the Thomas Day who lived around this time at Montague Street, Russell Square, the most likely candidate, considering the references to 'Romney' and 'Wyatt' is the Thomas of 'DAY William, and Thomas Day, of No. 95, Gracechurch-street, in the city of London, oilmen', who went bankrupt in 1841.

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