DIARIST

[Violet Bonham Carter, daughter of Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, step-daughter of Margot Asquith, and wife of Maurice Bonham Carter.] Autograph Letter Signed to 'Mr. Seyers', declining 'offers of hospitality' from Monmouth Town.

Author: 
Violet Bonham Carter (1887-1969), daughter of Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith [Herbert Henry Asquith], step-daughter of Margot Asquith, and wife of Maurice Bonham Carter
Publication details: 
22 June 1932. On letterhead of Stockton House, Codford St. Mary, Wilts.
£120.00

An opponent of appeasement and Winston Churchill's closest female friend. See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, folded twice for postage. Addressed to ‘Mr. Seyers’ and signed ‘Violet Bonham Carter’. She regrets that she is unable to accept his invitation to ‘come to Monmouth in November - as my plans are very uncertain - it is just possible I might be abroad then. / It is so good of the Monmouth Town [bench?] to invite me’. She ends by asking him to thank them for ‘their kind offers of hospitality’.

[Lady Charlotte Bury, Regency novelist of the ‘Silver Fork’ school.] Autograph Letter in the third person, requesting that Sir William Hamilton subscribes to a forthcoming work by her.

Author: 
Lady Charlotte Bury [Lady Charlotte Susan Maria Bury, née Campbell] (1775-1861), Regency ‘Silver Fork’ novellist and diarist, lady in waiting to George IV’s wife Queen Caroline
Bury
Publication details: 
26 August 1831. 3 Park Square, London.
£50.00
Bury

The daughter of the fifth Duke of Argyll, Lady Charlotte bore eleven children to her two husbands, and was forced to write novels by her first husband’s death and second husband’s profligacy. See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 16mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Neatly attached by a paper hinge to part of a leaf from an album. Begins: ‘Lady Charlotte Bury presents her Compts to Sir William Hamilton, & takes the liberty of soliciting for the honor & favor of his name, as a subscriber to a work by Lady Charlotte of which the enclosed Prospectus gives every particular.

[‘It is never desirable to say any thing on the subject’: Charles Greville, diarist.] Autograph Letter Signed regarding the desirability of allowing ‘poor Douglas’ (i.e. John Douglas of Newmarket Palace) to rest in peace.

Author: 
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (1794-1865), diarist [John Douglas (1774-1838) of Newmarket Palace]
Publication details: 
31 March 1839. Newmarket [Cambridgeshire].
£120.00

See Greville’s entry in the Oxford DNB, and Douglas’s in the History of Parliament, which explains the context: ‘Gambling losses, largely accruing from his turf accounting activities at Newmarket - Douglas laid the blame on ‘Peel and Huskisson ... tampering with the currency’, problems raising capital from his property and ‘keeping too large establishment of servants’ - had reduced his fortune’. 4pp, 4to. Bifolium. 44 lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged, with negligible remains of windowpane mount neatly adhering to reverse of second leaf. Folded three times for postage.

[Samuel Pepys, diarist.] Two albums containing a collection of more than 500 cuttings on Pepys from English newspapers, begun by W. H. Whitear, completed by Edwin Chappell, with a few by David Dale, with collection of 57 lantern slides for lecture.

Author: 
Samuel Pepys, diarist; Edwin Chappell (1883-1938), Pepys scholar and maritime historian, lecturer at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich; Walter H. Whitear (c.1853-1932); David Dale; Royal Navy
Publication details: 
Two volumes containing cuttings from Fleet Street and provincial newspapers, dating from between 1906 and 1939. Lantern slides undated, but collection includes advertisement for lecture in 1938.
£500.00

Three items, including two substantial albums containing in excess of 500 newspaper cuttings. The first album was commenced in 1906 by Pepys scholar Walter Henry Whitear, and completed by Chappell after Whitear's death in 1932, the last cuttings in it dating from the following year.

[Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty and diarist.] 31 items of Pepysiana from the papers of Edwin Chappell, comprising rare printed pamphlets, booklets and offprints by him and other Pepys scholars including Sir Arthur Bryant and J. R. Tanner.

Author: 
Samuel Pepys; Edwin Chappell; Sir Arthur Bryant; J. R. Tanner; Sir Stephen Gaselee; T. Wellard; Arthur Ponsonby; Allen Beville Ramsay; Edward B. Powley; H. L. O. Flecker; G. S. de Beer
Publication details: 
31 items dating from between 1921 and 1941. Most of Chappell's publications from his address, 41 Westcombe Park Road, Blackheath, London. Several papers delivered at St Olave's Church, Hart Street, London. Also items from Cambridge and Greenwich.
£750.00

31 items from the papers of leading Pepys scholar and maritime historian Edwin Chappell (1883-1938). The collection in good general condition, with light signs of age and wear. Around half the items are by Chappell himself, including offprints (many of them bearing his Blackheath address, 41 Westcombe Park Road), pamphlets, articles, proofs, and a bibliography. Other items are papers and pamphlets by: Sir Arthur Bryant; J. R. Tanner; Sir Stephen Gaselee (bearing an autograph inscription by him); T. Wellard; Arthur Ponsonby; Allen Beville Ramsay; Edward B. Powley; H. L. O. Flecker.

[Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty and diarist.] 31 items of Pepysiana from the papers of Edwin Chappell, comprising rare printed pamphlets, booklets and offprints by him and other Pepys scholars including Sir Arthur Bryant and J. R. Tanner.

Author: 
Samuel Pepys; Edwin Chappell; Sir Arthur Bryant; J. R. Tanner; Sir Stephen Gaselee; T. Wellard; Arthur Ponsonby; Allen Beville Ramsay; Edward B. Powley; H. L. O. Flecker; G. S. de Beer
Publication details: 
31 items dating from between 1921 and 1941. Most of Chappell's publications from his address, 41 Westcombe Park Road, Blackheath, London. Several papers delivered at St Olave's Church, Hart Street, London. Also items from Cambridge and Greenwich.
£750.00

31 items from the papers of leading Pepys scholar and maritime historian Edwin Chappell (1883-1938). The collection in good general condition, with light signs of age and wear. Around half the items are by Chappell himself, including offprints (many of them bearing his Blackheath address, 41 Westcombe Park Road), pamphlets, articles, proofs, and a bibliography. Other items are papers and pamphlets by: Sir Arthur Bryant; J. R. Tanner; Sir Stephen Gaselee (bearing an autograph inscription by him); T. Wellard; Arthur Ponsonby; Allen Beville Ramsay; Edward B. Powley; H. L. O. Flecker.

[Cecil Beaton interviewed by John Freeman for BBC TV series 'Face to Face'.] Producer Hugh Burnett's copy of the typescript of the transcript of the interview, containing passages not present in the published version.

Author: 
Cecil Beaton [Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton] (1904-1980), photographer and diarist [John Freeman (1915-2014), Labour MP and broadcaster; Hugh Burnett (1924-2011), producer; BBC TV series 'Face to Face
Publication details: 
Transcript undated. BBC TV interview broadcast 18 February 1962.
£120.00

The present item is the producer Hugh Burnett's own copy of the transcript of John Freeman's interview of Cecil Beaton, broadcast in the BBC series 'Face to Face' on 18 February 1962. Duplicated typescript. 4pp, foolscap 8vo. Numbered, and headed 'CECIL BEATON', otherwise consisting entirely of the transcript, with no other details. Aged and worn, with punch holes for binder. On four leaves which were originally stapled together, but with the first and last leaves now detached. Page references 1-10 (presumably to a shorthand transcript) in the outer margin.

[John Evelyn of Wotton House, Surrey, seventeenth-century diarist, writer and gardener.] Autograph ownership inscription of book, with shelfmarks, reading: 'Catalogo Evelyni inscriptus. | Meliora Retinete.'

Author: 
John Evelyn (1620-1706) of Wotton House, Surrey, diarist, writer and gardener
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£250.00

On one side of 14 x 2 cm slip of paper, cut from the flyleaf of a book. Aged and with contemporary blotting to one corner. The slip is neatly placed in a paper windowpane mount. Reads: 'Catalogo Evelyni inscriptus. | Meliora Retinete' Two shelfmarks deleted: 'N. 16' and 'J: 231'. A good brief description of Evelyn's book collecting is given in his entry in the Oxford DNB. As there are four catalogues of his books, identifying the work to which the two present shelfmarks are assigned should not present any difficulty.

[ Cholera; Charles Greville, celebrated diarist and first-class cricketer. ] Autograph Signature ('C Greville') to part of letter.

Author: 
Charles Greville [ Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville ] (1794-1865), English diarist ('The Greville Memoirs') and first-class cricketer
Publication details: 
No place. 28 November 1831.
£150.00

The Greville Memoirs caused an uproar on its publication in 1874. Queen Victoria described it as a 'dreadful and really scandalous book' which should be 'severely censored and discredited'. Disraeli characterised its author as 'the vainest being—I don't limit myself to man—that ever existed; and I don't forget Cicero and Lytton Bulwer […] when he was not scandalous, he was prolix and prosy—a clumsy, wordy writer […] a more verbose, indefinite, unwieldy affair, without a happy expression, never issued from the pen of a fagged subordinate of the daily press'.

[ Sotheby and Co., London, auction catalogue. ] Catalogue of the Well-known Collection of Relics of Samuel Pepys | The Property of the late John Pepys Cockerell (Sold by Order of his Widow).

Author: 
[ Samuel Pepys; John Pepys Cockerell; Sotheby and Co., London auctioneers ]
Publication details: 
Sotheby and Co. 34 & 35 New Bond Street, London, W.(1). 'On Wednesday, the 1st day of April, 1931, immediately following the Sale of the Paston Letters at One o'clock.'
£120.00

The full title reads: 'Catalogue of the Well-known Collection of Relics of Samuel Pepys | The Property of the late John Pepys Cockerell | (Sold by Order of his Widow) | comprising Samuel Pepys' superb silver-gilt Porringer and Salver, King James II's Gaming-Table and Pieces, Portraits by Sir Godfrey Kneller of Pepys and his Circle, and of James II, Books from Pepys' Library, including a Nautical Almanack on vellum, c.

[ Arthur Joseph Munby, diarist and poet. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('A. J. Munby') to the bookseller Bertram Dobell, regarding two lost postal orders.

Author: 
A. J. Munby [ Arthur Joseph Munby ] (1828-1910), diarist, poet and barrister obsessed with women in service [ Bertram Dobell (1842-1914), bookseller and literary scholar ]
Publication details: 
Ripley, Sussex. 23 September 1894.
£65.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. The letter concerns two missing postal orders, regarding which Munby reports that he has made enquiries with 'the Ripley postmaster'. He discusses the question, giving the numbers of the postal orders, and writes: 'The postmaster tells me that, as the Orders were crossed, the G. P. O. will (unless by any chance the Orders have been cashed) repay the £1. 4.

Autograph Letter Signed ('F Greville') from the diarist Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville to an unnamed male correspondent.

Author: 
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (1794–1865), Clerk to the Privy Council, and political diarist
Publication details: 
'Grosv[eno]r Place | Saturday [no date]'.
£56.00

1 p, 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper, and still tipped-in onto leaf removed from album. Arranging a time at which to call on him. According to the Oxford DNB Greville moved from Grosvenor Place to Lord Granville's house in Bruton Street in 1849.

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