FIRST

Dimensions 14 centimeters by 9 centimeters. In good condition, although grubby and with creasing to one corner and ink from postmark along one edge. Sepia photograph of airborne balloon with a tangle of guyropes and mass of people beneath it. Hangars in background. The airship pioneer August von Parseval (1861-1942) worked in partnership with the engineer Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld and the businessman August Riedinge. The "Dragonballoons" (Drachenballone), which he designed for military observation, are predecessors of the present-day blimp.

Both letters lightly creased and spotted, but good overall. Letter One (8vo, 8 pp): In stamped, addressed envelope. Begins by asking whether Haydon would consider acting as co-executor to his estate with his wife Flora. Outlines his financial situation and discusses the executor's duties. Turns to 'the naval situation', Haydon's letter on the subject being 'so guarded that it might be nailed up in Trafalgar Square without helping the enemy'.

64 pages, 16mo. In original printed wraps. In poor condition. Ownership inscription at head of front wrap. The two binding staples rusted, and the wraps in particular grubby, torn and worn. Photograph of 'Private JENKIN THOMAS' in what appears to be World War I uniform on front wrap. Illustration of the 'SINKING OF THE "TITANIC." ' on page 9; photograph of 'WILLIAM HERBERT HARRIS, A.L.C.M.' on page 47.

3 pages, 8vo. On three leaves of paper, all creased, discoloured and worn, with a few tears and pin holes. Lively, humorous, and well-written account of the army career of a skiver. 'Behold me then the next time in the trenches a Lewis Gunner, my-self to be about to kill Bosches in neat little trenches of 47. As a matter of fact I did not kill one as I never fired the gun but we had one or two thrilling times. [...] January 1st. 1917 I became a member of the now famous Tank Corps.

All three items good. Item One: Prospectus and application form, headed 'The Anti-German League. Introduction by the Founder.' Three pages, in a bifolium. Leaf dimensions 27.5 x 21.5 cm. Printed in blue. The 'Introduction' covers the first two pages, flanked by columns bearing the words 'Lest We Forget.' and 'MOTTO: "Everything German Taboo." ' It includes the headings ' "Made in Germany" - The Mark of the Beast' and 'The Alien Menace'.

Four 8vo diaries kept by F.C. Poyser, the first of which gives details of all the ships Poyser served on from 1905 to 1926, including names of captains, dates, voyages, distances, cargoes. During the First World War he served on six vessels OHMS. He gives the occasional diagram of convoys, lists the cargoes and their quantities (horses, mules, oats, flour, boats, lorries, ambulances, aeroplanes, etc.), gives destinations (Canada, Australia, South Africa, India, Ceylon).

The author is obscure, but the letter is addressed to 'Sir Rennell' [Sir James Rennell Rodd (1858-1941), diplomat and author]. 2 pages, 16mo, creased but in good condition. A florid missive beginning 'In this tempest of egotism and hate which has plunged us all into Teutonic darkness, you will not have forgotten, my dear Sir Rennell, the lines of Coleridge: | [...]'.

Manuscript, 8 pages, 4to, chipped (with minor textual loss) and slightly stained, text clear. Convoy and anti-submarine activity. Usually one line description per day but there is a long description of action involved while on convoy duty, encounters with submarines, reinforcements, damaged ships, etc. Their first move was to leave Base on 27th June "in search of Submarine D.6. (overdue) and then carried on to Lamlash". [D.6.

Landscape 12mo (leaf dimensions 12 x 16 cm): 27 pp. Stitched with no jacket as issued. Covers a little grubby, but a good copy of a scarce item. Title page and twelve delightful full-page pochoir illustrations by Arnoux, all hand-coloured: 'En temps de Paix', 'Premier contact', 'Le sous-lieutenant', 'Les Indiens', 'Black-Watch', 'Le capitaine et l'infirmiere', 'Les Irlandais', 'Le Major', 'La Mascotte', 'Ship ahoy!!', 'Le bon Ecossais' and 'God save the King'.

8vo: xvii + 296 pp. In original black cloth, with design in silver stamped on front board. No dustwrapper. Faded spine and lightly-marked cloth. Inscribed by Curtiss on front free endpaper: 'To Ellery Sedgwick - | Most gratefully - | Mina Curtiss | Christmas, 1932.'

Two 8vo diaries, by Charles Letts, the first 'improved' and the second 'self-opening'. Both in heavily worn covers, lacking spines, but internally clean, on aged paper, and with the text entirely legible. Both diaries end with a brief set of accounts. The diaries are filled with details of the life of a young English lawyer in London during the Great War, including references to the many legal cases in which he was involved.

On a leaf of pink paper (roughly 16 x 20 cm) removed from an autograph album. Firm signature, 6 cm long, with the initial 'R' blotted by Keyes. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. The page bearing the signature is headed, in another hand, 'Famous Men Military and Naval'.

A quarto volume, bound in padded green leather stamped in gilt on the front cover with the words 'Visitors' Book'. Patterned endpapers. Tight, on lightly aged and spotted paper. Binding heavily worn, with outer corners of front cover dogeared and torn to show padding. Five leaves with one dogeared corner. Note (in Davies' hand?) on flyleaf: 'Visitors book. | General Sir F. J. Davies | General Officer Commanding-in-Chief | Scottish Command | 27 Drumsheugh Gardens | Edinburgh'. Each page with printed columns for the 'date' and 'name and address'.

Folio. Pagination: [1-7] 8-45 [1-3] = 24 leaves. Unbound. Stitched as issued, unopened and uncut. Printed with the Fell types on good but browning paper. In good condition, but with spotting to recto of first leaf, which has a small closed hole at head and some tiny closed tears at foot, and with two unobtrusive staple-stains to verso of last leaf. Creased and dog-eared at foot. The importance of this item in the history of Shakespeare studies has been emphasized recently by A. J. West (The Shakespeare First Folio. The History of the Book. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press, 2001).

4to: 12 pp. Unbound. On stained and aged paper, with rusted staples and a hole (2 x 1 cm) in last leaf. Closed tear of 5 cm to one leaf. Containing a 'Roll of Honour' ('This List brings the total number of those serving to about 1950.') With 23 photographic portraits of Bart's men who died in army service. Loosely inserted are an application form for subscription to the St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal, and a leaf removed from the March 1917 number of the Journal, containing an article entitled 'A Bart.'s Dinner at the Front.'

12mo: 44 pp. Unbound. Text clear and complete on aged paper. Ten paragraphs on pp.7-10 have terse, sardonic phrases added at the end, apparently by a Jacobite sympathiser. For example, 'by <?> the old cause' added to one ending 'a Country brought to Ruin, or in a fair way to it.'; 'in this world' added to one ending 'will never come to Light.'; 'in a publick manur' added to one ending 'the secret Treaty now concluded.'; also 'much adoe about nothin'. Scarce: all but a handful of the entries on COPAC are for facsimiles. No 'finis' at end, but complete according to COPAC entries.

Printed on one side of a piece of laid paper roughly 31 x 19.5 cm. 21 lines. Clear and complete on lightly-aged laid paper with Britannia watermark. Headed 'By the Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, &c.' and addressed 'To The respective Admirals, Captains, Commanders, and Commanding Officers of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels.' Signed by 'J. Troubridge', 'Jas. Adams', 'W Garthshore' and ('By Command of their Lordships') by 'Wm Marsden'.

4to: 1 p. Good, on lightly aged and creased paper. 'I have great satisfaction in acquainting you that a Commission has this day been signed promoting you to the Rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue.' Docketed by Paterson twice on the otherwise-blank reverse '12 Augt. 1812 | Lord Melville informing me I am made Rear Admiral of the Blue'.

The cuttings are laid down in a contemporary landscape 8vo scrapbook (dimensions of leaf roughly 15 cm x 25), with brown calf spine and marbled boards and endpapers. The scrapbook is worn and loose, but the cuttings, although on high acidity paper, are clear and entirely legible. A unique assemblage, casting valuable contemporary light on the two conflicts from the British point of view. The cuttings, many of them extensive, relating to the Zulu War begin at one end and those relating to the First Boer War at the other.

Printed on one side of a piece of unwatermarked cream wove paper. Dimensions roughly 24 x 19 cm. Folded and lightly creased, and with some staining (not affecting the text, which is entirely legible) to left-hand margin and top left-hand corner. 24 lines of text. According to Churchill's memoirs, this 'admonition' was 'circulated throught the inner circles of the governing machine' and then read to the House of Commons the following day.

8vo (23.5 x 18.5), 2 pp. Signature cut away, resulting in loss of 3.5 x 10 cm rectangle from corner at bottom and affecting four lines of text on recto. Otherwise good, on lightly aged paper with thin strip from brown paper mount adhering to inner margin on reverse. 37 lines of text (four with loss). An interesting letter written during his final illness. He begins by confirming the report which has reached the recipient of Gardner's 'having been very seriously indisposed'.

One page, 12mo. Very good. 'Absence abroad has prevented me hitherto from complying with your request. I have pleasure in enclosing herewith a specimen of my signature.'

Two pages, 12mo. Very good. A formal letter written in the third person. 'Lord Liverpool presents his compliments to Mr. Barker and in answer to your [sic] letter regrets that his father has been dead two years and therefore he cannot comply with Mr. Barker's request for his signature.'

On irregular piece of paper roughly 4.5 x 4.5 cm. Good, on lightly discoloured paper. With part of signature '[S]mith' below. Docketed on reverse 'Sir Wm. Trumbull Statesman Wm 3d'.

On piece of paper roughly 5 x 8 cms. The signature is clear and firm, on a piece of lightly discoloured grubby paper, with a spike hole to the right (not affecting any text). Reads '[in another hand] Bernardino Rivadavia | [signature] Bernardino | Rivadavia' | [in another hand, in pencil] President of Buenos Ayres'. Laid down on irregular shaped piece of paper removed from autograph album, on which is written, in a nineteenth-century hand 'President of Buenos Ayres'.

Two pages, on letterhead of roughly 13.5 x 17.5 cms. He has sent a wire accepting the 'kind invitation'. '[A]s you can imagine we are rehearsing all day and every day at the present [...] The only thing thaht could stop me being with you is that we are, I understand, to record the "Fanny" music for a long-playing record on that Saturday'.

Forty-four pages, octavo, with two-page leaf of addenda loosely inserted. Four pages illustrating seventeen pictorial covers on art paper. In printed card wraps. A worn and creased copy of an influential catalogue, issued at a time when, as the introduction points out 'catalogues devoted to detective fiction [were] something of a rarity in the book trade'.

English novelist (1900-96). One page, octavo. Good, but with slight marking from staple in top left-hand corner. He is glad his correspondent is 'having therapy for your bad back for, hard work though it is, and must be in your case, I'm sure you will find it helpful. | About author's proofs, they of course usually go back to publishers; but what I am glad to be able to send you is the jacket of my latest book which at least has a picture and my signature, and I hope it will, at least, be decorative in your study.' Signed 'Victor S Pritchett'.

Mayor of Westminster (1858-1938), and prominent member of the Goldsmiths' Company, for whom he established an annual competition for craftsmen and schools in London. All items very good. Both manuscript items bearing the Society's stamp and the note also docketed. THE LETTER (one page, 12mo): 'I shall certainly try to be at the meeting on Feby 27th & will speak if opportunity arises - also will call upon you someday either this or next week.' Signed 'G. Booth Heming'. THE NOTE (one page, 12mo): 'With G.

English soldier and military historian (1885-1969). One page, quarto. Folded twice. Good, but with minor discoloration and some ink smudging along one edge (not affecting text). Bearing the Society's stamp. Replying, as Haig's private secretary, to a letter electing Haig a fellow of the Society. 'Sir Douglas Haig has asked me to thank you very much for your letter of the 25th instant and will be glad if you will convey to the Council and members of your Society his great appreciation of the honour they have done him.