AUTOCAT

[ Benchara Branford (see ODNB) annotations; book ] Branford's copy of Cargill Gilston Knott's 'Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait', heavily annotated by him, mostly with references to 'this genius' James Clerk Maxwell.

Author: 
Benchara Branford [Benchara Bertrand Patrick Branford] (1867-1944), Scottish mathematician, Professor of Mathematics in the University of London [P.G.Tait; James Clerk Maxwell]
Publication details: 
Book published in 1911 (Cambridge: at the University Press). Annotations dated by Branford between 1934 and 1943.
£500.00

4to: x + 379 pp. Frontispiece and plates. Tight copy on aged paper, in worn binding. Annotated throughout, with the endpapers and almost every page of the first 146 in particular crammed with notes by Branford in pencil and pen. On the front free endpaper Branford writes 'Finished (fairly thoroughly) on Feb. 26th 1934', and on the title-page, 'B. B. Sep. 3d. 1943'. On the same page he has added to the title 'and many notes (additional to those in text) on his intimate & great friend James Clerk Maxwell [...] the notes being taken from his Life by Campbell & Garnett'.

[ Entomology; Forel ] Typed Letter Signed ('A Forel') by Forel, with photo; Autograph Letter Signed ('Edd: Clodd') by Clodd on blacks in Jamaica; ALS ('P. Celesia') by Celesia; in a copy of the English translation of Forel's 'The Senses of Insects'.

Author: 
Auguste Forel [Auguste-Henri Forel] (1848-1931), Swiss entomologist and psychiatrist; Edward Clodd (1840-1930), English anthropologist; Paolo Celesia (1872-1916), Italian biologist [Jamaica; racism]
Publication details: 
Forel's letter: 7 May 1908, Yvorne. Clodd's letter: 4 June 1917, on letterhead of Strafford House, Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Celesia's letter: 15 June 1906, Como. The book: London: Methuen & Co. 1908.
£180.00

The three letters are addressed to the translator of Forel's book, the surgeon and free-thinker Percival Macleod Yearsley (1867-1951). Forel's letter: 4to, 1 p. Twenty lines. In French. Text clear and complete. On browned and chipped high-acidity paper. Laid down on the front pastedown. In the first paragraph he thanks the translator, Macleod Yearsley, for the book, which he praises in fulsome terms. He is sending a copy of his 'Question Sexuelle'.

[Carl Joubert; anti-Tsarist articles ] Typescripts (3 signed) of 5 (unpublished?) anti-Tsarist articles.

Author: 
'Carl Joubert' [Adolphus Waldorf Carl Grottey] [Tsarist Russia]
Publication details: 
Place and date of none stated, but probably Edwardian.
£220.00

'The Reason Why', 'The Eastern Ukase of 1905', 'The Coming Revolution in Russia', 'The Soldier of Russia' and 'Some Aspects of Russian Life'. Manuscript corrections. The six works by 'Joubert' listed on COPAC appeared between 1904 and 1906, and it is reasonable from the context to assume that these five items date from the same period. All five items clear and complete, with all text on one side only of A4 leaves. The first four in fair condition, on aged paper, and in worn brown card bindings. The fifth item unbound and with the first and last leaves worn and grubby.

[Crime Writers' Association] An archive of membership list, accounts, correspondence and related material.

Author: 
[The Crime Writers Association]
Publication details: 
1953-1975 (mainly pre-1960).
£850.00

The Crime Writers' Association (CWA). Founded 5 November 1953An Archive accumulated during his periods in office by T.C.H. Jacobs, aka Jacques Pendower, author, sometime Hon. Treas., Vice-Chairman, and Chairman of the CWAIt was unanimously agreed that those present should found forthwith an association of crime writers, the specific purpose of which should be to raise the prestige and fortunes of mystery, detective story and crime writing and writers generally.Aim of the CWA recorded in the Minutes of the inaugural meeting.1. (Periodical) The Crime Writer, nos.

One Autograph Letter Signed ('E. Batsch'), three Typed Letters Signed (two 'Batsch.' and one 'Ernst Batsch'), all to Bower; with two typed book reviews by Batsch (one marked 'translation').

Author: 
Rear Admiral Ernst Batsch (1879-1948) of the Imperial German Navy [Sir Graham Bower KCMG [Sir Graham John Bower] (1848-1933)]
Publication details: 
All items between 1930 and 1932. The first two letters from Kurfuerstenstrasse Nr.81.b, Berlin, W.62; the last two from Enzianstrasse Nr.1, Berlin-Lichterfelde, W.
£280.00

An interesting correspondence, from one maritime expert to another, casting light on German naval attitudes in the period following the Great War. Batsch's father, Admiral Karl Ferdinand Batsch (1831-1898), is regarded as one of the founders of the German navy. Bower, who served for twenty years in the Royal Navy, retiring in 1884 with the rank of Commander, is best known as Imperial Secretary in South Africa at the time of the Jameson Raid. Following the First World War he established himself as an expert in international law relating to naval matters.

Seven letters to Lord Dalhousie, as Lord in Waiting [whip] in the House of Lords, from peers, regarding the second reading of a bill entitled 'Marriage with the Sister of a Deceased Wife'.

Author: 
[John William Ramsay (1847-1887), 13th Earl of Dalhousie, Lord in Waiting in Gladstone's Liberal Government, 1880-1885] [Farrer; Kilmorey; Kinnaird; Kinnoull; Montrose; Strafford; Wharncliffe]
Publication details: 
May, June and July 1885. From various locations (see below).
£280.00

According to the diarist Sir Edward Walter Hamilton, the second reading of the Divorced Wife's Sister Bill caused 'great excitement'. Due to clerical opposition, the Bill did not reach the statute book until 1907, and even then in a limited form. These seven items provide an interesting glimpse into the inner workings of the Victorian legislative process. All are clear and complete, and docketed by Dalhousie in red. All in fair condition, with various degrees of aging.

Autograph draft of letter to the Editor of the Daily Chronicle, rebutting in strong terms the claim that Knowles was editor of the Contemporary Review.

Author: 
Alexander Strahan [Alexander Stuart Strahan] (1833-1918), English publisher [Sir James Thomas Knowles (1831-1908); Alfred Tennyson]
Publication details: 
14 February 1908; on letterhead of Oakhurst, Ravenscourt Park, W.
£150.00

12mo (17.5 x 11 cm): 5 pp. On two bifolium letterheads and half of a third. The text of each page is clear and complete on aged and lightly-spotted paper, but gaps between the various sections indicate that the draft is incomplete. Begins 'Sir | I see that in your obituary notice of Sir James Knowles inn today's paper you say that he was the Editor of the Contemporary Review from 1870 to 1877. | This is news to me. I was the Editor and proprietor of the Contemporary Review all these years, and I think I ought to know the facts of the matter.

Three Autograph Letters Signed (all 'J Rose Innes') from Sir James Rose Innes, and one letter from his wife ('Jessie Rose Innes'), all to Lady Bower.

Author: 
Sir James Rose-Innes (1855-1942) and his wife, born Jessie Dods Pringle (d.1943) [Lady Maud Bower (born Maude Laidley Mitchell), wife of Sir Graham Bower (1848-1933)]
Publication details: 
Sir James's letters: 1935, 1936 and 1939. His wife's letter: 1937. All four on letterheads of Kolara Farm, Gibson Road, Kenilworth [South Africa].
£180.00

All items good, on aged paper, with Lady Rose-Innes' letter in its envelope. Bower and Rose-Innes had worked together when the former was Imperial secretary to the High Commissioners for Southern Africa at the time of the Jameson Raid. Rose-Innes three letters are dated 17 October 1935 (12mo, 4 pp), 9 July 1936 (12mo, 4 pp) and 13 April 1939 (12mo, 4 pp). All are closely and neatly written. In the first letter Rose-Innes describes a journey 'through the S.

Ecce Mundus. Industrial Ideals and the Book Beautiful.

Author: 
T. J. Cobden-Sanderson [Hammersmith Publishing Society]
Publication details: 
Hammersmith: Hammersmith Publishing Society, 7 The Terrace. 1902. ['Printed at the Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham & Co., Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London. And sold by the Hammersmith Publishing Society, 7 The Terrace, Hammersmith.']
£250.00

8vo: [38] pp (unpaginated). In original quarter binding, with buff boards and vellum spine on which is stamped in black 'ECCE MUNDUS'. Good copy: internally tight and clean, in slightly-grubby and worn binding bumped at foot of spine and at one corner. Presentation copy, with autograph inscription by Cobden-Sanderson on the front free endpaper: 'To Mr. Wheatley [the bibliographer Henry Benjamin Wheatley] with the compliments of the writer'. With green leather and gilt bookplate of Alfred Sutro on front pastedown.

Manuscript Report to the Secretary General of the Hospitals and Hospices of Paris, by a commission investigating the medicinal qualities of the cahinca root. In Parent de Chatelet's hand and signed by him and the other four members of the commission.

Author: 
Alexandre Jean Baptiste Parent du Châtelet (1790-1836); Philibert Guéneau de Mussy (1776-1854); Pierre-Barthélémy Portal d'Albarèdes (1765-1845), Baron Portal; Auguste François Chomel (1788-1858)
Publication details: 
[Paris. Seance of 29 April 1830.]
£350.00

Foolscap (leaf dimensions 42 x 26.5 cm), 1 p. Clear and complete. On the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium. Both leaves with the small neat ownership stamp of the 'Collections Louis Leguay, à Paris [series A, number 382]'. Good, on lightly-aged watermarked laid paper. Written in French. Addressed 'A Monsieur le Secretaire general des hopitaux et hospices de Paris'.

Part of a mimeographed typewritten report into the activities of the VDA, including translations of Haushofer's 'Problems and Solutions of the VDA', Bockhacker's 'Resettlement Christmas', and other texts.

Author: 
Der Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland [VDA; Karl Haushofer; Heinz Bockhacker; Nazi propaganda; Germany; Second World War]
Publication details: 
[Compiled by the American intelligence services between 1942 and the end of the Second World War.
£950.00

The spelling (e.g. 'honor') is American, the latest date mentioned is in 1942, and there is no indication that the document has ever been published. 58 pages, on one side each of fifty-eight A4 leaves (each roughly 26 x 20 cm), paginated 26 to 83. Punch holes for a binder at the head of each leaf.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Le Despencer') to an unnamed correspondent (a neighbouring landowner?).

Author: 
Francis Dashwood (1708-1781), 11th Baron Le Despencer, politician and rake; member of the Hellfire Club; founder of the Monks of Medmenham Abbey
Publication details: 
Hanover Square, London, 7 May 1779
£350.00

4to: 1 p. 10 lines of text. Good, on lightly aged paper. Text clear and entire. Docketed on the reverse of the otherwise-blank second leaf of the bifolium. See preceding letter on same subject (#8136). He hoped to have met his correspondent "ar WestWycombe" to discuss the cottage occupied by a "poor man" which may be on a neighbour's land. A "trifling affair". "I did nequire about it last summer, and was told that it was built on the waste by some poor man and I suppose some small fine might have been set on it by the Jury at my Court as a trespass on the waste.

Autograph List of 'Publications by Prebendary Havergal. All on sale by local booksellers. J. Jones. & Jakeman & Carver'. With publication details of his 'Herefordshire Words & Phrases'.

Author: 
Francis Tebbs Havergal (1829-1890) Prebendary of Hereford, author and antiquary
Publication details: 
Undated [after 1887].
£175.00

On one side of a piece of foolscap (33 x 20.5 cm). Text clear and complete. On aged paper, with wear to extremities and slight loss to bottom right-hand corner. Three items are listed: 'Description of Ancient Glass at Credenhill' (1884), 'The simile of ancient glass in Bristol Church representing St George in full military costume' and '[Herefordshire] Words & Phrases' (1887). Havergal adds nine lines of annotation to the last item, beginning: '- see Prospectus - issued to Subscribers only at 2/6. present price 4/- issue very small - only 300 copies which will soon be sold out.

Typed Letter Signed ('Holbrook Jackson') to G. S. Tomkinson of Whitville, Kidderminster.

Author: 
George Holbrook Jackson (1874-1948) [Sir Geoffrey Stewart Tomkinson (1881-1963); Lovat Fraser; Flying Fame; Fleuron; New Age Press; fine printing; bibliography]
Publication details: 
26 February 1925; Regent House, Kingsway, London, W.C.2.
£100.00

8vo: 2 pp. 32 lines of text. Good, on lightly-aged paper. He is willing to help Tomkinson with his book 'Modern Presses', but would not 'have time to be responsible for the writing of any chapters'. Offers to answer 'a questionnaire' regarding 'Flying Fame', and directs Jackson to his 'articles on the work of Lovat Fraser in the "Bookman", the "Fleuron", and "To-day".' Paragraph discusses the 'New Age Press', which 'was not a Press at all, but a publishing business'. In the last paragraph changes his mind, and offers to write a brief chapter.

Autograph Signatures of seven leading figures in Victorian horseracing: 'Mornington Cannon', 'Thomas Cannon', 'Sam Darling', 'C. Morton', 'Roderic Owen', 'Leopold de Rothschild' and 'C Tattersall'.

Author: 
Herbert Mornington Cannon (1873-1962); Thomas Cannon Snr (1846-1917); Samuel Darling (1852-1921); Charles Morton (1855-1936); Roderic Owen (1856-1896); Leopold de Rothschild (1845-1917); C. Tattersall
Publication details: 
Undated [1890s?]
£225.00

The seven signatures are each cut from a letter. They are mounted in two columns on a page of grey paper, roughly 22.5 x 27.5 cm, removed from an autograph album. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper with occasional light spotting. At the head of the page is the word 'Horseman', with each individuals occupation in the same hand on the mount beneath his autograph. One (2.5 x 11 cm): '<...> delivery? | Yrs truly | Roderic Owen' ['Gentleman rider']. Two (5.5 x 11.5 cm): '<...> Yrs truly | Sam Darling' ['trainer']. Three (3.5 x 12 cm): '<...> Yours very sincerely | C. Morton' ['Trainer'].

Autograph Letter Signed ('John Trotter') to Hay, with signed 'List of Payments made to Sir William Forbes of Hunter & Co. by the undermentioned partners of the East Lothian & Merse Whalefishing Company Since the 6th of March 1805'.

Author: 
John Trotter [The East Lothian & Merse Whale Fishing Company; James Hay, Writer to the Signet, Edinburgh; Sir William Forbes (1739-1806) of Pitsligo]
Publication details: 
6 April 1805; Dunbar.
£165.00

4to bifolium. Very good on aged paper. The letter covers the whole of the recto of the second leaf, the reverse of which carries the address and docketing: '6th. April 1805 | John Trotter - with List of payments to Sir Wm. Forbes & Co. on acct. of the whale fishing Cy.' Trotter quotes at length from a 'paragraph' in a letter he has received from William Forbes & Co, explaining why a credit 'does not appear in the annexed statement, as the receipt has not been delivered up to us'.

Autograph Letter Signed "J Weiss" to "Morse"[Sidney H. Morse, editor of "The Radical"]

Author: 
John Weiss (1818-1879), Unitarian Minister, author, "second generation transcendentalist"
Publication details: 
Watertown, [MA], 26 December 1865.
£150.00

Four pages, 8vo, grubby and with fold marks but text clear and complete. Weiss is writing about an untimate contribution to "The Radical" and another article. "I don't know that it is a matter of much consequence, but I rather want to have my "Dangers" [Dangers of Our Political Machinery, published in "The Radical", No.III, Feb. 1866, p.208ff] in hand, that I may put it in print in some form - newspaper perhaps - beause it explains and fills out my sermon, especially on that delicate point of suffrage.

Manuscript notebook, listing the infantry regiments of the British army, with brief descriptions of their mottos, uniforms, and periods of service.

Author: 
[British Army Regiments of Foot; Infantry; military]
Publication details: 
Undated [1840s?]. [English.]
£125.00

12mo (leaf dimensions 16 x 11 cm), 60 pp. Stitched notebook of thirty leaves, without covers. In fair condition, aged and with wear to extremities of outer leaves. On laid Italian paper, with the watermark of the Italian firm G. & C. Cini. Neatly written, with the body of the writing in one hand, and the mottos in another. Text clear and apparently complete. Begins: '1st. Regiment of Life Guards. | Peninsular Waterloo. | Scarlet, Facings Blue. | Returned from France, January 1816.' A typical entry reads '58th. (the Rutlandshire) Regt. of Foot. | Gibraltar, with the Castle and Key.

Autograph Letter Signed by Wood to unnamed recipient, recalling the Manchester treason trial of Thomas Walker and five others, 1794.

Author: 
Ottiwell Wood, radical Manchester fustian manufacturer [Thomas Walker (1749-1817), Manchester radical; Treason Trial of 1794; Luddites; Luddism]
Publication details: 
8 January 1844; Edge hill.
£150.00

12mo, 3 pp. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged and creased paper. Wood begins by recalling 'the savage bigotry and infuriate hostility of the Manchestr. Tories at the time you mention towards the liberals'. He does not think an attempt was made to put the Oath of Allegiance to those on the recipient's list. 'The lives of 6-8 men of high Character and standing in the Town were placed in jeopardy by the perjury of two Villains and they were tried at Lancaster for either Treason or Sedition. I think for the former.

Four Typed Letters Signed (three 'Peggy Ramsay' and one 'Peggy R.') to Goodman, giving her characteristically forthright opinion of his plays.

Author: 
Peggy Ramsay [Margaret Ramsay] [Margaret Francesca Ramsay, née Venniker] (1908-1991), English theatrical agent [Jonathan Goodman (1931-2008)]
Publication details: 
29 May 1955, and 5 and 12 March and 19 April 1956. All on letterheads of Margaret Ramsay Ltd, Play Agent.
£120.00

All four items good, on lightly aged paper. Two of the five leaves have small dog-ears to corners. Goodman has done his accounts on the blank reverse of one leaf. An important collection, in which the most important British post-war play agent reveals, in entertaining and increasingly-brusque terms, the criteria by which she judges scripts. Goodman was hailed by Jacques Barzun as 'the greatest living master of true-crime literature', but his first love was, as his obituary in the Daily Telegraph (16 January 2008) states, the theatre.

A collection of material relating to the early days of the Bibliographical Society, mainly printed,one ALS from Alfred W. Pollard

Author: 
[The Bibliographical Society; Alfred W. Pollard]
Publication details: 
1892-1903.
£400.00

An archive comprising the following: A. Leaflet, 4pp., 4to, small tears at folds, some staining, printed notice dated 30 July 1892 signed "Talbot B. Reed (Hon. Sec. (pro tem.)"[printed] outlining the "aims of the Society" (6 in total) as mooted during the Preliminary Meeting on 15th July, giving a list of Resolutions (including naming a committee which included Richard Garnett, W.A. Copinger, Talbot B. Reed, J.H. Slater, H.B. Wheately, etc.). On the second leaf an application form is printed, returnable to Reed. B.Autograph Letter Signed, Alfred W. Pollard, Hon.

Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland 1888. [Inscribed by the contributor Rose Kavanagh.]

Author: 
Rose Kavanagh (1860-1891), John Todhunter, Katherine Tynan, W. B. Yeats, Patrick Henry, T. W. Rolleston, Charles Gregory Fagan, Ellen O'Leary, Frederick J. Gregg, George Noble Plunkett, contributors
Publication details: 
Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, O'Connell Street. 1888.
£600.00

Wade A289. 12mo: viii + 80 pp and errata slip. In original cream buckram binding, with title and harp decoration in gilt on front board. Black endpapers. Internally tight, on aged and spotted paper. Binding grubby, stained and worn, with slight damage at head and foot of spine. Some ink marking to the fourth stanza of the dedicatory poem to John O'Leary (p.1). Housed in a green solander box. Inscribed at head of title: 'Elizabeth Monteagle from Rose Kavanagh | June 21. 88'.

Two Autograph Letters Signed "H. Thomson" and "Hugh Thomson" to [J.C.] Dollman, artist, discussing golf and illustrating his humour, physical failings and research.

Author: 
Hugh Thomson, artist-illustrator
Publication details: 
5 Playfair Mansions, West Kensington, 23 March n.y. and 27 Perhap Road, West Kensington, 12 Feb. 1906.
£180.00

Total 5pp., 8vo, one sl.marked but mainly good condition. [March 23] He commiserates on "domestic troubles" and says what a disaster it would have been if the completion of a picture had been delayed. "You will be sorry to hear that I am confiend to the house with varicose veins in the leg. The trouble has arisen through bicycling, a maniac of the wheel having induced me to scorch over half a county with him. I am consequently obliged to give up the treat I promised myself in seeing your pivture at your studio but I mean to ahe- honour the Academy with a visit . . .

Two Autograph Letters, one "Anonymous" the other signed, to the Bovey Coal Pottery Company

Author: 
Joseph Cottle, bookseller and publisher (of "Lyrical Ballads", etc)
Publication details: 
Bristol and Fairfield House near Bristol, 1850 and 20 Dec. 1850.
£250.00

One page and two pages, both 8vo, bifolia, some staining but text clear and complete. In the first letter to which (as he explains in the second letter) he didn't add his name, he says that he visited "your Bovey Coal Pits" as a geologist (!), made observations and concluded that it was a "real Coal district, the current coal mined [an internet site informs me of poor quality] being of a "comparatively recent formation". Real coal was produced in an earlier period.

Autograph Letter Signed "M.A. Hughes" to Richard Twining,jun., Banker and Tea Merchant (see DNB

Author: 
Mrs M.A. Hughes, author, grandmother of Thomas Hughes, central to the literary society of her day.
Publication details: 
No place, 24 Sept. [1807].
£350.00

Three pages, 4to, but cross-written, making six pages of writing, sometimes hard to read, small piece of letter with a few words detached but present. Mrs Hughes is her usual informative, authoritative, lively and intelligent self, initially discussing the British disaster at Buenos Ayres. being unable to think of "a worse planned or more ill-fated expedition" in which the dead were "sacrificed". She attacks the commander, the Duke of York, in no uncertain terms: she hopes it's not a crime to wish him out of a world to which he he'd done so little good.

Visitors' Book

Author: 
[Institute of Child Psychology]
Publication details: 
1946-1978
£450.00

Obl. 4to, c.235 x 185mm, cherry leather binding, gt. "Visitors Book // Institute of Child Psychology"), dec. eps,good condition, c.92pp. used (others blank), c.1200 signatures with addresses of child psychologists, clinic and university doctors and other interested parties from around the world (France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Pakistan, India, etc), presumably ranging from the distinguished to the humble toiler in the field. Among the signatories are Serge Lebovici, Tina Keller, Therese Merzbach, E.

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