PSYCHICAL

[Herbert Thurston, SJ, Roman Catholic liturgical scholar and member of the Society for Psychical Research.] Autograph Letter Signed regarding Samuel Butler and the ‘Oxford theory’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Author: 
Herbert Thurston [Herbert Henry Charles Thurston] (1856–1939), Jesuit priest, Roman Catholic liturgical scholar, andt member of the Society for Psychical Research [Samuel Butler; William Shakespeare]
Publication details: 
3 December 1930; on letterhead of 114 Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, London, W.
£56.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. The recipient is not identified. Addressed to ‘My dear Sir’ and signed ‘Herbert Thurston’. He begins by thanking him for ‘the nice things you say’, and continues: ‘I fear I have no defence as regards Samuel Butler. I knew that he had written on the Sonnets and that some people thought highly of his book but I have never seen it. The fact was that I was provoked into talking up the question by some friends who have recently become obsessed by the Oxford theory.

[Sir Oliver Lodge, physicist, inventor and Christian spiritualist.] Typed Letter Signed to Rev. A. H. Sayers, declining to speal to the Monmouth Town League of Nations Union.

Author: 
Sir Oliver Lodge [Oliver Joseph Lodge] (1851-1940), physicist, inventor and Christian Spiritualist [Rev. A. H. Sayers of the Monmouth Town League of Nations Union]
Publication details: 
18 April 1928; on letterhead of Normanton House, Lake, Salisbury.
£50.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Addressed ‘To the Rev. A. H. Vayers’, but with the ‘V’ corrected in manuscript to ‘S’. Signed ‘Oliver Lodge’. Reads: ‘My dear Sir, / I am exceedingly busy, and a visit to Monmouth is quite out of the question. There are many others better qualified to speak for The League of Nations Union; and I trust you will have a successfull meeting.’

[Lady Penelope Balogh [Penelope Gatty], psychotherapist and biographer of Sigmund Freud.] Autograph Letter Signed (‘Pen.’) to ‘Mash’[?], regarding her novel.

Author: 
Lady Penelope Balogh [previously Penelope Gatty; born Penelope Tower] (1916-1975), psychotherapist and biographer of Sigmund Freud, wife of Oliver Gatty (1907-1940), chemist and psychical researcher
Publication details: 
6 January 1949. On letterhead of 2 Rawlinson Road, Oxford.
£50.00

2pp, 4to. In fair condition, aged and creased. Folded once.

[Sir Oliver Lodge, physicist, inventor and spiritualist.] Autograph Signature ('Oliver Lodge') for autograph collector.

Author: 
Sir Oliver Lodge [Oliver Joseph Lodge] (1851-1940), physicist and inventor in the field of radio, and Christian Spiritualist
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£23.00

The signature 'Oliver Lodge' is firmly written in the bottom of three rectangular panels printed in red, with no other writing on the page, on one side of a 12mo leaf removed from 'The Meredith Birthday Book', the other side featuring quotations from the novelist for 13 to 15 June. In good condition, lightly aged.

[A. C. Swinton of Land Nationalisation Society, friend of Alfred Russel Wallace.] Three Autograph Letters Signed to the 'Misses Shore' [poet Louisa Catherine Shore and sister], on their brother in Australia, spiritualism, other topics inc. Wallace

Author: 
A. C. Swinton (d. c.1905) [Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), naturalist, co-conceiver with Darwin of Theory of Evolution; Louisa Catherine Shore (1824-1895), poet; her sister Arabella Susanna Shore]
Publication details: 
ONE: 31 December 1891; The Vine, Sevenoaks, Kent. TWO: 14 August 1893; Parkfield, Haslemere.
£500.00

The context is explained in Wallace's 'Island Life' (1880), in which he discusses 'a fragment of a well-formed stone axe' that his 'friend A. C. Swinton, Esq.' found, 'while working in the then almost unknown gold-field of Maryborough, Victoria, in January, 1855'. Later in the book Wallace refers to the brother of the recipients of the letter, 'Mr. Mackworth Shore', i.e. Mackworth Charles Shore, as 'one of the discoverers of the gold-field, before any rush to it had taken place'. See the Oxford DNB entry on one of the two recipients of the letter, Louisa Catherine Shore.

[ Charles Sedgwick Minot, American anatomist. ] Autograph Letter Signed to Alexander Ramsay (editor of the 'Scientific Roll'), giving details of plans for an 'International Congress' (regarding psychical research?).

Author: 
Charles Sedgwick Minot (1852-1914), American anatomist at the Harvard Medical School and founding member of the American Society for Psychical Research [ Alexander Ramsay, editor, 'Scientific Roll' ]
Publication details: 
25 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Massachusetts. 29 September 1884.
£650.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. The letter would appear to relate to the formation of the American Society for Psychical Research. Six days before the writing of the present letter, on 23 September 1884, Minot had been a member of a committee of nine scientists who met at Boston to consider the advisability of the formation of a society for psychical research in America, William James being another member.

[ Roger Senhouse, member of the Bloomsbury Group. ] Autograph annotations on his (and Lytton Strachey's) Byron books, in 'Byron and Byroniana' catalogue, and on Rayner Heppenstall's BBC telepathy experiment, with copy of printed BBC 'Findings'.

Author: 
Roger Senhouse [Roger Henry Pocklington Senhouse] (1899-1970), English publisher, member of Bloomsbury Group [ Elkin Mathews Ltd; Rayner Heppenstall (1911-81); Giles Lytton Strachey; BBC ]
Publication details: 
Catalogue: Elkin Mathews Ltd, 33 Conduit St, London W1. January 1930. BBC 'Findings', stamped with date 3 December 1945.
£220.00

ONE: Elkin Mathews catalogue. xii + 125pp., 8vo. 776 items, with a number of facsimiles. In grey printed wraps. Internally in fair condition, on aged paper, cocked at foot, in heavily-worn wraps with repair to rear cover. Containing numerous annotations in Senhouse's close, neat hand, mostly in pencil, giving bibliographical information relating to various entries, with reference to his own collection. Next to the entry for a first edition of 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' Senhouse writes: 'my copy "H S" Sold to Quaritch'.

[ S. G. Soal, mathematician and psychical researcher. ] Typed Letter Signed ('S. G. Soal | (S. G. SOAL DSc)') to J. G. Gillman, Vicar of St Andrews, Leicester, regarding Soal's BBC talk 'Seeing into Future Time', concerning 'precognitive telepathy'.

Author: 
S. G. Soal [Samuel George Soal] (1889-1975), British mathematician and psychical researcher
Publication details: 
Scratton Lodge, 21 Priory Crescent, Prittlewell, Essex. 4 August 1945.
£100.00

1p., 4to. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper, with slight damage to corners caused by removal from an album. 'The successful subject referred to in the talk was Mr. Basil Shackleton, a London photographer. On an average he would get about eight cards correct out of every twenty five, compared with a chance expectation of only five. When this occurs consistently over a very large number of trials, the odds soon pile up.' Gillman's summary is 'correct as far as it goes'.

[Certificate, part printed, part mansucript] Membership Certificate of "Mr Anthony"[Charles Anthony, engineer], signed Gertrude Ogden Tubby, Secretary, [author of "Psychics and Mediums: A Manual and Bibliography for Students"].

Author: 
[The American Society for Psychical Research]
Publication details: 
Nos 44-66 East 23d Sytreet, New York City, 30 March 1922.
£56.00

Card [certificate], c.18 x 24.5cm, good copndition. A certificate which Gertude Ogden Tubby has filled in with details of the new member (Mr Anthony of Bahia Blanca, Argentina)), and his proposer John {F?].D. Bristol.

Le Gout des Manuscripts. Discours inaugural prononce a Bale le 28 juin 1956 [...] devant la Societe suisse d'amateurs d'autographes.

Author: 
Theodore Besterman
Publication details: 
Geneva: Societas Bibliographica, 8 rue Verdaine [1956.]
£75.00

12mo: 45 pp. In original light-green printed wraps. Very good on lightly aged paper, with some sunning to wraps. Inscribed by the author "For Mary | with love & all good wishes for Christmas and the New Year, especially the show' | Th." Besterman attempts to demonstrate that the taste for autographs, 'tres loin d'etre malsaine, est au contraire pure et bienfaisante'.

Autograph Letter Signed "Oliver Lodge" to the officers and members of the Guild of Undergraduates.

Author: 
Oliver Lodge.
Publication details: 
The University, Edmund Street, Birmingham, 23 Oct. 1909.
£56.00

1851-1940, scientist and first principal of Birmingham University (DNB). Three pages, 8vo, one page stiffened by remains of card (for laying down), good condition.He wishes to thank the officers and members of the Guild of Undrgraduates "for their valuable assiistance as Stewards at the Degree Celebration on Wednesday last." Honorary graduates wanted hm to pass on their appreciation, the ceremony being, "in the judgment of many of large experience (Mr. Balfour among others), the best that they have attended at any University.

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