LONDON

Typed Letter Signed to Sir Henry Truman Wood, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts, together with a cancelled printed application form for membership of the Society.

Author: 
Edward Unwin Junior [Unwin Brothers Ltd; The Gresham Press]
Publication details: 
23 January 1917; on ornate letterhead of Unwin Brothers Ltd, 27 Pilgrim St, Ludgate Hill.
£35.00

Chairman of Unwin Brothers (born 1870). One page, quarto. Good, but discoloured and lightly creased, and with staple stain at head. Docketed and bearing the Society's stamp. He is sorry not to have answered sooner, but 'some very important business has engaged my attention during the last few days with the result that I put your letter into my private drawer without acknowledging it.

Autograph Card Signed from Sutro to Hicks.

Author: 
Alfred Sutro (1863-1933), British author and dramatist; Seymour Hicks (1871-1949)
Publication details: 
26 October [no year, but c.1910]; on letterhead 31 Chester Terrace, Regent's Park [London].
£35.00

One page, on piece of grey card roughly three and a half inches by four and a half wide. Very good. Twelve lines and one-line postscript in Sutro's tiny and difficult hand. Sends his 'sincerest congratulations on the best volume of memoirs I have read this many a day' (Hicks published his autobiography in 1910). 'There isn't a dull line in it from start to finish; I could dine out for a week on the stories'. Reference to Irving and other actors. Ends 'A damned good book, Seymour! Tous mes compliments!' Postscript reads 'This does NOT require an answer!'

Autograph Letter Signed to 'Mrs Willows'.

Author: 
Clara Jecks (1857-1951), English actress and singer, briefly associated with the D'Oyly Carte Company, daughter of Harriet Coveney and actor-manager Charles Jecks
Publication details: 
31 May 1898; 20 Hart Street, Bloomsbury, WC [London].
£45.00

Three pages, 12mo. Good, on lightly spotted and aged paper. Traces of glue and previous mount adhering to blank verso of second leaf of bifolium. Concerns a 'concert on June 16yh in aid of the <?> L G[uild] at Mrs. Beudel's house'. 'It grieves me more than I can express to find that I shall be unable to attend, or give my services on that occasion, unfortunately my arrangements will not permit of my being in London then'.

Autograph Letter Signed to I[saac]. Wilkinson[, Manager and Secretary of the Brighton Aquarium].

Author: 
Dudley Smith (born c.1852), English and Foreign Musical and Dramatic Agent [The Brighton Aquarium; Victorian Circus]
Publication details: 
22 March 1883; on ornate letterhead in blue and gold carrying address at 449 Strand, London (as well as addresses in Paris and New York).
£56.00

One page, quarto. Very good, though slightly aged and creased, and with minor damp staining at foot, affecting bottom three lines including signature. Wilkinson has written to say that he 'has not the space' Smith has 'named'. '[Y]ou express an opinion that Circus business would pay, & I, from my personal knowledge of Brighton & experience therein, feel sure a really good Circus would prove an immense attraction & a paying one, & would stand some time by introducing fresh novelties'.

Autograph Note Signed ('John Hullah') to 'My dear Strettell'.

Author: 
John Pyke Hullah (1812-1884), English composer, firnd of Dickens, and collaborator.
Publication details: 
18 July 1856; on letterhead, embossed with crest, of St Martin's Hall.
£45.00

One page, 12mo. On creased, brittle, aged paper. Repaired with archival tape on reverse, which carries traces of previous mounting. He is sending some lines of introduction 'to my cameo friend who lives in Grafton St Bond St. - No. [i.e. number] unknown, but it is the second or third house on the right going from Bond St.' Hullah's 'Music Hall' - St Martin's Hall in Long Acre - opened in 1850. It burnt to the ground ten years later.

Special Railway Supplement.

Author: 
The Financial Times [Railway; Railways]
Publication details: 
London; 1 January 1923.
£56.00

Thirty-six broadsheet pages. On aged paper, with chipping to extremities and first and last leaves detached, but with text clear and entire. Articles on 'The Four New Railways', with photographs, by Sir Herbert Walker, Felix J. C. Pole, Arthur Watson and R. L. Wedgwood. Other articles include 'Electrification - The Metropolitan's Experience' by R. H. Selbie, 'Railways - Their Position and Prospects' by Sir Sam Fry, 'Railway Rates under the New Regime' by Sir W. M. Acworth and 'Finance of British Railways' by W. J. Stevens.

For sale by order of the trustees of the will. Hampstead Heath. The well-known Freehold Estate of the late Sir Spencer Wells, Bart., a perfect Country Seat within five miles of Charing Cross. [...] known as Golder's Hill.

Author: 
Sir Thomas Spencer Wells [Hampstead Heath; Golder's Hill House; London topography]
Publication details: 
For Sale by Auction by Messrs. Debenham, Tewson, Farmer and Bridgewater | At the Mart, Tokenhouse Yard, near the Bank of England, in the City of London. On Tuesday, the 28th day of June, 1898.
£100.00

Two unbound bifoliums stapled together. Eight pages, on four leaves each roughly seventeen inches by eleven wide. A corrected proof, stamped at head of first page 'PROOF NO.' A frail survival of a significant document in London topographical history. Aged and worn, with several closed tears. A few manuscript emendations, notes and additions in different hands. For example, concerning a right of way, 'Messrs. Debenham can ascertain this from Mr. Pinder Simpson 20 Old Burlington St. W. the Collector'.

Illustration entitled 'THE ROLL OF FAME. 1800-1900.', with key.

Author: 
Linley Sambourne [Punch, or the London Charivari; Caricature]
Publication details: 
Dated in facsimile October 1899.
£45.00

Sambourne (1844-1910) contributed illustrations to Punch for more than forty years. On good laid paper, dimensions roughly 22 inches by 17 1/2. With facsimile signature and date. Folded twice. Slightly discoloured and a little creased, but suitable for framing. Depicts Mr Punch, with his dog Toby, sitting atop a pile of the 'evolutions of the century' (including a bicycle and typewriter), and waving to 116 of the century's worthies, including Bismark, General Tom Thumb and the jockey Fred Archer, but without Karl Marx.

Autograph Note Signed (F Matania) to unnamed correspondent.

Author: 
Chevalier Fortunino Matania (1881-1963), Italian artist
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£78.00

One page, quarto. On lightly creased, aged paper with a few closed tears. Rust marks from paperclip at head. Reads 'Il triangolo della perfezione arte scienza ad amore | [signed] F Matania'.

Faraday Number. Faraday Celebrations 1931 [...] Faraday Centenary Exhibition, Royal Albert Hall [...].

Author: 
The Times of London [Michael Faraday; Clifford Webb; Lord Rutherford; General Electric Company; Siemens; Mullard Wireless Service Co.]
Publication details: 
London: Monday, 21 September 1931.
£135.00

Broadsheet. Twenty-two pages. On browned high-acidity paper, with slight wear and loss to extremities and along central horizontal fold. Attractive full-page illustration cover illustration by Clifford Webb. Articles include 'Telegraphy and telephony. From Morse apparatus to the teleprinter. World-wide conversation.' by Colonel Sir Thomas Purves, and 'Generation of Electricity. Supremacy of the steam turbine. Economy of space and fuel.' by Robert H. Parsons. Also 'The making of a natural philospher. Heredity and environment.

Autograph Card Signed ('Lamb') to Ian Treg. Jenkyn, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.

Author: 
Lynton Harold Lamb (1907-1977), British painter, book illustrator and designer
Publication details: 
[Venice; 1970].
£85.00

Postcard with painting of Rialto Bridge by Canaletto. Postmarked 1970. Ruckled with damp but entirely legible. An amusing communication, beginning 'Thought I would let you know that we were not involved in the great tornado that sunk a voporetto [sic] on Lirica 4, and that the Hotel alla Fava is still very comfortable.' Refers to the Lambs' 'self-contained eyrie' and 'the weak fast coffee which tastes of mud; but clearly and obviously isn't'.

Original ink caricature by Furniss of Haggard in the character of Don Quixote.

Author: 
Harry Furniss (1854-1925), Anglo-Irish Punch illustrator [Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925), English author; Don Quixote]
Publication details: 
Without date [but circa 1887?] or place.
£225.00

On paper roughly four and a quarter inches by three and a quarter wide, with corners snipped to make an irregular octohedron. Good clear illustration on ruckled, aged paper. Tipped onto a larger piece of aged glue-stained paper. An amusing caricature showing Haggard astride Rozinante, in a full suit of armour, with an inkpot and quill pen as hat, holding a lance inscribed 'LITERATURE' in one hand, and a baby wrapped in a large roll of paper inscribed 'SHE M.S.' in the other. Unsigned, and attributed to Furniss in pencil on mount.

Autograph Letter Sign "T. Tyrrell" to the "Worshipful Committee for Improving the Port of London".

Author: 
Timothy Tyrrell, Remembrancer of the City of London.
Publication details: 
Guildhall, 3 Dec. 1802.
£65.00

Two pages, 4to, dusted and otherwise marked, but text clear and complete. He "begs leave to represent the the State of my account of Fees & Disbursements in obtaining the Act of Parliament 'for rendering more commodious & for better regulating the port of London' which ammounts to ____________"5989.12-". He has received £4400 "by your warrants out of the Parliamentary hand, £100 of the Dock Company, balance due £489.12". He explains a complication involving the Dock Company's payment.

A List of the Wardens Assistants and Livery of The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London.

Author: 
The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London.
Publication details: 
London; 1859 [carried on in manuscript to 1862].
£180.00

12mo. In original worn red morocco binding, gilt, with loose front free endpaper. Good, with EXTENSIVE MANUSCRIPT CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. Eight blank leaves bound in front and back, on which are laid down forty-nine illustrations of arms of London livery companies, each approximately one and a half inches square, and apparently dating from the mid-eighteenth century.

Autograph letter signed to 'Mr. Gifford'.

Author: 
Marie Lohr
Publication details: 
1 February 1928; on letterhead '8, DEVONPORT STREET, | HYDE PARK W.2.'
£38.00

Anglo-Australian actress (1890-1975), connected with the Kendalls, Beerbohm-Tree, Bernard Shaw and a host of other figures from the London stage. Two pages, 12mo. Veryy good. Difficult hand. She has asked 'Mr. de Lion' about Gifford's play: 'he said he will try to make enquiries & let me know but I dont expect he will'. The rest appears to refer to relate to travel plans. Ends 'I beg you to forgive me.' Signed 'Marie Löhr'.

Autograph Letter Signed to Fanny [Brough].

Author: 
Amy Mayhew [daughter of the journalist Henry Mayhew (1812-87)]
Publication details: 
Undated; on letterhead '22, Berners Street. | W.'
£28.00

Three pages, 12mo. Very good. The letterhead, in red, carries Mayhew's crest, with his initials 'HM' and motto 'LABOR VINCIT'. An insight into doings within the Mayhew family. As her correspondent has 'not been here', she is concerned that she 'must have offended you in some way or another'.

Archive of papers relating to his employment.

Author: 
George Hazlehurst (1867-1941); Millwall Dock Company; Manchester Ship Canal Company
Publication details: 
1867-1932.
£450.00

20 items. Various formats (see below). Showing signs of age, and with some foxing, fraying and creasing, but in very good condition overall. Collection indicates that Hazlehurst, who was born in Grappenhall, Lancashire, to an illiterate mother, was a capable individual entrusted with responsible positions. ITEMS 1 TO 5: Certified Copies of Hazlewood's birth and marriage certificates (birth certificate in poor condition, but with text entirely legible), his wife's birth and death certificates, and his parents' marriage certificate.

Autograph Letter Signed by the Society's secretary W. E. Page to Messrs Coutts & Co, Bankers.

Author: 
THE LONDON FEMALE GUARDIAN SOCIETY
Autograph Letter Signed by the Society's secretary
Publication details: 
2 October 1901, on printed letterhead of the Society, 191, High Street, Stoke Newington, N.
£35.00
Autograph Letter Signed by the Society's secretary

The society's letterhead has a circular engraving, 1 1/2 inches in diameter, of Jesus and a fallen woman, surrounded by the quotation ':JESUS SAID UNTO HER, NEITHER DO I CONDEMN THEE: GO, AND SIN NO MORE.' It describes the Society as 'Being "THE LONDON FEMALE PENITENTIARY," founded at Pentonville, 1807, and "THE GUARDIAN SOCIETY," founded 1812, for the RESCUE, RECLAMATION, and PROTECTION of BETRAYED and FALLEN WOMEN from all parts of the United Kingdom, and now united under one management." 1 page, 8vo. Grubby, with staple marks and a closed tear affecting two words of text.

Printed Receipt, with Manuscript Insertions, Signed by the 2nd Marquess, for rent on two Mayfair properties.

Author: 
Richard Grosvenor (1795-1869), 2nd Marquess of Westminster [Grosvenor Estate Office; Mayfair; Richard Jones]
Publication details: 
Grosvenor Estate Office, 9 Davies Street, Grosvenor Square; 30 March 1849.
£45.00

One page. Roughly nine inches by four. Aged and creased, with one small closed tear and one spike hole (neither affecting text, which is clear and complete). An attractive document, embossed with a government one shilling stamp, and bearing the Westminster coat of arms, supported by two dogs, engraved by Warrington, 27 Strand, in top left-hand corner. Reads (MS additions in square brackets): '[Imp: Hopkinson] | Grosvenor Estate Office, | 9, Davies Street, Grosvenor Square | Received the [March 30th] 184[9] of [Richard Jones Esqr.

Autograph Letter Signed to 'Mrs. Samuel'.

Author: 
Edward Tennyson Reed (1860-1933), Punch cartoonist
Publication details: 
20 December [no year]; on letterhead '17, FITZ-GEORGE AVENUE, | WEST KENSINGTON, | W.'
£56.00

One page, 12mo. Good, if a little aged and lightly creased. He apologises for the delay in 'sending the drawing that now I ask you to please me by accepting' (not present). He asks her to accept it as a present for 'that almost superannuated festivity' of Christmas. 'I send you a coat-of-arms as that includes a certain amount of letterpress which you will I think prefer to a simple drawing'. He has delivered all the drawings bought by Mrs Samuel's friend and has received his thanks.' Signed 'E. T. Rees'.

Autograph Letter Signed to 'My dear Scott'.

Author: 
William Gorman Wills (1828-91), Irish dramatist
Publication details: 
No date; on embossed letterhead of the Garrick Club.
£33.00

One page, 12mo. Good, though aged and foxed. 'My best thanks & gratitude for your noble notice | Were you ever in low spirits If so sympathise with me I feel as if I would never wish to be acted again . . Chastelard the first night my god almighty ! ! ! - | Your sincere friend | W G Wills'. Chastelard is a character in Wills's play 'Marie Stuart' (1874).

Parchment Manuscript Indenture, consisting of the counterpart lease of No. 50 Holywell Street, Strand, Middlesex, from the Revd Charles Felton Smith, Edwin Augustus Smith and others to John Bedford Leno.

Author: 
[BOOK TRADE] John Bedford Leno [CHARTISM; RADICALISM; UXBRIDGE]
Publication details: 
01/01/76
£325.00

Leno (1824-94) was a printer, publisher, poet and editor, and a significant figure in nineteenth-century radicalism. In 1845, while a printer, he led a group of radical workers who started a Young Men's Improvement Society and circulated a manuscript newspaper entitled the 'Attempt'. He then became branch secretary of the local Chartists. In 1849 the 'Attempt' became a printed journal, the 'Uxbridge Pioneer'. In 1861 he was editor of the 'Poetic Magazine' and in 1881 of the 'Anti-tithe Journal'.

Long Acre Ward Lecturers Book 1730

Author: 
Joseph Trapp
Publication details: 
1730
£450.00

Manuscript, 32pp., folio, vellum covers detached, poor condition but complete. Front endpaper is inscribed "Jos Trapp" perhaps indicating that it was held by Trapp, one of the lecturer/beneficiaries of donations. [Joseph Trapp, 1679-1747, poet and pamphleteer - see substantial article in DNB which reveals Jonathan Swift's role in his life].

Autograph Letter Signed to T. E. Lea.

Author: 
Frederick Rowton
Publication details: 
26 November 1884; City of London Institution.
£56.00

Rowton edited a celebrated anthology of British female poets. One page, 12mo. Poor: grubby and with remains of stub from previous mounting adhering to edge of bifoliate. 'It will give me great pleasure to deliver my Lecture on Charles Dickens at the Southwark Institution during the next Season. - My terms will be eight Guineas for the Three. - | I may perhaps be allowed to say that I am now delivering these Lectures (the Second comes on tomorrow night) at this Institution, with very great success, to crowded audiences.

Autograph Letter Signed to the bookseller [George] Offor.

Author: 
Robert Mushet
Publication details: 
24 Augt 1819 | Mint'.
£65.00

Mushet (died 1828) was an officer of the Mint, and author of 'An Inquiry into the Effects Produced on the National Currency, and Rates of Exchange, by the Bank Restriction Bill' (1810). The recipient (1787-1864) edited Bunyan. One page, octavo. Good, on slightly grubby discoloured paper with one spike hole. Two short printed accounts of Musket laid down at foot of page. Reads 'Dear Sir | I shall be obliged to you to send me this afternoon or early tomorrow morning a Copy of Ede's Book of Coins'. Signed 'R Musket' and addressed, on revese of second leaf of bifoliate, to 'Mr.

Autograph letter signed, Mary-Cecile Loge, translator, to A.P. Watt, Literary Agent

Author: 
[ Jack London ] A French Translator
Publication details: 
13/05/08
£250.00

Four pages, 8vo. She declines to translate "White Fang" because the similarity of its "most important scenes" to those in "The Call of the Wild" ("leading" Paris editors agree with her) would jeopardise sales, suggesting that compression into one third of the original length would be necessary. She remits eight guineas to be forwarded to Jack London, and makes a play for the rights to translate a new Robert Hichens novel. WITH: typed note signed, 8vo, in German, from the publishers, Ferdinand Schoningh, to A.P. Watt, 20 Nov.

Manuscript Indenture (counterpart of Lease of Brown's premises at no. 342 Strand), on parchment, signed by Brown.

Author: 
Alexander Brown, nineteenth-century bookseller in the Strand, London [Smith and Guscotte, Solicitors, 19 Essex Street, Strand]
Publication details: 
26 July 1865, London.
£125.00

Fifty-two long lines of text, on one side of a single piece of parchment, roughly inches by. '[...] Between John Guscotte of No. 19 Essex Street Strand [...] and Alexander Brown of No. 342 Strand in the County of Middlesex aforesaid Book Seller'. A ten-year lease for a consideration of sixty pounds and yearly rent of one hundred and four pounds. Includes conditions relating to the upkeep of the premises, whitewashing of the walls, display of advertisements, etc.

A Scheme for a new Station on the South East Side of the River & a New Bridge with its approaches from the East & West

Author: 
Reginald Blomfield
Publication details: 
[1916]
£250.00

Printed., 13"(w) x 26" (l), fold marks, sl. chipped, good. SIGNED "Reginald Blomfield R.A./ Sept. 1916/ New Court, Temple". Apparently a new a station which was never built. Instead the site eventually became the setting for the Festival Of Britain.

The Lettsomian Lectures, delivered at the Medical Society of London, 1879, on bronchial asthma: its causes, pathology, and treatment.

Author: 
John C[harles]. Thorowgood
Publication details: 
London: Baillière, Tindall, and Cox, King William Street, Strand. 1879.
£56.00

Small 8vo. Pages i-vi, 3-86 (nothing apparently lacking). Original publishers' catalogue for 1879 at rear. Good tight copy, in worn original brown cloth, gilt. PRESENTATION COPY 'For The Library of the Medical Society of London with The Authors Compts'. With stamps, labels, and other evidence of library provenance. From the collection of the Society's librarian Nehemiah Asherson, and carrying a note by him, over the Society's stamp on the half-title 'DISCARDED FROM THE LIBRARY | RESCUED FROM Pulping | 1971/2'.

Autograph Note Signed to [Captain Rolfe Arnold] Scott-James.

Author: 
Georges Lafourcade
Publication details: 
15 May 1937; on letterhead of the Universite de Grenoble.
£35.00

French authority on English literature, and in particular on the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. The recipient (1878-1959) was editor of the 'London Mercury' at the time of writing. One page, quarto. In poor condition, with fraying and closed tears to edges. 'I herewith return revised proofs of my French Novelists. | May I remind you that I should be glad to have some galley proofs if it can be easily arranged?' Signed 'Georges Lafourcade'.

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