WOMEN'S

[Margaret, Lady Rhondda.] Autograph Card Signed ('M. R.') to 'Dear John', apologising for 'having been so rude to my fellow guest' at a lunch, and admitting that she is 'ridiculously [...] touchy' about her magazine 'Time and Tide'.

Author: 
Margaret, Lady Rhondda [Margaret Haig Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda] (1857-1958)], suffragette and nfounder of the magazine Time and Tide
Publication details: 
On letterhead of 'Time and Tide', 32 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1. 10 December 1952.
£80.00

Written over 13 lines on both sides of the 9 x 11 cm card. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. 'Dear John, | I do feel ashamed of having been so rude to my fellow guest yesterday - It was a dreadful thing to do! The fact is I am, I suppose, very touchy about Time & Tide - ridiculously so really - I don't think he had read it - but after all why should he, poor man - I really wasn't very fair - | Please forgive me - except for feeling that I had behaved abominab[ly], just at the end, I thoroughly enjoyed my most excellent luncheon'.

[Printed memorandum.] The Association of British Chambers of Commerce. Further Education. Memorandum on the Training of Artisans in Great Britain and on the Continent Prepared by Dr. W. Alfred Richardson, O.B.E.

Author: 
Dr. W. Alfred Richardson, O.B.E., Chairman of the Education Sub-Committee of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce
Publication details: 
The Women's Printing Society, Ltd., 31-35, Brick Street, Piccadilly, W1. [London.] 18 February 1938.
£50.00

7pp., 12mo. Stapled and unbound. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with rusted staples, and shelfmarks, stamp and label of the Board of Education Reference Library. Scarce: no copy in the British Library or on COPAC.

Manuscript anonymous contemporary ribald spoof titled 'Mrs. Pankhursts Address to the Suffragettes'. [With two small photographs (one of Emmeline Pankhurst and the other of Sylvia Pankhurst?).]

Author: 
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), British political activist and leader of the suffragette movement [female suffrage; Victorian humour; sexuality; social history]
Publication details: 
Without date or place. [England, 1890s?]
£250.00

1p., 12mo. In good condition, on aged and worn paper, folded twice. Written in a late Victorian or Edwardian hand. The 'Address' is an interesting survival: the sort of ribald saloon-bar joke through which male opponents of the movement sought to tame it through ridicule. Similar examples survive, attributed to Lady Astor speaking in parliament, but this version clearly predates these. Here is a transcript of what is a concentrated dose of double-entendre: 'Mrs.

[Sir George Bramwell, Baron in the Court of Exchequer.] Autograph Certificate, on vellum, regarding an indenture shown to him by Catherine Stein, wife of Peter Stein. With a signed affidavit, also on vellum, signed by Charles Harris Hodgson.

Author: 
George Bramwell, 1st Baron Bramwell [George William Wilshere Bramwell, 1st Baron Bramwell] (1808-1892), English judge [Charles Harris Hodgson]
Publication details: 
Bramwell's certificate: 28 March 1861. Hodgson's affidavit: Rolls Garden, Chancery Lane. 28 March 1861, on vellum document 'Sold by J. Sullivan, Printer and Stationer, 22, Chancery Lane.'
£45.00

The two documents are on 33 x 24 cm pieces of vellum, and are pinned together. Both in very good condition. Both are printed forms, made out by the signatory. Bramwell's certificate begins (with the manuscript portions in square brackets): 'These are to Certify that on the [Twenty eighth] day of [March] in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-[one] before me the undersigned [Sir George William Wilshere Bramwell Knight one of the Barons of Her Majestys Court of Exchequer] Appeared personally [Catherine Stein] the Wife of [Peter Stein] and produced a certain Indenture marked [A]'.

[Mary Cholmondeley.] Autograph Letter Signed to fellow-novelist Frances Mary Peard

Author: 
Mary Cholmondeley (1859-1925), English novelist [Frances Mary Peard (1835-1923), English novelist, author of more than forty books]
Publication details: 
Hendon. 29 January [no year].
£56.00

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with short closed tear at head of second leaf. She begins: 'I was so disturbed and disappointed when I came in on Tuesday to find I had missed you. And I believe you had been kind enough to call when we ought to be, and almost invariably are in - after 4.

[Dr Helen Holme Bancroft, Oxford agricultural botanist.] Three Autograph Letters Signed to 'Dr. Francis', regarding 'the difficulties of archaeological research at Southend' and palaeobotany.

Author: 
Dr Helen Holme Bancroft ['Nellie Bancroft'] (b.1887), Reader in Agricultural Botany, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Publication details: 
Two from the School of Rural Economy, University of Oxford (one on letterhead), and one from 5 St Edward's Passage, Cambridge. All dating from 1930.
£90.00

All three items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Letter One: School of Rural Economy, Oxford. 18 August 1930. 2pp., 4to. She sympathises with 'the difficulties of archaeological research at Southend [...] for I know only too well how the people who hold the ultimate strings can "do one down" when their interests don't happen to coincide with one's own'. She recalls that in 1913 she 'put in a lot of time on some fossils for the B.M. - they turned out to be pieces of fossilised timber; & because the Keeper of the Palaeobotanical Dept.

[Isabelle Bogelot, nineteenth-century French women's activist.] Autograph Letter Signed [to the London bookseller Philip Stephen King and his wife]

Author: 
Isabelle Bogelot (1838-1923), French activist, whose Oeuvre des Libérées de Saint-Lazare assisted former inmates of the Paris prison [Philip Stephen King (1819-1908), London parliamentary bookseller]
Publication details: 
4 rue Perrault [Paris]. 19 April 1886.
£90.00

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. Not having had 'la facilté de profiter de la bonne recommendation de Miss Louisa Hardy', she writes a letter of recommendation for her son, who will be passing through London for a few days: 'c'est lui qui vous portera nos compliments et vous remercira des articles des journaux que vous m'avez fait parvenir et qu'il m'a traduit'.

Autograph Letter Signed from the English poet Eliza Cook, sending what she describes as a 'specimen' of her 'pothooks' and hangers': a holograph poem titled 'Impromptu on being told the death of my Mother would leave a scar on my heart'.

Author: 
Eliza Cook (1818-1889), English poet and Chartist, close friend of the American actress Charlotte Cushman
Publication details: 
9 Gloucester Buildings, Old Kent Road [London]. 11 December 1845.
£100.00

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. In very good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with minor evidence of previous mounting. Apparently addressing an autograph hunter, she writes: 'I beg to forward you a specimen of my "pothooks and hangers" trusting you will "admire" if you honestly can. Believe I have pleasure in gratifying your request and am with truth my dear | Ever yours faithfully | Eliza Cook'. The poem, also signed 'Eliza Cook', is four lines long, beginning 'That stroke indeed would deeply gash'. There is no indication that the poem was published.

[Printed handbill.] Roedean School. Dates of the Beginning and End of Terms for 1917.

Author: 
[Roedean School, near Brighton, East Sussex, boarding school for girls founded by the Lawrence sisters in 1885]
Publication details: 
Without place or date. [Roedean School, East Sussex. 1916 or 1917.]
£56.00

1p., 16mo. Good, on lightly-aged and spotted laid paper. A few pencil calculations on the reverse. Neatly printed. Giving details for the three terms: Lent, Summer and Michaelmas, with dates for 'Pupils re-assemble', 'Opening Address to Pupils', 'Reading of the Reports and Closing Address' and 'Pupils leave'. These details are followed by the following notices: 'Parents are earnestly requested to co-operate with the School authorities in enforcing punctuality of attendance at the beginning and end of Term.

Volume of manuscript accounts of a Ladies' Department Store, listing substantial sums under Lace, Dresses, Wrappers, Silks, Gloves, Furs, Umbrellas, Haberdashery, Trimmings, Jackets, Millinery, Underclothing, Costumes.

Author: 
[Victorian and Edwardian Ladies' Department Store, 1897-1909; women's fashion; clothing]
Publication details: 
Without place, in account book with label of 'Clements, Newling & Co. Stationers & Printers and Account Book Makers &c. 96, Wood St., London, E.C.' Entries dating from between 1897 and 1909.
£380.00

353pp., small 4to. In brown calf half-binding, with marbled endpapers, and title 'DISSECTING BOOK' in gilt on red leather label on spine. In very good condition, clean and tight, in lightly-worn binding. Neatly written out throughout in the same hand, with pencil running totals added in a second hand.

Unpublished youthful autograph poem by Sylvia Lynd [née Sylvia Dryhurst], dealing in a humorous style with the perils of buying footwear in Edwardian Finchley, North London, beginning: 'By some devil surely sent | Sandal hunting off I went'.

Author: 
Sylvia Lynd [née Sylvia Dryhurst] (1888-1952), Anglo-Irish poet, novelist and essayist, wife of the Irish essayist Robert Lynd (1879-1949)
Publication details: 
Without place or date. [London, before 1909.]
£135.00

2pp., 12mo. On bifiolium of ruled paper, with 'HIERATICA' watermark of 'J. S. & Co.' From the Lynd archive, and judging from the handwriting a youthful effort, almost-certainly dating from before Sylvia Dryhurst's marriage to Robert Lynd in 1909. In fair condition, on aged paper. In seven stanzas, the first three giving a taste of an amusing and unusual jeu d'esprit and excellent piece of Edwardian social history: '1) By some devil surely sent | Sandal hunting off I went, | And my footsteps never slowed | Till I reached the Finchley Road. | Chorus: (with fervour) Damn them ! | Damn them !

Autograph Signature of the British novelist Margaret Kennedy [Margaret Davies, Lady Davies].

Author: 
Margaret Kennedy [Margaret Davies, Lady Davies] (1896-1967), English novelist and playwright
Publication details: 
Place and date not stated.
£20.00

On one side of a piece of 11 x 11 cm paper, cut from the bottom of a letter. In good condition, lightly-aged. Reads, all in Kennedy's hand: 'Yours sincerely | Margaret Kennedy'.

1894 volume of The Portfolio Society, containing twenty-six original essays (twenty-five in manuscript and one in typescript) by contributors including Sylvanus P. Thompson, Annie Collings, Juliet Reckett, F. O. W. Smith and Samuel Davies.

Author: 
The Portfolio Society, founded 1874 [Silvanus P. Thompson (1851-1915); Annie Collings; Juliet Reckett; F. O. W. Smith; Samuel Davies; Mr Stanfield; Barbara Bodichon (1827-1891)]
Publication details: 
The twenty-six essays dating from 1894; with four pages of 'Rules' from November 1931 bound in.
£750.00

344pp., 4to. 26 essays (one of them in two parts), comprising 332pp. in manuscript and 7pp. in typescript, with three full-page illustrations, and five printed pages at the start. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, in worn and rebacked blue buckram binding, with an elaborate design in the style of Walter Crane in gilt on front board, depicting a Grecian maid plucking apples, incorporating the words 'The Portfolio Socy.', a Latin motto and the date 1894. This design is duplicated in print on the recto of the first leaf of the volume, with the date '189' completed with a '4' in pencil.

Holograph poem (signed 'Julia S. H. Pardoe') by Julia Pardoe, apparently unpublished, beginning 'Fairyland! Fairyland! | That must be a pleasant spot'.

Author: 
Julia Pardoe [Julia S. H. Pardoe] (c.1804-1862), English poet, novelist, historian and traveller, author of 'The City of the Sultan' (1836) and 'The Beauties of the Bosphorus' (1839)
Publication details: 
Without place or date.
£80.00

1p., landscape 16mo (8.5 x 13 cm). Good, on aged paper, with blank second leaf of bifolium bearing evidence of previous mounting. The poem is neatly written out, in a sensitive hand, and is eight lines long: 'Fairyland! Fairyland! | That must be a pleasant spot: | Silver rippled over the strand, | Murmurs in each cave & grot, | Jewelled fruits upon the trees, | Music floating on the air, | Perfumes breathing on the breeze -, | How I wish that I was there! | [signed] Julia S. H. Pardoe'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('A Hayward') from the essayist and translator Abraham Hayward to the editor of the Athenaeum Charles Wentworth Dilke, regarding a delayed communication, a 'd[amne]d foreigner', and payment for a female contributor.

Author: 
Abraham Hayward (1801-1884), English essayist and translator [Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789-1864), editor of the Athenaeum]
Publication details: 
Place not stated. 'Monday' [no date].
£80.00

1p., 4to. Addressed on reverse, with red wax seal, to 'C. W. Dilke Esq:'. Hayward writes that he is enclosing a note (not present), which was sent to him 'in one to me received only today though apparently written on Wednesday last. A d - d foreigner kept it in his pocket in the interim.' Clearly referring to a fee for an article, he continues: 'The lady will be quite satisfied with what you name, but I suppose it may stand over till she does something else'.

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