OCEAN

[1920s transatlantic ocean liner: RMS Transylvania, cruise ship with the Anchor Line.] Long Typed Letter from ‘Alex’ to his parents, written en route from Glasgow to New York, with account and diagrams of a sea rescue, and postcard of the liner.

Author: 
[1920s transatlantic ocean liner: TSS Transylvania (1925), cruise ship with the Anchor Line, requisi tioned by the Royal Navy in the Second World War, and torpedoed by the Germans in 1940
RMS Transylvania
Publication details: 
Letter from 'S. S. Transylvania' (en route from Glasgow to New York), 24, 26 and 29 November 1928. Postcard undated, but contemporaneous.
£180.00
RMS Transylvania

TSS Transylvania (the prefix stands for ‘Twin Screw Steamship’) was built in Glasgow for the Anchor Line and launched in 1925. She had three funnels, but two were redundant, only serving to render the ship more attractive to prospective passengers. In 1940 she requisitioned by the Royal Navy, and the following year she was torpedoed by the Germans, sinking with the loss of 36 lives. The letter is 13pp, 12mo; with neat single-space typing, on thirteen leaves.

[Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars] Autograph Letter Signed from Richard Truscott, purser of HMS Ocean, to James Sykes, London navy agent, discussing anomalies in the ‘Accounts for the Ocean’ and his recent travels.

Author: 
[Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars] Richard Truscott, purser of HMS Ocean [James Sykes, London navy agent; Admiral William Truscott?]
Publication details: 
‘Ocean Hyeres Bay 18th. April 1814’.
£220.00

Providing an interesting view of the administrative aspect of the Georgian navy. Closely and neatly written on 2pp, foolscap 8vo, on first leaf of a bifolium. 64 lines of text. The letter is signed ‘R Truscott’, but the docketing identifies the writer as ‘Richd. Truscott’. Adressed on reverse of second leaf, with red wax seal and two Plymouth postmarks, to ‘James Sykes Esqr. / Navy Agent / Arundel Street / London’. Around this address are the docketing and some calculations. The seal has a good impression of the crest of ‘RT’, with motto ‘PEACE AND PLENTY’.

[ Samoa in the nineteen-twenties. ] Eight letters, Typed and in Autograph, from a Methodist missionary ('Will') to his father in England, describing his impressions on arrival at his post in Western Samoa.

Author: 
Samoa [ Gagaemalae, Savaii Western Samoa] [ Methodist missionary work; Christianity ]
Publication details: 
The six complete letters dated from Gagaemalae, Savaii, Western Samoa, between May and October 1925.
£320.00

An interesting and informative correspondence, giving the initial impressions of an unnamed nineteen-twenties Methodist minister in Samoa, describing local customs, the state of Christianity in the region (including a denunciation of the Mormons), his view of his duties and the nature of his work, his heavy workload, and other topics including the importance of the coconut and the necessity for every Samoan male to 'destroy fifteen beetles a week'. Eight letters (two incomplete), of which three are in autograph and the other five typed. Totalling 46pp., 4to. (23pp. autograph; 23pp. typed).

[ Charles Meldrum, Superintendent, Royal Alfred Observatory, Mauritius. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('C Meldrum') [ to Alexander Ramsay ] regarding 'The Scientific Roll'.

Author: 
Charles Meldrum (1821-1901), Scottish meteorologist, Superintendent, Royal Alfred Observatory, Mauritius, 1875-1896 [ Alexander Ramsay, editor of 'The Scientific Roll' ]
Publication details: 
Royal Alfred Observatory, Mauritius. [ On notepaper embossed with British crest. ] 27 December 1881.
£120.00

1p., 12mo. On grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged. Small manuscript shelf-mark at top left. He thanks him for sending 'the numbers of the Scientific Roll', and asks to be put down as a subscriber. 'I shall try to get the others.

Unattributed engraving entitled 'A FAMILY in DUSK BAY, NEW ZEALAND.'

Author: 
George William Anderson [NEW ZEALAND; CAPTAIN THOMAS COOK; ALEXANDER HOGG]
Publication details: 
Without date or place, but taken from George William Anderson's 'A new, authentic, and complete collection of voyages round the world [...] containing a new [...] account of Captain Cook's [...] voyages' (London: Alexander Hogg, [1785]).
£68.00

Roughly nine and a half inches by fifteen wide. Mounted on a piece of card, with some fraying to extremities. Somewhat aged, but a good impression of a strong, striking idealised illustration, showing a bearded warrior with a club, emerging from the undergrowth beside a tree and fast-flowing water, beside which four women (one of them baring a breast) recline with their children.

Mauritius; Or, The Isle of France: Being an Account of the Island, Its History, Geography, Products, and Inhabitants.

Author: 
Rev. Francis P. Flemyng [Mary Addison]
Publication details: 
[1862.] London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; Sold at the Depositories; 77, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields; 4, Royal Exchange; 48, Piccadilly; and by all booksellers. [London: R. Clay, Son, and Taylor, Printers.]
£220.00

12mo: xiv + 256 + [ii] pp. Detailed fold-out map of the island, in black, blue and pink. Frontispiece and seventeen illustrations. A tight copy on lightly-aged paper, in worn original embossed green cloth binding, gilt. Map creased and with short closed tear. A nice copy of an interesting little book, bearing the bookplate of the botanist Mary Addison, to whom it was presented, according to an inscription on the front free endpaper, by the Reverend J. Hoding on 30 August 1867. A few neat synoptic notes in the margin, presumably by Addison. Four-page SPCK catalogue at rear.

Typed Letter Signed to G. K. Menzies, [Secretary,] Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Arthur Joseph Davis [ARCHITECTURE]
Publication details: 
15 July 1925; on letterhead of Mewes & Davis, Architects, 22 Conduit Street, W.1.
£56.00

English architect (1878-1951) whose firm's commissions include the Ritz Hotel in London, the country houses Luton Hoo, Coombe Court and Polesden Lacey, and the ocean liners Aquitania and Queen Mary. One page, folio. Very good. Docketed and carrying the Society's stamp. He has 'called on Sir Charles Allom with regard to the judgment of the designs which you showed me yesterday', and they agree that 'only two of the selected schemes should be rewarded.

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