Literature

Autograph Note Signed to an unnamed correspondent ("Dear Friend")

Author: 
Anna Swanwick (1813-1899), English author, feminist, and translator of Goethe, born in Liverpool
Publication details: 
No place or year (6 June).
£36.00

One page, 12mo, asking her friend to dinner "to meet a friend from the country", fearing that "there is small chance of finding you disengaged" with such late notice.

Super Detective Library No. 78. All in Pictures. Sherlock Holmes meets the Hound of the Baskervilles and the Missing Heiress [Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles]

Author: 
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Sherlock Holmes; Super Detective Library [Sherlockiana; comic books, strips]
Publication details: 
No date [1950s]. London: The Amalgamated Press, Ltd., The Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, EC4.
£75.00

Dimensions: 17.5 x 13.5 cm. 64 pp. In original coloured paper covers. Priced at 10d, and thus the British edition and not one produced for the foreign market. Good and tight, on browned paper. Attractive image on front cover showing a bemused Holmes puffing on his pipe as he wanders down a country-house corridor whose walls are covered in paintings, while the spectral figure of the hound's head looms above him.Covers lightly worn and slightly damaged by the rusting of the staples. Both stories are told in comic strip form.

Le Chapitre des Accidents.

Author: 
Maurice Alhoy, French author; Victor Adam, lithographic engraver and artist [Le Figaro]
Publication details: 
1845. Paris: Soulié, Editeur, 10, Rue de Seine. [Paris. - Typographie Lacrampe et comp., Rue Damiette, 2.]
£100.00

Landscape 8vo (leaf dimensions roughly 15.5 x 23.5 cm): [iv] + 98 pp of letterpress, and 24 tipped-in full-page lithographic engravings ('taille-douce' over a tinted background), one illustrating each of the book's twenty-four chapters. Woodcut engraving on title-page. In contemporary brown cloth with green patterned endpapers. A tight copy, with the first few leaves somewhat grubby and worn at bottom outer corners. Occasional foxing throughout. Alhoy (1802-1856) was co-founder of 'Le Figaro'. Second and last edition.

Old Tyneside Street Cries

Author: 
[Robert King]
Publication details: 
Tynemouth, Printed by Robert King at the Priory Press, 1924.
£100.00

"Collected by Robert King, brought to one standard by J.G. Jewels, and drawn by F. Austin Childs", one of 120 copies, [69]pp. inc. colophon, 12mo, Original buckram-backed marbled boards with paper label to spine, somewaht battered (sp. label chipped), sl. hinge strain, foxing. INSCRIBED by "Collector" and Publisher, Robert King to one of theose acknowledged by King in his Preface: "To Mr Julius Turner | With Compliments and thanks | for assistance in the preparation | of this book. | Robt King ||".

A series of engravings, drawn and engraved by W. Grainger for the 'Royal Encyclopedia', each headed 'An exact representation of the Manual Exercise, according to modern Military Discipline, See Treatise on Military Affairs.'

Author: 
William Grainger, engraver; Charles Cooke, bookseller, Paternoster Row [Hanoverian British army; eighteenth-century military history; commands; discipline; musketry; firearms]
Publication details: 
London: 'Published as the Act directs, by C. Cooke No. 17 Paternoster Row May 28 1790'.
£200.00

Four plates, each roughly 39.5 x 22 cm. Good, clear impressions. The first two plates have a little light staining in the margins, and the first has some light foxing. The other two in very good condition, and the set good overall. An attractive series, each plate containing twelve main engravings, mainly of an infantryman with his musket in various positions, but also of an officer with sword. Begins with 'Dress to the Right' and ends with 'Sword Salute'. Mains numbered series begins '1st. Poise Firelock' and ends '35th. Shoulder Firelock'. Occasional smaller engravings in the background.

Seven-page advertisement, written by Cobbett, and headed 'This Day is published, Cobbett's Annual Register, Vol. I. From January to June, 1802.'

Author: 
William Cobbett [Cox, Son, and Baylis, Great Queen Street]
Publication details: 
Dated 'Pall Mall. | October 11th, 1802. } W. COBBETT.' ['Printed by Cox, Son, and Baylis, Great Queen Street.']
£100.00

8vo: 8 pp. Unbound. Stabbed as issued. Very good, on rough-edged wove paper. The seven-page advertisement, signed in type by Cobbett, is succeeded by a page headed 'New Books, published by COBBETT and MORGAN'. (Eight titles are listed.) The advertisement is a personal address from Cobbett, the second paragraph casting valuable light on his motives and intentions: 'When I first undertook the Register, I was fully persuaded, that the plan, which, indeed, I had long thought of, was well calculated to ensure a wide circulation, and to produce an extensive as well as a lasting effect.

Illustrated handbill poem, a street ballad entitled 'A New Song, entitled, Dear Peggy.'

Author: 
[Victorian London street ballad; broadsheet; handbill; death]
Publication details: 
Date and publisher not stated. [London; circa 1840?]
£38.00

Printed on one side of a piece of wove paper roughly 230 x 90 mm. On pitted, aged paper. Text complete. Approximate 30 x 50 mm piece torn away from top right-hand corner, causing loss to small illustration at head, which appears to be a crude woodcut of a woman lying in a coffin. The poem consists of thirty-six lines arranged in five stanzas. The first stanza reads 'Dear Peggy, read this letter, | its the last one I'll send, | Our long correspondence, | is now at an end.

Illustrated poem, a street ballad entitled 'The Wheel of Fortune'.

Author: 
[Victorian street ballad; broadsheet; handbill; death; nineteenth-century folk song]
Publication details: 
Date [circa 1840?] and publisher not stated.
£56.00

On one side of a piece of thin wove paper, roughly 260 x 95 mm. Aged and creased, with internal 25 mm closed tear affecting four words of text (all of which can be completed from the context) repaired on blank reverse with archival tape. Otherwise text and illustration clear and entire. Small (30 x 40 mm) woodcut at head, showing two early nineteenth-century country coves outside a cottage. The poem consists of ten four-line stanzas.

Illustrated Victorian handbill poem, a street ballad entitled 'The Golden Glove.'

Author: 
[Victorian street ballad; handbill poem; street ballad; broadsheet; nineteenth-century folk song]
Publication details: 
Publisher and date not stated. [Circa 1840?]
£56.00

Printed on one side of a piece of wove paper roughly 280 x 95 mm. Aged, creased and spotted, with chipping to extremities, but with text and illustration clear and entire. Curious small (roughly 40 x 65 mm) crude illustration at head, showing dove with olive branch and acorn. Forty-line poem arranged in five stanzas. Interestingly-garbled nineteenth-century folk song with ancient antecedents.

The Months, Reprinted from "Little Folks"

Author: 
Walter Crane, designer, and Beatrice Crane, writer of verse
Publication details: 
No place of publication or date
£850.00

Not paginated but twelve pages (Months!), 4to, with detached original front wrap, chipped and marked, missing back wrap, contents good, in unrelated folder. INSCRIBED top right of front wrap by Beatrice Crane, Walter's wife, and collaborator on this work (the verse): "Marguerite Marigold / from / Beatrice Crane/". Not listed in Masse.

Lines Drawn and ornamentally inscribed on a White Silk Riband with which [...] the Editor was decorated [...] by the Baron and Baroness Von Sass, at their seat of Tadaiken, in the Duchy of Courland, on 21st November, 1790, [...].

Author: 
[William Tooke the younger (1777-1863)] [Russia; Russian; Bloomsbury Inns of Court Association; rifle clubs; George Bramwell; private printing; St Petersburg]
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£250.00

12mo: 8 pp. Leaf dimensions 18 x 11.5 cm. Unbound. Stitched as issued. Good, on lightly-aged paper with foxing to first page. Complete: paginated [1] to 8, and with 'Finis.' at the end.

An Buaiceas. 1. ceithre sgéalta rug craobh an Oireachtais leó 'sa bhliadhain 1898. [Sgéalta nua-dhéanta. - IV.]

Author: 
Pádraig Ó Séaghdha (pseudonym ‘Conán Maol’) (1855-1928), Irish writer
Publication details: 
I mBaile Átha Cliath: Ar n-a gcur amach do Chonnradh na Gaedhilge, 1903.
£200.00

12mo: 97 pp. A good, tight copy, on aged paper, in contemporary calf binding gilt. All edges gilt, marble endpapers, dentelles. Binding rubbed and worn. Apparently complete (and certainly complete as bound), containing all four stories listed in the National Library of Ireland entry, but having 97 rather than the 167 pp in that entry. A landmark work in Irish literature, highly regarded as a pioneering attempt to modernize Gaelic narrative.

Almanach Dramatischer Spiele zur geselligen Unterhaltung auf dem Lande von A. von Kotzebue. Zweiter Jahrgang. [with 6 hand-coloured plates]

Author: 
August von Kotzebue [G. M. Kraus, artist]
Publication details: 
1804. Berlin bei F. T. de La Garde.
£200.00

12mo (leaf and plate dimensions 115 x 80 mm): [ii] + 247 pp + 6 hand-coloured engravings. Good, on lightly aged and spotted paper, in heavily worn original boards, with ink stain on back board. The plays included are: [1] Das Urtheil des Paris; [2] Die Tochter Pharaonis; [3] Ruebezahl; [4] Incognito; [5] Die Uhr und die Mandeltorte; [6] Sultan Bimbambum. Engraved title and six whimsical hand-coloured engravings by Mueller from the designs of the Frankfurt artist G. M.

Handbill street ballad entitled 'Mr. Sopkin's Misadventures at Blackpool. (After Ingoldsby's Misadventures at Margate.)'

Author: 
Samuel Laycock (1826-1893), Victorian Yorkshire dialect poet [nineteenth-century Blackpool]
Publication details: 
Publisher and date not stated.
£75.00

At foot: 'PRICE ONE PENNY.' On one side of a piece of wove paper, roughly 220 x 170 mm. Enclosed within decorative border. Foxed and creased, with edges trimmed to edge of border. Thin strip of card mound adhering to one edge of reverse. Text clear and entire. Printed in two columns employing characteristically Victorian typography. Twenty-six four-line stanzas (the last two being the 'MORAL.'). Begins 'When down at Blackpool last July, and walking on the Pier, | I met a pretty maiden, so I said "How do my dear?" | "What do you here, love, by yourself? How is it you're alone?

Everything New? Or Nothing New? A Satirical Comicality, Relating to Men, Manners, Incidents, and Novelties of the Day. [...] To which is added, The Shakespeare Tercentenary Prologue, As Spoken by the author, April 23, 1864.

Author: 
William Scribble, Esq.' (pseudonym of William Smyth (1813-1878), Irish portrait painter, satirist and friend of William Makepeace Thackeray)
Publication details: 
Dublin: William Robertson, 35, Lower Sackville-street, And may be had of Wiseheart, and all Booksellers. 1864. [Goodwin, Son, and Nethercott, Printers, 79, Marlborough-street, Dublin.]
£225.00

12mo: 24 pp. In original pink printed wraps: the front wrap bearing the title; the recto and verso of the rear carrying newspaper reviews of works by 'Scribble'. Stitched. On aged and spotted paper. Wraps heavily worn. A worn presentation inscription can be made out at the head of the title: 'Dr <?> With the Authors Best regards'. Pp.1-2: Introduction and Author's Preface (the latter dated 'Dublin, May, 1864.').

Autograph Signature ('H de Vere Stacpoole.').

Author: 
Henry de Vere Stacpoole [Harry] (1863-1951), Anglo-Irish novelist, best known for his often-filmed book 'The Blue Lagoon' (1908)
Publication details: 
Place and date not stated.
£23.00

On a piece of thin card roughly 8.5 x 11.5 cm. Very good. Good signature, 7.5 cm long, neatly centred.

Dein Sternbild Leuchte Auch Uns. Fünf Gedichte an Nelly Sachs.' and 'Pablo Neruda Friede für die Dämmerungen'.

Author: 
Eva Mohr [Pablo Neruda]
Publication details: 
The first item dated 1960; the second undated. Printer and place not stated in either case.
£56.00

Item One: 'Dein Sternbild' (1960). 8vo: 7 pp. In original cream printed wraps. Stitched. Printed on the rectos of seven leaves. Good, in slightly grubby and worn wraps. German inscription to Nelly Weiss. German poem. Nicely printed on watermarked laid paper. Item Two: 'Pablo Neruda' (undated). 12mo: 3 pp. German translation by Mohr from the Spanish. Six-line note explains the context in which the poem was translated. With manuscript correction and signature of Mohr. No other copy traced.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Julius de Geyter'), in Flemish Dutch.

Author: 
Julius de Geyter (1830-1905), Flemish poet
Publication details: 
31 December 1899; Antwerp.
£35.00

12mo: 1 p. Seven lines of text. Monogram in red in top left-hand corner. On creased and aged paper, with pinholes at head (not affecting text). Scan on request.

Autograph Note Signed ('J. Doran') to 'Thomas Faed Esq. R.A'.

Author: 
John Doran (1807-1878), writer and editor of 'Notes and Queries' [Thomas Faed (1826-1900), R.A., Scottish artist]
Publication details: 
30 October 1877; on letterhead of 33 Lansdowne Road, Kensington Park West.
£28.00

16mo (11.5 x 9 cm): 1 p. On aged paper with a diagonal crease towards top right-hand corner. In a shaky hand. Reads 'With much pleasure I accept your hospitable invitation for Nov. 20, at 1/4 to 8; - and am | Very truly Your's | [signed] J. Doran'.

Galley proofs of an article in the London Magazine, entitled 'Conversation with Lawrence'; with a Typed Letter Signed by Lawrence's biographer Edward Nehls, and covering letter by Barbara Cooper, assistant editor, London Magazine.

Author: 
Brigit Patmore (1882-1965) [D. H. Lawrence; the London Magazine; Barbara Cooper; Edward Nehls]
Publication details: 
Proofs of an article appeared in the London Magazine for June 1957. Nehls's Letter: 7 June 1957; Urbana, Illinois. Cooper's Letter: 18 June 1957; on letterhead of the London Magazine.
£100.00

The proofs are on one side each of five strips (each approximately 60 x 15.5 cm) of discoloured high-acidity paper. They are in good condition, with a little light creasing, and slight chipping at head of first strip (not affecting text). They are headed 'GALLEY ONE [TWO, THREE, FOUR, EIGHT]'. Text clear and entire. The article reads continuously, with no hiatus between Galleys Four and Eight. Some simple errors indicate that these are early proofs, i.e.

Four ALSs and one Typed Note Signed to Harry Furniss, caricaturist and illustrator.

Author: 
F.C. Burnand, comic writer, sometime editor of "Punch"
Publication details: 
[Three with printed heading "Whitefriars, London, E.C." Three with no year given, others 1886 and 1894]
£120.00

Total thirteen pages, mainly 8vo, fair to good condition, texts clear and complete. Jocular, often obscurely, and in a difficult hand, subjects include: an invitation to ride; Furniss missing the Cardinal; trip to Calais; Paris trip for "Mr Punch"; "night gatherings of clubs"; Lord Rosebery; another ride, giving directions, suggesting meeting at Tenniel's place, and concluding with cartoon of a mill on top of a hill (obvious destination); reference to the Punch table and something confidential happening involving the proprietors.

Autograph Letter Signed to "William Lyster", operatic entrepreneur, introduced Wagner to Australia.

Author: 
B.L. Farjeon, novelist
Publication details: 
12 Buckingham Street, Strand, WC [London}, 28 Oct. 1880.
£56.00

One page, 8vo, grubby but text clear and complete. He introduces a colleague from his Green Room, Frederick Mervin, whom he describes as a good fellow as well as an actor and singer of ability. He hopes his correspondent will make Mervin's "trip to the Colonies pleasant to him (presumably Australia) . "I hear all the news about you from your brother Alfie when I meet him. I trust this new venture will be hugely successful." Note: Lyster opened in Melbourne with a new company but died in Nov. 1880, presumably shortly after receiving this letter.

Autograph Signature on fragment of letter.

Author: 
Marie Corelli (1855-1924), British novelist
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£25.00

On a piece of paper roughly 5.5 x 13 cm. Good firm signature (8 cm long) on lightly aged and creased paper. Reads 'Faithfully yours | [signed] Marie Corelli'. Fragment on reverse reads '<...> education nowadays <...> hope you <...> induced to <...> estimable'.

Holograph Poem signed "J.S.B." with quotations from Browning and "Goethe's Werther" in Blackie's hand, with signature "John S. Blackie 1st October 1883".

Author: 
John Stuart Blackie, Greek Professor (Edinburgh).
Publication details: 
01/10/83
£100.00

Piece of paper, c.17.5 x 11cm, fold mark down middle, good condition. The initialled poem, four lines, is headed "Love" ("Poor is the man who in self-hardened shell . . . . And grows to great estate by loving great and small." The next heading is "Life" folowed by the line "Why stay us on the earth, unless to grow. | Browning", followed by the heading "Evil", with the line, "I gulp down the devil, without looking at him. | Goethe's Werther".

Autograph Letter Signed ('Ernest Havet'), in French [to someone living in Sainte-Beuve's old house].

Author: 
Eugène Auguste Ernest Havet (1813-1889), French scholar.
Publication details: 
21 February 1872; Vitry.
£56.00

16mo: 1 p. 14 lines of text. Close hand. He is touched that Sainte-Beuve has found time, in the midst of his labours, to write a letter expressing his 'adhésion'. 'Je suis heureux de penser, en vous écrivant rue Montparnasse [Sainte-Beuve lived at no. 11], que la philosophie et l'esprit d'indépendence ont toujours un ami dans la maison de Sainte-Beuve'.

Autograph Signature on piece of paper.

Author: 
Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939), writer
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£18.00

On a piece of wove paper, roughly 5 x 14.5 cm. Rough lower edge. Good, on lightly aged paper. 0.5 cm closed tear at left (not affecting signature). Paper folded once vertically. Good clear signature.

Invitation card "Mrs George Lillie Craik. | At Home") to "Mrs Mackinlay".

Author: 
Mrs Craik [Dinah Mulock; Mrs George Lillie Craik], author
Craik
Publication details: 
The Corner House, Shortlands. | RSVP
£56.00
Craik

Printed Card, c.4 x 2.5", with manuscript additions in Mrs Craik's hand. She gives the day and month, and time, then adds details about trains and Cabs.

[Chapbook] The Art of Swimming rendered easy; with Directions to Learners. To which is prefixed, Advice to bathers, by Dr. B. Franklin.

Author: 
Benjamin Franklin [Scottish Chapbook]
Benjamin Franklin
Publication details: 
Glasgow: Printed for the Booksellers. 81. [sic] [1840-50?]
£350.00
Benjamin Franklin

Unbound, on six loose leaves folded to make bifoliums. Good, though grubby and with rough edges (particularly the head). Text clear and entire. 12mo, 24 pages. Cover features woodcut of eighteenth-century gentleman (Franklin?) leaning on stick. Sections on 'Swimming like a dog', 'To beat the water', 'To show both feet out of the water', 'To suspend yourself by the chin', etc. Scarce: Copac only lists copies at Glasgow and in the National Library of Scotland. Dated 1840-50 by the NLS 'from examination of text and style [of] Illustration on title page'.

Typed Letter Signed ('Walter Besant') to Mrs [Alice] Westlake.

Author: 
Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), novelist and historian of London [Alice Westlake (nee Hare); Adam and Charles Black, publishers; The Survey of London; Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; Frognal]
Publication details: 
13 February 1897; on Adam and Charles Black 'Survey of London' letterhead.
£45.00

12mo, 2 pp. Seventeen lines of text. On lightly aged and creased paper. Attractive arts and crafts letterhead. Sending his 'mosts profound sympathy in the danger which threatens Chelsea'. He will sign 'the paper [...] with the greatest of pleasure', although he anticipates 'very little good as a possible result'. Suggests a time at which the paper can be sent to him.

Autograph Letter Signed to [Frederick Whelen], Fabian writer and lecturer (1867-1955), founder of the Stage Society.

Author: 
Arnold Bennett, novelst.
Publication details: 
14 St. Simon's Avenue, Putney, [London] S.W., 5 May 1909.
£220.00

One page, 4to, slightly chipped and with folds at corners, good condition, text clear and complete. " . . . I am not a brilliant orator, nor even an orator; but neither am I the sort of person to refuse your request to orate, & therefore I will speak for the guests. I wish you would let me know whom the chief invited stars are, so that I can say for them what I think they ought to say. . . . "

Syndicate content