ALPINE

[Thomas George Bonney, geologist, Alpine mountaineer.] Autograph Letter Signed ('T G Bonney'), urging a lady to abandon 'matters far too difficult and complicated' for her, to be 'useful to others in a less ambitious but more practical sphere'.

Author: 
T. G. Bonney [Thomas George Bonney] (1833-1923), geologist and Alpine mountaineer, President of the Geological Society of London and the Alpine Club
Publication details: 
8 October 1904. On letterhead of 23 Denning Road, Hampstead, N.W. [London]
£120.00

See Bonney's entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The recipient is not named. It is unfortunate that the subject of the letter is not stated. Against the charge of misogyny, it should be noted that Bonney 'had the reputation of being a hard teacher, but also a generous man', and that he could equally well have written in the same way to a man he considered equally ill-equipped for a theological task.

[ Mountaineering ] Victorian album, containing 82 photographs, including several large-scale images of mountaineering in Switzerland, and of the 1900 Oberammergau Passion Play.

Author: 
[Victorian mountaineering in Switzerland; Oberammergau; Tonneson Sisters of Chicago]
Publication details: 
[American?] Circa 1900.
£180.00

Album, in maroon cloth and fake leather half-binding, containing 24 leaves of thick paper (dimensions 36 x 26.5 cm). Small stamp on front paste-down: 'D.A.I. LONDON | No. 20[2]' (last digit added in manuscript). The binding is heavily-worn, with spine lacking, and the pages are somewhat discoloured with age, but the 82 photographs are in good condition, with four creased before insertion into the album, and one with slight discoloration. One photograph has been removed. Can be dated from picture of the 'Kreuzigung.

[ James Lothian, Scottish gardener. ] Autograph Letter Signed to Daniel Mctaggart of Kilkerran, sending a book on the 'Potatoe question'.

Author: 
James Lothian (1817-1871), Scottish gardener, author of the first English book on the cultivation of Alpine plants [ Daniel McTaggart [ Mactaggart ] of Kilkerran, Argyll, Scotland
Publication details: 
No place. 19 June 1854.
£56.00

2pp., 16mo. Bifolium. Addressed on reverse of second leaf to 'Daniel McTaggart Esq: of Kilkeran [sic]'. In fair condition, on lightly aged paper. He is sending him 'Keith' (i.e. a book by George Skene Keith), which contains 'some facts bearing on the Potatoe question'. He has other works on the same matter, but they are 'out', with the exception of 'Vol: 2 of the Gardener which I send down'. In his opinion 'Works on Forrest [sic] trees and Landscape Gardening throw no light on either disease or Longivity [sic] of Plants.

Autograph Letter Signed ('James Bryce') from James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, former President of the Alpine Club, to E. W. Hallifax, endorsing 'a protest [...] raised against the ruin wrought in Switzerland by the construction of tourist railways'.

Author: 
James Bryce (1838-1922), 1st Viscount Bryce, British Liberal politician and author, President of the Alpine Club, London, 1899-1901 [E. W. Hallifax, master, Mill Hill School]
Autograph Letter Signed ('James Bryce') from James Bryce
Publication details: 
20 November 1905; on letterhead of Hindleap, Forest Row, Sussex.
£135.00
Autograph Letter Signed ('James Bryce') from James Bryce

12mo, 4 pp. 41 lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, with slight discoloration to edges. 'It was high time that in England, whence so many mountain climbers and tourists go to the Alps, a protest should be raised against the ruin wrought in Switzerland by the construction of tourist railways up the slopes of the mountains'. Deplores the 'irretrievable harm' already done to 'some of the noblest landscapes in the world, [...] easily accessible from the populous cities of Central and Western Europe, such as those on the shores of the Lake of Lucerne'.

Autograph Manuscript laying out requisites for voyage (to Iceland?). Manuscript, in another hand, for Alpine voyage. Long itemised receipt in German by A. Petersen.

Author: 
Rev. Charles William Shepherd of Trotterscliffe, of Trinity College, Cambridge ornithologist and traveller; A. Petersen [Iceland; Switzerland; Alpine]
Publication details: 
[1860s?]
£400.00

Item One: 12mo, 4 pp. On aged and foxed paper with slight wear causing loss to a couple of words of text. On two folded 4to leaves, with two pages written by Shepherd in German on the reverse. The list is undated, and the intended location is not named, but the voyage is a major one. Divided into sections including 'Saddles &c', 'Guns & Rods', 'Books' (beginning with 'Shakespeare - Ingoldby - Golden Treasure'), 'Food &c. Fortnum & Mason' (including two gallons of brandy and two quarts of whiskey).

Itemised financial accounts, in Shepherd's hand and initialled by him ('C. Wm. S.'), for the expedition described by him in his book 'The North-West Peninsula of Iceland'.

Author: 
Rev. Charles William Shepherd, of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Alpine Club [G. G. Fowler; H. M. Upcher; Iceland]
Publication details: 
Dated from 14 June to 7 July [1862].
£350.00

4to, 5 pp, on five loose and uniform leaves. Very good, on lightly aged paper. The first leaf is headed 'C. W. S. Acc' and is initialled at the foot 'Rt C. Wm. S.' The second is headed 'Sheet (2)', with the rest numbered 3 to 5. It is clear from sheets 2 to 5 that one leaf - what should have been 'Sheet (1)' - is lacking.

Autograph Letter Signed ('J. Cor<dier>'), 'A Monsieur <Jukeur?> opticien - rue de Conde Paris'.

Author: 
Joseph Cordier (1775-1849), French engineer, in charge of work on the Simplon Pass in 1800
Publication details: 
Without date or place [Paris].
£45.00

12mo bifolium: 1 p. 11 lines of text. Address and docketing on second leaf. Good, but with 1 cm hole in first leaf of bifolium, possibly caused by breaking open of blue wafer, which still adheres. Hole causing loss to two words, including latter part of signature. Asks the recipient 'de remettre a Mr. Pousin conducteur des ponts et chaussees, un double demi metre en Cuivre et un metre en cuivre avec quatre petites roulettes pointilles'. He will pay for the order in a few days time.

Autograph Card Signed ('Marshall P. Wilder') to the English publisher [William Swan] Sonnenschein (1855-1934).

Author: 
Marshall Pinckney Wilder (1859-1914), American humourist
Publication details: 
19 August 1889; on Marshall's letterhead from 'The Alpine', 55 West 33rd. Street, New York.
£28.00

8.5 x 11 cms. Grubby and lightly spotted. Reads 'My dear Mr Sonnenschein | Kindly send draft as I can collect here - | Merrily Yours | Marshall P. Wilder'. Presumably refers to the English printing of his 'The people I've smiled with: recollections of a merry little life' (1889).

"Notes of a Walking Tour with my Twin Brother Ernest 27 July 1891"

Author: 
[ MOUNTAINEERING ] Cecil C. Baker, twin brother of Ernest Baker, presumably Ernest A. Baker, author of books on the Highlands, climbing, etc.
Publication details: 
[1891]
£450.00

Notebook, soft-covered, c.90pp., 12mo,covers almost detached, contents good. Contents as follows: Table columnised, 5pp., giving details of Dates, Proposed Itinerary, Result; List of things taken "Self" and "Ernest" from clothes to toothbrush to Baedeker to bovril malt (with comments on whether worn, lost, etc.).

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