MIDLANDS

[ Austen Chamberlain; Birmingham University ] Autograph Letter Signed ""Austen Chamberlain" to "Mr. [Cecil] Harmsworth", [Cecil Bisshopp Harmsworth, 1st Baron Harmsworth (1869 –1948), businessman and Liberal politician. With note by Harmsworth.

Author: 
Austen Chamberlain [ Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain, KG (1863–1937), statesman].
Publication details: 
[Headed notepaper] 9 Egerton Place, S.W., 25 Feb. 1909.
£220.00

4 pages, 8vo, bifolium, black-bordered, very good condition. With original envelope. "Some years ago when the B'ham University was founded I undertook to canvass the Members for Midland constituencies, served by the University, for support & received promises of sums ranging from £2000 to £100. | The University is now making a fresh appeal & I have undertaken the same task. I venture to ask you [...] if you will kindly help as your predecessor did. | " He is sending a copy of the printed appeal so that he can assess what has been done and "what remains to do".

[[Book] Journal of the Birmingham Natural History & Philosophical Society, vols. I and II

Author: 
[Birmingham Natural History & Philosophical Society]
Publication details: 
Birmingham: Printed by Robert Birbeck & Sons, 313, Broad Street.
£250.00

Two Vols bound in one, hf. lea, faded and worn, marbled boards, worn, contents v.g.. Vol. I, pp.iv.174; Vol. II, iv.148 (inc. indexes and list of members). Honorary Vice-Presidents include Haeckel, Babington, Huxley, Lankester. Scarce.

Manuscript Fee Book of E. G. M. Carmichael, Worcestershire barrister and 29th Chief of the Clan Carmichael, covering over fifty years [1895-1947].

Author: 
Evelyn George Massey Carmichael (1871-1959), 29th Chief of the Clan Carmichael, barrister at law of the Inner Temple and Worcestershire cricketer [Harrow; Oriel College, Oxford]
Publication details: 
In 'Partridge & Cooper's Improved Fee Book.' Entries dated from 1 January 1895 to June 1947.
£200.00

4to, 168 pp. Text clear and complete, in a number of different hands. Internally tight, on lightly-aged paper. In loose buff calf half-binding, with the front of the green cloth boards stamped in gilt with 'FEE BOOK [in scroll] | E. G. M. CARMICHAEL'. Every opening in a spread of seven columns across the two pages: Date, Solicitor, Name of Cause or Matter, Description, Fee, When paid, Remarks. Giving a rounded picture of the activities of a well-connected provincial solicitor. (Represented Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin - another Worcestershire man, M.P.

[[Book] Journal of the Birmingham Natural History & Philosophical Society, vols. I and II

Author: 
[Birmingham Natural History & Philosophical Society]
Publication details: 
Birmingham: Printed by Robert Birbeck & Sons, 313, Broad Street.
£450.00

Two Vols bound in one, hf. lea, faded and worn, marbled boards, worn, contents v.g.. Vol. I, pp.iv.174; Vol. II, iv.148 (inc. indexes and list of members). Honorary Vice-Presidents include Haeckel, Babington, Huxley, Lankester. Scarce.

[Albion Iron Works, West Bromwich.] Autograph Letter Signed from the proprietor Walter Williams to London bankers Messrs Thomson Hankey & Co, regarding the purchase of 'nails & chains' for casks.

Author: 
Walter Williams of Rose Inn, proprietor of Albion Iron Works, West Bromwich [Messrs Thomson Hankey & Co, London merchant bankers]
Publication details: 
Albion Iron Works, Westbromwich [West Bromwich]. 21 June 1844. With 'WEST BROMWICH' postmark.
£60.00

1p., 4to. Bifolium, addressed on the reverse of the second leaf to 'Messrs. Thomson Hankey <& Co> | Merchants | 7 Mincing Lane | London'. The second leaf is also docketed, and carries two circular postmarks, one from 'WEST BROMWICH'. Williams writes that he has returned to find 'an enquiry about the nails & chains'. He gives a price below which he cannot go, adding: 'I must be paid for the Casks: but if a quantity of nails had been wanted I would have given my trouble on the other things, as I should have made a profit on the nails'.

[Printed item.] The History of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom of Coventry, with a Description of St. Michael's Church, the Holy Trinity, and other Places of Worship, with numerous Local Illustrations. [...]

Author: 
[J. Tomkinson, Coventry publisher; Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom; the Coventry Cemetery]
Publication details: 
Fifth Edition. Coventry: Printed and published by J. Tomkinson, High Street, 1877.
£220.00

After '[...] with numerous local illustrations.' the title continues: 'To which is added a short account of The Coventry Cemetery, Waterworks, St. Mary's and Draper's Halls, School of Art, New Free Library, Bond's and Ford's Hospitals; also the History of Stoneleigh and Combe Abbeys, Kenilworth Castle, &c.' 48pp., small (15 x 12 cm) 4to. With fold-out frontispiece and nine engraved plates, including 'The Countess Lady Godiva riding through Coventry' and 'Peeping Tom of Coventry'. In green printed card wraps with red cloth spine.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Edward A Freeman') from the historian and politician Edward Augustus Freeman to the Staffordshire antiquary Rupert Simms, correcting his list of Freeman's books for Simms's 'Bibliotheca Staffordiensis'.

Author: 
Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892), English historian and Liberal politician [Rupert Simms (1853-1937), bookseller and Staffordshire antiquary
Publication details: 
Somerlease, Wells. 23 February 1884.
£130.00

Freeman's letter is on the last of five folio pages, each on a separate leaf, sent to him by Simms, giving, for correction, the proposed entry on Freeman in the future 'Bibliotheca Staffordiensis'. In fair condition, on aged paper. On the first page Simms has given a brief biographical description of Freeman; the middle three pages comprise a numbered list of twenty-three of Freeman's books, with dates, and the last page carries a rather optimistic request by Simms for information regarding 'Contribution to Periodicals, Magazines, &c. Giving Number a year of Serial - Pages occuppied - &c'.

[Printed pamphlet.] An Address to Bachelors. By a Bird at Bromsgrove.

Author: 
'A Bird at Bromsgrove' [pseudonym of John Crane of Bromsgrove] [Grafton & Reddell, printers, Birmingham]
 An Address to Bachelors. By a Bird at Bromsgrove.
Publication details: 
The Seventh Edition, with Additions. Birmingham: Printed by Grafton & Reddell; for the Author. 1801.
£120.00
 An Address to Bachelors. By a Bird at Bromsgrove.

36pp., 18mo. With frontispiece (preceding half-title) of 'I. CRANE / BROMSGROVE', showing a crane and a carriage lamp, within a circular border reading 'To make the Watch go faster turn the Regulator to the right & Slower the Contrary'. Side stitched in original pink printed wraps. In fair condition, in worn and lightly-stained wraps. Nicely printed on wove paper with 'LLOYD 1795' watermark. Poem titled 'Introduction' on p.5, followed by the title poem on pp.7-36. No copy of this attractive edtion on either COPAC or WorldCat, nor of any other printed by Grafton & Reddell.

Autograph of the Welsh bass baritone Bruce Dragavel, on 'Programme of Old Time Melody Concert' by the Burslem Orpheus Male Voice Choir.

Author: 
Bruce Dargavel (1905-1985), Welsh bass baritone singer [Burslem Orpheus Male Voice Choir]
Autograph of the Welsh bass baritone Bruce Dragavel
Publication details: 
Programme for performance on 24 February 1946, at the Queen's Hall Burslem.
£25.00
Autograph of the Welsh bass baritone Bruce Dragavel

Programme: 12mo, 4 pp. Bifolium. Printed in green on orange paper. Text clear and complete. On lightly-aged paper with slight wear to extremities. Dargavel's signature is in pencil in the top left-hand corner of the second page: 'Best Wishes, | Bruce Dargavel'.

Short Poems and Sacred Verses. Third Series.

Author: 
A. S. [minor Victorian poetry; nineteenth-century devotional verse]
Publication details: 
London: 1895. [Printed for Private Circulation.]' [London: G. E. Waters, Printer, 97, Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, W.'
£100.00

12mo: iv + 164 pp. In original green cloth, with the title in gilt on the front cover. All edges gilt. Slightly foxed. Good and tight, in lightly worn cloth. A curious collection, with the index of first lines containing such entries as 'Sweet Edgbaston bells' [this poem dated 1844], 'Dear Varinka', ' 'Twas a boy in a cut-off jacket' and 'They call me little Trottie'. All three series are excessively scarce. The only copy of this third series on COPAC is in the British Library, and the only copy on WorldCat in California.

One Typed Letter Signed, one Autograph Letter Signed, one Autograph Postcard initialled, all to Harry Paynter (one also to Paynter's wife), and a typescript annotated in Young's hand.

Author: 
Francis Brett Young, novelist.
Publication details: 
107 East 70th Street, 21 Nov. 1928, Esthwaite Lodge, Hawkshead, Nr. Ambleside, 31 March 1930, and (Postcard) Mamounia Hotel, Marrakesh, [1935?].
£400.00

Both letters, two pages, 8vo, stained and marked, but texts clear and complete. The Postcard is grubby (view of Marrakesh on front).

Autograph Note Signed ('M. E. Kennard') to unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Mrs. Edward Kennard' (M. E. Kennard), Edwardian novelist
Publication details: 
Undated. 'The Barn | Mkt Harboro' [Market Harborough]'.
£25.00

One page. On piece of paper four inches by three and a half wide. Good, on lightly creased and aged paper. Docketed in pencil at head. 'Dear Sir | I have pleasure in enclosing my autograph. | Yrs. truly | M. E. Kennard'. Scarce autograph of the woman described as 'Harborough's forgotten novelist' (J. D. Bennett, in 'The Harborough Historian', 2001).

Syndicate content