FLEMING

[Geoffrey Jenkins, South African journalist and novelist, friend of Ian Fleming and author of an unpublished James Bond novel.] Typed Letter Signed to the autograph hunter Eileen Cond, regarding his next novel ‘A Grue of Ice’.

Author: 
Geoffrey Jenkins [Geoffrey Ernest Jenkins] (1920-2001), South African writer, husband of Eve Palmer, friend of Ian Fleming, author of an unpublished James Bond novel [Eileen Cond, autograph hunter]
Publication details: 
10 February 1961; on letterhead of The Star (‘Pretoria Office’).
£120.00

Jenkins’s Bond book ‘Per Fine Ounce’, which he claimed was based on a diamond-smuggling storyline he had developed with Fleming in 1957, was rejected by Fleming’s production company Glidrose in 1966. The recipient Eileen Margaret Cond (1911-1984) of Honiton was an enthusiastic collector of autographs, with the ability of drawing a more than perfunctory response from her targets. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Signed 'Geoffrey Jenkins'.

One Autograph Letter Signed, Four Typed Letters Signed, and one Autograph Postcard Signed to Frank Marcham, Antiquarian Bookseller. With unsigned copy of one typed letter Marcham to Muir.

Author: 
Percy Muir, Bookman
Publication details: 
Taylors, Takeley, Essex (but on Elkin Mathews of 37a Duke Street or Grosvenor Street headed notepaper, with lines through the old addresses], 1939-1942, giving a picture of Britain and the Book Trade during the 2nd WW etc
£125.00

Total 5pp., 8vo, some chipping but texts clear and complete, signed variously, P, Percy Muir, Percy, PCM. (1939) Your letter cheered me up no end. It was just like being in the office & listening to you laying down the law in your usual style. | We hardly know there's a war on down here, except for black-outs & an unusual number of children in the village. We even manage to sell a few books from time to time - about one a week so far - made 3/- profit on a sale this morning. Well, I hope to live to see you commander in chief.

[Sir Rupert Hart-Davis, publisher.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Rupert') to antiquarian bookseller Percy Muir, praising his catalogues as his 'favourite reading', and ordering items while 'saving up' for his daughter's wedding.

Author: 
Rupert Hart-Davis [Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis] (1907-1999), publisher, editor and letter-writer [Percy Muir [Percy H. Muir] (1894-1979), leading bookseller with firm Elkin Mathews]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Bromsden Farm, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon. 20 April 1963.
£90.00

1p, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged, with three punch holes to margin, and endorsement of number in a circle. The letter begins: 'My dear Percy | Your catalogues – especially the literary parts of them – are my favourite reading. You find such unusual books, and describe them with such care and skill.' He asks him to send him, 'to Soho Square', the two Rothenstein items nos 260 and 260 a'. He explains that while he longs 'for some of the Blunts', his daughter is getting married that June, and he is 'saving up for that'.

[Robert Harling, typographer who may have served as model for James Bond.] Typed Letter Signed ('Luv Robert') to the bookseller Percy Muir, on his eightieth birthday, discussing their lives and criticising their old friend, Ian Fleming's wife Ann.

Author: 
Robert Harling [Robert Henry Harling] (1910-2008), typographer, designer, journalist and novelist, friend of Ian Fleming and possible model for James Bond [Percy Muir (1894-1979), bookseller]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of The Glebe House, Godstone, Surrey. 17 January 1975.
£450.00

See Harling's entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice. The salutation ('My dear Percy'), valediction ('Luv Robert'), and one additional word in autograph; the rest typed. He begins by thanking Muir for a copy of 'PHM 80', the volume celebrating Muir's eightieth birthday.

[Malcolm Flemyng, Scottish physiologist and medical author.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Malcolm Flemyng') [to his London publisher John Nourse], ordering books, discussing his 'Lectures', and requesting news of a 'Discovery' by William Hunter.

Author: 
Malcolm Flemyng (c.1700-1764), Scottish physiologist and medical author [John Nourse (1705-1780), London scientific bookseller and publisher; William Hunter (1718-1783), anatomist]
Publication details: 
Caistor [Lincolnshire]; 23 April 1758.
£500.00

The recipient of the present letter is not named, but it is the scientific bookseller and publisher John Nourse (1705-1780), who the following year would published the 'Lectures' referred to in the letter: 'An Introduction to Physiology, being A Course of Lectures upon The most important Parts of the Animal Oeconomy', 'Printed for J. Nourse at the Lamb opposite Katherine-Street in the Strand.

[ West Indies: signatures of four British Governors: Sir Edward Brandis Denham of British Guiana; Sir Thomas Reginald St Johnston, Leeward Islands; Sir William Charles Fleming Robertson, Barbados; Sir Alfred Claud Hollis, Trinidad and Tobago.

Author: 
Sir Edward Brandis Denham, Governor of British Guiana; Sir Thomas Reginald St Johnston, Leeward Islands; Sir William Charles Fleming Robertson, Barbados; Sir Alfred Claud Hollis, Trinidad and Tobago
Publication details: 
No place. Three of the signatures are dated from January 1932, the other two are undated.
£350.00

The five signatories are: Sir Alfred Claud Hollis (1874-1962), Governor of Trinidad and Tobago, 1930-1936, and author of a historical account of Spanish Trinidad; his wife Enid Mabel Hollis (née Longman), Lady Hollis (1888-1939); Sir Edward Brandis Denham (1876-1938), Governor of British Guiana, 1930–1935, and Jamaica, 1935–1938; Sir Thomas Reginald St Johnston (1881-1950), Governor of the Leeward Islands, 1929-1936; Sir William Charles Fleming Robertson (1867-1937), Governor of Barbados, 1925-1932. On one side of a 13.5 x 16.5 cm leaf of cream paper torn from an autograph album.

Three Autograph Letters Signed "J.A. Fleming" (electronic engineer ) to Sir Henry Truman Wood, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Sir John Ambrose Fleming
Publication details: 
November 1915 to February 1916; London.
£250.00

English electronic engineer (1849-1945), inventor of thermionic valve. Widely considered to be 'the founder of electronics'. All three items good though grubby and on slightly discoloured paper. Item three dog-eared and grubby in top left-hand corner. All signed 'J. A. Fleming' and bearing the Society's stamp. ITEM ONE (two pages, quarto, 15 November 1915, University College, Gower St, to Wood, docketed): On the subject of a paper he proposes to give to the Society entitled 'The Organisation of Scientific Research'.

[ The Le Fleming family of Rydal Hall. ] 16 manuscript items from the family papers of Barbara Le Fleming Benson (sister of Sir Daniel Fleming), including material relating to a disputed will, miscellaneous correspondence and genealogical memoranda.

Author: 
[ The Le Fleming family of Rydal Hall, Cumbria, landlords of the poet William Wordsworth; Barbara Le Fleming Benson (1784-1862); Sir Daniel Le Fleming (c.1785-1821), 5th Baronet ]
Publication details: 
Carlisle; Kendal; Crosthwaite; New Mills, near Stockport; Douglas, Isle of Man; St Bees Grammar School, Cumbria. Between 1813 and 1874.
£300.00

The Le Flemings of Rydal Hall were a leading Cumbrian family, notable as the landlords of the poet William Wordsworth. The present collection of 15 items derive from the family papers of Barbara Le Fleming, eldest child of Roger and Ann Fleming, and sister of Sir Daniel le Fleming (c.1785-1821), 5th Baronet, who married John Benson (1780-1830) in 1809.

[Rudyard Kipling.] Printed keepsake by C. W. Parish, titled 'Mrs. Fleming's Visit', describing a visit in 1945 by Kipling's sister Ann Margaret Fleming to his home (Bateman's in Burwash)

Author: 
C. W. Parish, Bateman's, Burwash, Sussex [Rudyard Kipling; The Kipling Society; T. O'B. Horsford, photographer]
Publication details: 
Printed by The Medici Society Ltd., London. [Introductory note by Parish dated 'Christmas, 1945 | Bateman's | Burwash, Sussex.']
£40.00

8pp., landscape 12mo. Saddle-stitched into light-brown printed wraps. In good condition, lightly-aged. A tasteful production, with two full-page illustrations by 'T. O'B. Horsford', captioned 'Bateman's' and 'The Hall'. Introductory note by Parish, inside the front cover: 'The following article was written for the Kipling Society's Journal and is here printed by courtesy of its Editor.' The piece begins: 'It was not long after our arrival in 1940 as the tenants of Bateman's that we learnt that Mr.

[The Union of the Four Provinces of Ireland Club, London.] Issue of 'The Four Provinces' Club Gazette', with accounts of 'The Irish National Banquet', appreciation of Jeremiah O'Driscoll by Bryan Fleming, and references to Sylvia Lynd with photograph

Author: 
Larry Manogue, editor, The Four Provinces' Club Gazette [The Union of the Four Provinces of Ireland Club, 38 Russell Square, London WC1; Jeremiah O'Driscoll; Bryan Fleming; Sylvia Lynd]
Publication details: 
Vol. 1 No. 3. May 1924.
£100.00

42pp., 12mo. In cream printed illustrated wraps printed in green. The body of the magazine is paginated 53-85, with additional pages of advertisements at the front and back, and on the inside and back of the wraps. Aged, and with a little damp damage and rust to staples. From the Lynd archive, and with a full-page photographic portrait of 'Mrs. ROBERT LYND' on p.66. For the purposes of reproduction her daughter Maire Gaster has altered 'Mrs. ROBERT' to 'Sylvia' in pencil, and written 'Courtesy of MAIRE GASTER' at the head of the page.

Printed circular, in the form of a facsimile letter from A. Fleming Nisbett, Secretary, The London Steam Omnibus Company LImited, designed to accompany 'an advanced copy' of the Company's prospectus, and offering 'a Founder's Share'.

Author: 
[A. Fleming Nisbett, Secretary, The London Steam Omnibus Company Limited [later the Motor Traction Company], 133 Finsbury Pavement, London, EC.]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of The London Steam Omnibus Company Limited, 133 Finsbury Pavement, London, EC. July 1898.
£80.00

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. Heavily-aged and worn. Addressed 'Dear Sir', and with facsimile of signature 'For the London Steam Omnibus Co. Ltd. | A. Flemg Nisbett | Secretary.' The circular begins with the reason for sending an advance copy of the prospectus. 'My object in giving you this early intimation is that you may, if you desire, secure beforehand a Founder's Share in the profits of the coming Steam Traffic upon the Roads - which Traffic appears likely to become one day as popular as Steam on Railways'.

The Rules and Constitutions for Governing and Managing the Maiden-Hospital, founded by the Company of Merchants, and Mary Erskine, in Anno 1695.

Author: 
[The Maiden Hospital; the Company of Merchants of the City of Edinburgh; the Mary Erskine School; the Merchant Maiden Hospital; Robert Fleming and Company]
The Rules and Constitutions for Governing and Managing the Maiden-Hospital
Publication details: 
Edinburgh: Printed by Robert Fleming and Company, 1731.
£125.00
The Rules and Constitutions for Governing and Managing the Maiden-Hospital

12mo, xi + [vi] + 46 pp. Stitched as issued, in original marbled-paper wraps. Good, on lightly-aged paper. The title leaf is followed by a nine-page preface, taking the pagination to p.xi. The page following p.xi (on the verso of the leaf) is blank, and this is followed by three unpaginated leaves carrying a six-page 'Act of Parliament in Favours [sic] of the Maiden Hospital, Founded by the Company of Merchants and Mary Erskine.' This 'Act', which precedes the 46 pages of the 'Rules and Constitutions', would not appear to be present in all copies.

Ten Typed Letters Signed and eight Autograph Letters Signed (four 'Guy S Wellby' and the rest 'Guy') from Wellby to Franklin, with an inventory and valuation, schedule, accounts and correspondence relating to Rogers' collection of snuff boxes.

Author: 
Guy Wellby, Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths' Company, adviser to Ian Fleming [D. and J. Wellby Ltd, Jewellers and Silversmiths, Garrick Street, London; Franklyn Rogers; snuff boxes]
Publication details: 
Wellby's letters between 1948 and 1967; on letterheads of D. and J. Wellby Ltd.
£200.00

The collection, consisting of 31 items in a variety of formats, is in very good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with all texts clear and complete. Wellby's correspondence with Rogers (an affluent Kent businessman and farmer, collector and dabbler in the jewellery business) reflects a relationship at once businesslike and friendly, with items being offered by Wellby on behalf of his firm, and news of items consigned to the firm by Rogers. The personal element is apparent from the first.

A co-operative [booksellers'] catalogue' entitled 'Detective Fiction: A Century of Crime: First and Early Editions'.

Author: 
R. A. Brimmell; Boris Harding-Edgar (Charles Rare Books)
Publication details: 
Hastings and Hildenborough; [circa 1966].
£120.00

Forty-four pages, octavo, with two-page leaf of addenda loosely inserted. Four pages illustrating seventeen pictorial covers on art paper. In printed card wraps. A worn and creased copy of an influential catalogue, issued at a time when, as the introduction points out 'catalogues devoted to detective fiction [were] something of a rarity in the book trade'.

Some Personal Recollections of Sir Ambrose Fleming. The Third Fleming Memorial Leture.

Author: 
A[rthur]. Blok
Publication details: 
Reprinted from the Journal of the Television Society Vol.5 No. 8 [1948].
£28.00

Communications and Television pioneer. Pamphlet, 12pp., 4to, somewhat soiled and chipped, small tear at fold mark. INSCRIBED by the author "With Kind Regards / A.B. [Arthur Blok]".

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