CENTURY

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The item is from the Gatty papers. (Herbert is writing to Gatty in Trinidad, and it is Gatty who will be appointed in place of the subject of the letter.) 1p, 8vo, on good laid paper. In good condition, but with creases from having been folded into packet (not through signature). A good looking item, with ?Confidential? in left-hand margin. Reads: ?Sir, / I am directed by Lord Knutsford to ask you to be so good as to inform him confidentially whether Mr. Justice Cook, Puisne Judge in Trinidad is to your knowledge in the habit of drinking to excess.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo, with the first page also bearing the conclusion of the letter and signature ?L M Knightley?, cross-written. On bifolium of grey paper. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded for postage. She begins by asking for a favour, explaining that she has had ?a most lovely present from my G. F. S.

Both items in good condition, lightly aged. Each signed ‘Josh. Adshead’. Written in a difficult hand. Both letters are addressed to the same recpient, who is named in the first as ‘Geo Cruikshank’. Written in the year in which Cruikshank dedicated his pamphlet ‘The Bottle’ to Adshead. ONE: ALS, 30 March 1847. 1p, 12mo. On grey paper. Cruikshank’s ‘draft value £50 is duly to hand’, and he may be assured of Adshead’s ‘best services in my endeavour to promote our Views’. He will be ‘much pleased to receive a proof of one of the series of Temperance drawings’. TWO: ALS, 15 July 1847. 3pp, 12mo.

See his entry and that of Buckingham in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Twenty-six lines of text. Signed ‘John Kitto’ and addressed to ‘J. S. Buckingham Esq’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo, on bifolium. Sixty lines of text. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Folded for postage. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr Langbridge’ and signed ‘Hugh Macmillan’. The handwriting is hard to read. Begins: ‘At this distance from post-offices I cannot get a postal-order conveniently to send a subscription of 10/6d. half-a-guinea for your Presentation’. He will organize payment on his return, and asks for his name to be put down on rhw subscription list.

See his entry, and that of his wife, in the Oxford DNB. Plain postcard addressed by Haweis to ‘John Bacon Esqr / 48 Griffin St / Wilton / Blackburn’. In fair condition, discoloured and worn. Reads: ‘Dear Sir. / My next work will be duly advertised. My photographs can be got from Fry & Co. 68 East St. Brighton (& my wife’s also). Thanks for all kind words. / H R Haweis. / Amber House July 11’.

See her husband’s entry, and those of her father the Earl of Durham, and Sir Cuthbert Sharp, in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with small closed tear to blank area at foot of second leaf. Folded for postage. Laid down on leaf removed from album. Begins: ‘Lady Mary Lambton presents her Compliments to Sir Cuthbert Sharp, and begs to express her grateful sense of the kind message, conveyed to her through Mrs. Brodie, concerning Sir C. Sharps small pamphlet -’.

See his entry, and that of his brother Leo, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, landscape 12mo. The top half of a small 4to leaf of grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged. The recipient’s name is not well written, but he is the critic Derek Stanford (1918-2008), who also has an entry in the Oxford DNB. Reads: ‘Dear Derek, / Thanks for send me a copy of your review. And thanks too for writing it! It is as generous as I would expect you to be. I do hope we may meet up somewhere soon. Our brief meetings over the years are punctuated - as far as I’m concerned - by intervals much too long.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, which notes his unpopularity at his college Christ’s, which terminated his fellowship in 1783. According to Fanny Burney he was ‘dullness itself’. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, on lightly aged and browned paper. Folded for postage. Signed ‘A. Shephard Plume’s Profr. / Camb.’ The recipient is not named.

See the entries of members of her extraordinary family in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice for postage, and accompanied by envelope with stamps and 1950 Edinburgh postmark, addressed by her to ‘Adam Dickson Esq. Junior / 28 Comely Bank Grove | Edinburgh’. Signed ‘Winifred Peck’. Responding to an autograph hunter, she writes: ‘Dear Sir, / How kind of you to like to [sic] my books & to say so.

See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. In good condition. 11.5 x 9 cm card, without illustration. Printed in red at head: ‘MICHAEL REDGRAVE.’ The message concerns the London production of Fry’s ‘The Lark’ (a translation of Anouilh’s ‘L’Alouette’), which opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, on 11 May 1955. Redgrave would star in Fry’s next play, ‘Tiger at the Gates’ (a translation of Giraudoux’s ‘La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu’), which premiered in New York on 3 October 1955.

The present item differs from the version published on pp.248-254 of the ‘Notices of the Proceedings’, vol.2 (1854-1858), and no other copy has been traced. Drophead title: ‘Royal Institution of Great Britain. / Weekly Evening Meeting, / Friday, April 25, 1856. / Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, Bart. D.C.L. F.R.S. Vice-President, in the Chair. / W. B. Donne, Esq. / On the Works of Chaucer, considered as Historical Illustrations of England in the 14th Century.’ 10pp, 16mo, paginated [1]-10. In very good condition, lightly aged. Stabbed as issued, with no wraps, and unopened. Begins: ‘MR.

All 18 items are in very good condition, with slight signs of age and wear. Items One and Eighteen are letters (Eighteen being a ‘triplicate’), the other sixteen items are accounts, with items Five to Eighteen relating to the firm of the New York merchant Lewis Simond. Items Seven, Nine and Twelve are copies (i.e. written out afresh but containing the same text) of Items Six, Eight and Eleven. ONE: Henry Hough (overseer of the Bounty Hall estate, Jamaica) to ‘William Fairclough / Green Park’: Autograph Letter Signed.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. An area torn away at the head of the first leaf (with the loss of one word of text) has been skilfully repaired with archival paper; otherwise in good condition, lightly aged. He apologizes for being unable to ‘come to your at home tomorrow as I can not go to any parties till after the funeral of the Duke of Albany’. He asks her to ‘accept and make use of’ tickets ‘for some tableaux vivants which are to take place tomorrow night at the house of the Princesse de Caraman-chimay.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Although reset, the text of the present five-page synopsis does not appear to differ from that printed on pp.118-433 of the ‘Notices of the Proceedings’, vol.2 (1854-1858). No other copy of this offprint has been traced. In very good condition, lightly aged. Drophead title: ‘Royal Institution of Great Britain. / Weekly Evening Meeting, / Friday, May 18, 1855. / Rev.. John Barlow, M.A. F.R.S. Vice-President and Secretary, in the Chair. / James Philip Lacaita, Esq. LL.D. / On Dante and the “Divina Commedia.”’ 5pp, 16mo, bifolium, paginated [1]-5.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The full lecture, fifty-four pages in length, was published for Playfair in Edinburgh by Edmonston & Douglas in 1865, with the subtitle ‘Lecture delivered at the Royal Society, Edinburgh, 3d April 1865, and Royal Institution, London, 28th April 1865.’ Although reset, the text of the present three-page synopsis does not appear to differ from the version printed on pp.431-433 of the ‘Notices of the Proceedings’, vol.4 (1862-1866). No other copy of this offprint has been traced. In very good condition, lightly aged.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice for postage. The year of the letter looks more like ‘1901’ than ‘1961’, but the letterhead names the writer as ‘Charles Wheeler, C.B.E., R.A.’ Addressed to ‘Dear Sir’ and signed ‘Charles Wheeler’. Having received two letters from the unnamed recipient, he explains that the first ‘got mixed with some papers sent to my Accountant and therefore was not answered’. He apologises for ‘the consequent neglect’.

See her entry and his in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Signed ‘Ruby’. Begins: ‘Popie, darling, / What are we coming to? / You - as a pierrot with the “Fol-de-Rols”! / BBC/TV must be mad not to let you do a talk on the St. James’s. / But after the Gaiety fiasco I can believe anything of them.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Removed from album, and closely trimmed, having been cut down to 9 x 7 cm, with corners cropped. Lightly aged, with one fold for postage. In neat close hand, reads: ‘My dear Lady Burdett / I am very sorry indeed that an Engagement from which I cannot release myself will deprive me of so great a pleasure. Yours ever / S Rogers.’ See image

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 11.5 x 9 cm plain post card with printed half penny stamp. In fair condition, lightly aged, with dog eared corner and spike hole (through part of address on one side and blank space at bottom left on message side). Addressed by Russell to ‘The Secretary / Society of Arts / John St / Adelphi / London / W.C.’ Reads: ‘Dunrozel, Haslemere. / In reply I beg to say I shd like the Journal “supplied in a bound volume at the conclusion of the Vol. in Nov.” / J. A. R. Russell’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. The recipient is not identified. Addressed to ‘My dear Sir’ and signed ‘Herbert Thurston’. He begins by thanking him for ‘the nice things you say’, and continues: ‘I fear I have no defence as regards Samuel Butler. I knew that he had written on the Sonnets and that some people thought highly of his book but I have never seen it. The fact was that I was provoked into talking up the question by some friends who have recently become obsessed by the Oxford theory.

See the entries on Robert and Sylvia Lynd, and Clement Shorter, in the Oxford DNB. (Shorter’s first wife, the Irish nationalist poet Dora Mary Shorter (née Sigerson), had died in 1918.) Both items are in good condition, lightly aged. Both 1p, 12mo, and each folded once for postage. ONE: SL to CS, 18 January 1922. Signed 'Sylvia Lynd'. Begins: 'My dear Clement, I hear that you have a little daughter. Many many congratulations & good wishes. It is very nice to know that you are so happy.' She turns to her own family: ‘We are all well down here & very busy. Sheila & B. J.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The full text of Maurice’s lecture was printed posthumously on pp.268-299 of his ‘The Friendship of Books and Other Lectures’ (1880). Although reset, the text of the present six-page synopsis does not appear to differ from that printed on pp.328-333 of the ‘Notices of the Proceedings’, vol.2 (1854-1858). No other copy of this offprint has been traced. In very good condition, lightly aged. Drophead title: ‘Royal Institution of Great Britain. / Weekly Evening Meeting, / Friday, January 30, 1857. / William Pole, Esq. M.A. F.R.S.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged and with two creases from folding for postage. Addressed to ‘Carmichael Thomas, Esq., / Mount Cottage, / Borough Green, / Kent.’ Cyclostyled signature of ‘Ben Purser.’ Begins: ‘For some time I have been desirous of becoming a member of the Royal Society of Arts. Mentioning this matter to your daughter a few days ago, Miss Thomas thought that if I wrote you in this connection you might possibly be able to arrange this matter for me.

See her entry and his in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged and slightly creased at extremities. Addressed to ‘My Dear Mr. MacQueen Pope’ and signed (in block capitals) ‘BERTA RUCK’.

Abercorn was characterized by Walpole as ‘his taciturnity, the Earl’. His entry in the Oxford DNB describes him as ‘a patron of the arts, a builder, and the consolidator of the family's property and influence’. 1p, 4to. On recto of first leaf of bifolium, with verso of second leaf docketed and with 1884 date stamp. In good condition, lightly aged. An excellent example of Abercorn’s bold hand and signature. Reads: ‘London March 10. 1768.

See the entry on her second husband George Wyndham in the Oxford DNB. Wyndham had been appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland a few months previously (October 1900). His plans were ambitious, but after some success they would flounder, leading to a nervous breakdown: within four years of the present letter the Prime Minister Arthur Balfour would write to Lady Wyndham that was ‘utterly ruined’ and ‘really hardly sane’. See also the ODNB entry on the recipient. 4pp, 12mo, with text concluding crossways at top of first three pages. Bifolium with mourning border. In fair condition, lightly aged.

An interesting item, providing a sidelight into the process of Victorian scholarly editing and publication. Fitchew’s letter is 2pp, 4to, on the outer pages of a bifolium; the inner pages being filled with notes (citations?) in a minuscule hand, possibly the recipient’s. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, and folded for postage. Addressed to ‘H. W. Wilson’ and signed ‘E. H. Fitchew’. The letter begins: ‘Dear Mr. Wilson / I think it is possible we may want a little more letterpress, but probably not much. Up to end of pt. 7 we have used 82 slips.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged; folded for postage. Addressed ‘To / A. Williams Esqre.’ from ‘Edmund Yates.’ Written in purple ink. Reads ‘Dear Sir / I am much obliged to you for your politeness in forwarding me the extract from the Liverpool Mercury. / Faithfully your’s, [sic] / Edmund Yates.’

The address from which this letter is sent is said to have been 'the English home of Louis Kossuth and Garibaldi'. 1p, 12mo. On aged paper, and with strip of discoloration from glue along the inner edge, the detaching of the item from its mount having caused a little wear to a couple of words of text. Reads: ‘Dear Sir, / Northampton is the only Constituency I have represented in Parliament - I am not [last word underlined] the author of the work you allude to / Yours truly / C Gilpin’.