FREAKS

[4]pp., 12mo. Stapled in original pink printed wraps. Cover has drawing of Bounds by Willsons of Leicester, whose slug is in the bottom left-hand corner of the cover. First page has drophead title 'Life of Miss Alice Bounds', and the piece is signed in type at the end by 'W. Y.' It begins: 'I was born in Calcutta, East India, in the year 1877.

4pp., 16mo (11 x 16.5 cm). Fair, on aged and lightly-creased paper. Appropriately brief and dimutive biography (35 lines), describing Piyott (erroneously) as 'undoubtedly the smallest adult human being ever known to live'. Followed by 'Copy of Birth Certificate of the Smallest Man on Earth' in type. The latest dated event in the biography is a tour by Pyott 'through the whole of South Africa during 1903-4'. Pyott stood 23ins and weighed 24lbs, and is said to have been carried around Edgeley Park during Stockport County home matches in the palm of a man's hand.

On a slip of laid paper (watermarked 'SMIT'), approximately 7 x 18 cm. Good, on lightly-aged and spotted paper. The writing by one of the twins, is in pencil, in a large, childish hand, and reads 'London England'. Beneath this, in a neat contemporary hand: 'The above two words, were written in my presence by one of the Siamese Twins. - | March 1830. | [signed] William James Smith'. The 'Siamese Twins' began their first appearance in London in 1829, at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly.