EGYPTOLOGY

[Gerald Massey, poet, spiritualist and Egyptologist.] Autograph Letter Signed to Alfred Miles, taking him to task for his selection of his poems for an anthology, and demanding 'a hand in the selection'.

Author: 
Gerald Massey (1828-1907), poet, spiritualist and discredited Egyptologist [Alfred Henry Miles (1848-1929)
Publication details: 
20 April [no year, but on paper watermarked 1887]; New Southgate.
£120.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Addressed to 'Alfred Miles Esqre.' and with good bold signature 'Gerald Massey'. Begins: 'Dear Sir / You are quite at liberty to quote from my poems - but I shd. like to have a hand in the selection. / In a collection so large as you contemplate there ought to be nothing but one's best.' If he were to edit such a work he would 'make all living authors so choose their own poems. Sir Richard Grenville is the only one of those you mention that I shd.

[George Ebers, German Egyptologist and novelist.] Autograph Letter Signed, in German, with reference to Graf's arrival with antiquities from Venice, dinner with Winnels, and his fairy tale.

Author: 
Georg Ebers [Georg Moritz Ebers] (1837-1898), German Egyptologist and novelist [Theodor von Graf, Austrian dealer in antiquities]
Publication details: 
15 September 1883. Tutzing [Bavaria].
£100.00

2pp, 16mo. Twenty-eight lines of text, in purple ink. With contemporary English translation on both sides of a separate 16mo leaf. Both items in fair condition, on aged paper, with slight damage to corners from mounts. Trust the translation, the letter is addressed to a 'Dear friend', and begins: 'My friend Graf [i.e. the antiquities dealer Theodor von Graf] arrived yesterday from Venice and brought many most interesting antiquities - His visit prevented my writing to you - but then I hope to show you some of his treasures, next time we meet. He came early and stayed late.

Printed pamphlet: 'The Credibility of Herodotus' Account of Egypt in the Light of the Egyptian Monuments / Being a Lecture delivered at the Fifty-fifth Congress of the German Philologists and Schoolmasters at Erlangen'.

Author: 
Wilhelm Spiegelberg; Aylward M. Blackman, translator
Publication details: 
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1927.
£90.00

[6] + 40pp, 8vo. Two plates and five figures in text. Stitched into brown printed wraps with attractive representation of Horus. Ownership signature 'E. B. Fry.' In good condition, lightly aged, in worn and lightly-creased wraps.

[Henry Ellis; British Museum; Mummies] Autograph Note Signed Henry Ellis to T.J. Pettigrew [sometimes known as Mummy Pettigrew, surgeon and antiquarian who became an expert on Ancient Egyptian mummies.] communicating [his] note.

Author: 
Henry Ellis, principal librarian at the British Museum.
Publication details: 
British Museum, 31 Jan. 1850
£45.00

One page, 12mo, fold mark, good condition. My dear Pettigrew | I have lost no time in communicating your Note to our Director,

[Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish politician, dandy and connoisseur.] Autograph Letter Signed ('C: H: & B.') [to Sir John Robison?], regarding a box 'for smoaking segars', and recipient's 'partiality for the banks of the Clyde'.

Author: 
Alexander Hamilton (1767-1852), 10th Duke of Hamilton, 7th Duke of Brandon, Scottish politician, manuscript collector, dandy and connoisseur, son-in-law of William Beckford [Sir John Robison
Publication details: 
'Thomas's Hotel [i.e. Thomas's Hotel, Berkeley Square, London] | March ye 21st.' [1822]
£45.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Thirty lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Part of the second leaf of the bifolium, detached, is endorsed 'Duke of Hamilton 21 March 1822'. The recipient's identity is presumed from the reference in the letter to 'Mrs Robison'. He thanks him for his 'obliging note' and 'the drawing of the [Kullicum?] for smoaking segars', which is a 'very kind attention on your part'. As he is '[f]earfull lest some accident should happen', he has 'desired that the box may not be forwarded to London'.

[Sir Richard Owen, palaeontologist.] Autograph Letter Signed to Lady Cullum, enclosing a long translation by Samuel Birch of inscriptions on an Egyptian statue in the British Museum, annotated by Owen and with transcription of letter to him by Birch.

Author: 
Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), palaeontologist, first Director of Natural History Museum, opponent of the theory of evolution [Samuel Birch (1813-1885), Egyptologist; Lady Ann Cullum of Hardwick House]
Publication details: 
Owen's letter to Lady Cullum dated from Sheen Lodge, Richmond Park, 5 May 1867. Transcription of Birch's letter to Owen dated from British Museum [London], 9 July 1860.
£850.00

An interesting item in the field of Victorian Egyptology. The subject is what Owen describes here as 'one of the oldest Statues of an Egyptian Notable in the British Museum'. Its current Museum Number is EA103, and it has been in the Museum since 1835, but the details of its acquisition are unclear. In his translation Birch calls the sitter 'the Royal Scribe, Amenhelp', but the current BM description begins: 'Scribal statue of Amenhotep son of Hapu: of black grano-diorite. Hieroglyphic texts are inscribed on the papyrus unrolled on his lap and on the statue plinth.

Autograph Letter Signed ('F Barham Zincke') from the antiquary and radical Foster Barham Zincke to 'My dear Mr Flower' [Sir William Henry Flower], regarding the latter's five-month stay in Egypt.

Author: 
Rev. Foster Barham Zincke (1817-1893), English antiquary and radical pamphleteer, educated at Wadham College, Oxford [Sir William Henry Flower (1831-1899), Director of the Natural History Museum]
Publication details: 
Wherstead Vicarage, Ipswich. 28 May <1874?>.
£220.00

4pp., 12mo. Very good, on lightly-aged paper, with minor traces of stub adhering to margin. He has received Flower's 'catalogue'. 'I was sure you wd. be delighted with Egypt. It has so much to tell us about man & nature. The early stages of mans progress, & the variety of nature.' Zincke would like 'time to look into things & to think about them': he was in Egypt 'only as many weeks as you were months'.

[offprint pamphlet] The Art-Treatment of Granitic Surfaces. By John Bell, Sculptor. A Paper read at a Meeting of the Society of Arts, on Wednesday, March 14th, 1860, Sir Thomas Phillips, F.G.S., Chairman of the Council, in the Chair.

Author: 
John Bell (1811-1895), sculptor [Egyptology; Egyptian obelisks; Sir Gardner Wilkinson; Sir John Rennie]
The Art-Treatment of Granitic Surfaces. By John Bell,
Publication details: 
[London:] (From the Journal of the Society of Arts, March 16, 1860.)
£75.00
The Art-Treatment of Granitic Surfaces. By John Bell,

8vo, 12 pp. Stitched as issued. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Two engravings ('Egyptian Obelisks' and 'Egyptian Sarcophagus') in text. Begins 'The subject on which I am about to make a few remarks this evening is the Sculptural Art Treatment of Granitic Surface, or the Surface of Granite.

[book, limited edition] Causeries sur les Hiéroglyphes, et deux Étapes de l'Histoire Ancienne de l'Égypte [Egyptology].

Author: 
Adolphe Cattaui Bey [Egyptology; Egyptologist]
Causeries sur les Hiéroglyphes [Book]
Publication details: 
Cairo: Librarie d'Art Stavrinos et Cie, 23, Rue Kasr el-Nil. 1925. [Imprimé sur les Presses de l'Imprimerie de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale au Caire]
£125.00
Causeries sur les Hiéroglyphes [Book]

Small 4to, [vi] + 135 pp. Frontispiece and three plates, with illustrations and cartouches in text. Internally tight and sound, on aged paper, in worn and stained brown-cloth half-binding, decorative endpapers, sprung hinges. Number 43 of 400 copies. Scarce: no copy in the British Library, and the only copy on COPAC at the University of London SOAS.

Autograph Letter Signed ('S. Lane Poole') to Mrs. Hollingworth.

Author: 
Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931), British orientalist and archaeologist
Publication details: 
10 June 1896; on letterhead of 3 Newham Road, Bedford.
£38.00

12mo, 4 pp. In bifolium. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. He has forgotten which letters he has sent her for her autograph collection, 'but I daresay some of the list written at the back of this are new to you'. He will send any she wants. Asks for any duplicates she may have to spare. The list covers the last two pages, and consists of 39 names, from 'Sir John Burgoyne, R.E.' to 'Count Zamorgski'.

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