NAUTICAL

[W. Clark Russell; nautical novels] Autograph Letter Signed, W. Clark Russell to Dear Sir [George Meredith, novelist] on the latter's 80th Birthday. and status in English Literature. Fulsomely.

Author: 
W. Clark Russell [William Clark Russell 1844 – 1911) writer best known for his nautical novels.]
Publication details: 
[Embossed Address] 9 Sydney Place, Bath, 23 Januarey 1908.
£150.00

Three pages, 12mo, bifolium, very good condition. Russell has written his third page across the interior of the bifolium. Text: I do not think that I should be deemed worthy to hold even the obscure place I occupy in English Literature if I omitted to honour myself by doing a poor man's honour to a great Master on the approach of his 80th birthday. In an age in which literature is assessed on the merits of quantity - so many thousand words!

[Arthur Young, lexicographer and adjuster of averages, Dundee.] Autograph Letter Signed, as ‘one of the proprietors’ of the London Institution, regarding forthcoming lectures by ‘Mr. J. Z Bell’ (the artist and fellow-Dundonian John Zephaniah Bell).

Author: 
Arthur Young, compiler of the 1846 ‘Nautical Dictionary’; Adjuster of Averages, Dundee; a proprietor of the London Institution [John Zephaniah Bell (1794-1883), Scottish artist]
Publication details: 
'43 Arundel Square (N) / 18 May 1863'.
£56.00

Young was the author of a well-received nautical dictionary (1846; second ed. 1863). His authorship of the present letter is established from the ‘List of Presents / Received for the General Library’, in the Journal of the London Institution, November 1872: ‘MARITIME LAW. Reports of Maritime Law Cases, 1868. 8vo. From Arthur Young, Esq., Prop., Lond. Inst.’ (The work was compiled by Young himself.) Like the subject of this letter J. Z. Bell, Young hailed from Dundee, and since Bell's mother's maiden name was Anna Young, it may be that Young and Bell were kinsmen, perhaps cousins. 1p, 12mo.

[ William Clark Russell, nautical author. ] Offprint of article about him by 'Capt. W. J. Ward (Cardiff)', titled 'A National Asset'. With photographic portrait of Russell, and reproduction of sonnet to him by Julia D. Young.

Author: 
Capt. W. J. Ward (Cardiff), Author of "A Lady Skipper," "S.S. Grauck, or The Scheme That Failed," Etc. Etc. [ William Clark Russell (1844-1911), English nautical author; Julia D. Young ]
Publication details: 
'Reprinted from "The Maritime Review."' No place or date (but during the reign of King George V).
£50.00

2pp., 4to. Printed on the same side of one piece of shiny art paper, folded to make a bifolium. Aged and stained, with wear and slight loss to extremities. Photograph of Russell beneath title, alongside 'Sonnet | To W. Clark Russell', reprinted 'From "English Sea Pictures." By Julia D. Young, Author of "Barham Beach, the President's Poem." - New York.' The author laments that '[i]n this country, it is not the fashion to ennoble those who really do something for their time and generation', such as Russell, whose 'stupendous output' consists of 'fifty-seven books everyone [sic] of them good'.

Manuscript Second World War 'Air-Raid Log [Air-Raid Warnings]' in Liverpool, begun in September 1939, while in the Lower Sixth of Liverpool Boys' School, by the future naval historian Captain Anthony Birch Sainsbury.

Author: 
Captain Anthony Birch Sainsbury (1925-2010), MA, VRD and Bar, RNR, naval historian, vice-president of both the Navy Records Society and the Society for Nautical Research [Liverpool Boys' School]
Publication details: 
Liverpool. September 1939 to June 1941.
£280.00

61pp., 4to. In ruled notebook with green cloth covers. In good condition, lightly-aged. Sainsbury has written 'AIR-RAID WARNINGS' on the front cover. The first page is titled 'AIR-RAID LOG. | 3/9/39 - IR', with 'Anthony B Sainsbury | Lower VI | LBS' in the bottom right-hand corner.

Autograph Letter Signed from 'William Kay', on board 'H.M.S. Tauranga at Sea', to someone (male) to whom he is very affectionate, Louie ("son"??), describing a journey to Australia, with 'a lot of young Blue Jacket Boys on board'.

Author: 
William Kay [HMS Tauranga, Auxiliary Squadron of the Australia Station; Lou Blane; bluejackets]
Publication details: 
'H.M.S. Tauranga at Sea' [undated, but presumably on HMS Tauranga's maiden voyage to Australia, 1890].
£220.00

13pp., 12mo. On three bifoliums and a last single leaf. On aged and worn paper. A semi-literate, but spirited epistle. Little is to be discovered concerning the identity of the writer. Addressed to 'My Darling Son' and signed 'good bye, be good, ever yours and yours alone William Kay', but with a few hints that the letter may not in fact be from a father to his son. Kay begins by stating that he is going to fulfil his promise and write 'a long letter'.

On new tables of the moon's parallax, to be substituted for those of Burckhardt.

Author: 
John Couch Adams
Publication details: 
London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode. Without date, but docketed in pencil as an offprint 'From Nautical Almanac 1856'.
£105.00

English astronomer (1819-92) whose mathematical prediction of the existence of Neptune anticipated Le Verrier's discovery of that planet. Octavo. Unbound. Ten leaves and one blank. Paginated [35]-53. Very good. Five pages of text (35-9), four tables (pp.40-3) and a set of 'Tables containing the corrections to be applied to the values of the moon's equatorial horizontal parallax given in the nautical almanacs 1840-1855, in order to make them agree with those calculated from Mr. Adams' tables.' (pp.46-53). One small closed tear to antepenultimate leaf.

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