MILITARY

Printed on one side of a piece of grey paper, 22.5 x 16 cm. Text clear and complete. In fair condition: lightly-aged and with remains of stub adhering to the blank reverse, on which a clean closed tear has been unobtrusively repaired with archival tape. Nine regulations are listed, from 'I. No Person will be nominated to a Cadetship in the Royal Navy, who shall be under 12 or above 14 years of age at the time of his first Examination.' to 'IX. After having completed twelve months' instruction, exclusive of vacations, in the Training Ship, a Cadet will have to undergo the final examination.

Stapled pamphlet. 8vo, 27 pp, including full-page photograph of Mussolini embracing a man in Nazi uniform (Himmler?). Fair: internally clean and tight; some marking and wear to covers. Inscribed on title-page to 'Eric Underwood Esq with the sincere regards of Perry Belmont'. (Underwood is perhaps the English-born Australian nutritionist, 1905-1980.) Curious, digressive, energetic attack on fascism, with sections on the Teutonic Order, 'Oath-bound organisations' (Freemasonry) and 'Gangsters'.

On one side of a piece of vellum, dimensions 25 x 35 cm. Neatly folded to make eight rectangles. Red wax under paper in top left-hand corner, embossed with the royal seal. Above this is the King's signature, in what Rawlins ('Four Hundred Years of British Autographs', p.53, no.4) describes as 'un uncommon form'. Three blue 2s 6d stamps in left-hand margin. Small paper stamp on the reverse, which is docketed 'James Paterson Gent: | Lieutenant | In the Sixty Ninth Regiment of Foot commanded by Colonel Colvill.-' Text entirely legible on lightly discoloured vellum.

A valuable eyewitness account of an historic event. H.M.S. Revenge was the flagship of Admiral Freemantle, and it was to its quarterdeck that Admiral Ludwig von Reuter would be brought in 1919, after issuing the order to scuttle the entire German fleet at Scapa Flow. The text of both items is clear and complete. Both good, on lightly-aged and spotted paper. Letter One (1918): Foolscap (32 x 20.5 cm), 4 pp. In manuscript at head of first page: 'Use this where you like, Dad! Tho' be careful of showing who wrote it.

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'.

Part two only (any other part missing). 101pp, 8vo, carbon copy, describing the day to day life of a soldier in India during the Ist WW, 24 March -7 Sept. 1915, duties, leisure activities, fellow-soldiers, rations, the market, inspections, letter-writing, "Telegram to say short rifles on the way", games, Boards, "Today [4 May] the final list was made out for men going to the Persian Gulf" (men from his company listed), parades, marches, [12 May] farewell to Persian party, replacements for Persian party, (little about "natives"), "boots from Cawnpore", trip to Dimond Harbour, and so on.

Dimensions of paper roughly. Creased, with fraying to extremities, closed tears, and some staining and fading due to damp. A careful production, detailing the fortification to the towns of Bilstein (north-east of Cologne), Junkermuehle and Nassenstein, in black, yellow, red and green, with attractive lettering. 'References' are to 'barbed wire entanglements', 'main roads', 'Woods', 'stream', 'bye Roads' and 'Bridges'. Pencil additions include position of 'SNIPERS'. Ascribed at foot to 'Cpl. A. Hunter' and dated 'February 1919'.

12mo, 3 pp, 26 lines. Good, with tiny pin holes at head and foot of both leaves of the bifolium, and one corner roughened by removal of mount. Buckmaster has learnt that Meade is 'contemplating leaving [his] work in this Office', and would 'greatly regret any such step' as Meade's work is 'of great assistance and is much appreciated by all of us in this room'. While Buckmaster realises that there is little opportunity for advancement, he feels that 'we all do render considerable service to the state'.

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'.

Interesting item with contemporary resonances. ITEM ONE: dimensions eight and a half inches by fourteen and a half inches. Around fifty lines of text. Clean, but heavily folded. States that 18 months previously Maude and the British Army had come 'not as conquerors but as deliverers'. Describes the progress of the war and states that despite Maude's death the promises he made in a proclamation to the citizens of Baghdad will be kept. Announces eight undertakings (e.g. 'Fifth, that the routes to the sacred places will be thrown open once again for organized pilgrimages').

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.

The signed letter: 4to, 1 p. 11 lines of text. With the address on a separate and similarly-sized leaf. Franked 'War Office | ', and bearing two circular postmarks, one of them in red with the word 'FREE'. Good, on aged and creased paper. Assuring Tonyn that it will give him 'much pleasure' to recommend Tonyn's nephew George Augustus Tonyn for an army commission, 'as soon as I may be able to do it consistently with the very great number of Applications which I have already on my hands'.

All six letters in quarto; good, on aged paper; and with text neatly-written, clear and entire. Letter One: 3 May 1759. 2 pp. 40 lines of text. Giving advice regarding a will to be drawn up by a Mrs Robertson. 'As to the place where Mrs. Robertson makes the Disposition it is absolutely immaterial, [...] and then her will wrote in her own hand writing without witnesses will be as good as with twenty witnesses [...]'. Valediction from 'your affectionate friend & Cousin'. Letter Two: 30 June 1759. 1 pp. 24 lines.

Each of the two typescripts is on one side of a piece of A4 paper. One is signed in type at end 'T. B.S.' and the other (which appears to be mimeographed) carries what is presumably Simpson's signature at head in the manuscript note: 'From T. B. SIMPSON | 11/6/49.' Text of each clear and complete, on creased and aged paper. Apart from the typed signature to the one copy, and the fact that one copy has square brackets and the other curved, the two texts are identical.

Folio bifolium (leaf dimensions 34 x 21.5 cm): 4 pp. Unbound bifolium. Text clear and complete on lightly-aged and creased paper. One correction to text in red pencil. In small type. Begins: 'The special period for the approaching examination for promotion being the campaign under Sir John Moore leading to Corunna, I have lately occupied myself with examining the works of some of the different authorities and critics of this deeply interesting operation of war.

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'.

On one side of a piece of foolscap paper (dimensions x cm). Forty-four lines. Text clear and complete. On aged paper with a little rusting from a paperclip. Letterhead includes names of the Council's officers in left-hand margin, including around sixty 'Vice-Presidents' (twenty ticked off), including E. M. Forster, Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley and H. G. Wells.

4to: 120 + [19] pp. The last 19 unpaginated pages comprise the appendix, divided into 18 parts. Text clear and complete. On aged and foxed paper. Original boards rebacked in leather, with title on spine and new free endpapers. Title-leaf carries no date or printing details. In manuscript scored through on reverse: 'Adjutants Office by order | [signed?] T. G. Gascoigne | Adjutant', with crude drawings. The first section (pp.3-39) is headed 'BY the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, &c.

12mo, 3 pp. Good, on lightly-aged paper with small light stain to one edge. He has 'been laid up since the party with what appeared to be much the same brand of whopping cough as that indulged in by my children by the present moment!' He is 'shaking it off now' and is 'delighted to hear that your district has achieved the amount aimed at', and is pleased to have 'helped in a small degree towards it'. Written a few months after North's return home in disgrace, after allowing a French squadron pass the Strait of Gibraltar without harrassment in September 1940.

12mo, 8 pp. On two bifoliums, both with red oval British governmental letterhead of the 'CHIEF OF THE STAFF'. Text clear and complete. Good on lightly-aged paper. Blau reports that he is now 'fortunately well and returned to my right mind' after 'pretty bad times last autumn and winter - especially when on board ship'. He has 'mended steadily since rejoining in December' and has 'been in Simla since May doing Russian again, and am my own man once more'.

On rectangle of paper roughly 8 x 11 cm, with small triangles neatly cut away from corners. Aged and with traces of glue and paper from previous mounting. The letterhead has Roberts's Garter crest in the top left-hand corner and his address at top right. Firmly written: '[signed] Roberts, F.M. | 28. April 1908.' Slight smudging to the 'rt' of 'Roberts'.

A piece of laid paper, roughly 8 x 20 cm, cut from a document by an autograph collector. Yorke's signature, large (4.5 x 7 cm) and bold, is in the bottom right-hand corner. The surviving text is in a secretary's hand, and reads: '<...> of Our Reign. | By His Majesty's Command. | C Yorke | Our Trusty and Wellbeloved William Gordon Esqr General in Our Army & Col of Our 71st (Highland) Regiment of Foot or to the Officer appointed by him to raise Men for Our said Regiment'.

8vo bifolium (leaf dimensions 30 x 18 cm): 4 pp. Fair, on aged paper with slight wear to extremities, and minor damage to the area around the breaking of the black wax seal, which adheres, with a clear impression of a crest, to the reverse of the second leaf. Damage to a couple of words: otherwise text clear and complete. Circular 'F' postmark in red ink. Docketed. An impassioned, anguished letter, long and unguarded, and unusual in the valuable light it casts on the state of West Indian colonial affairs. The first three-quarters of the letter from 12 February and the rest from 13 February.

Not published. Cyclostyled on the rectos only. 8vo: 165 pp followed by 28 pages of 'figures'. Contained in a buff 'Apex Vertical Filing Folder'. Very good, on aged paper. Complete and clear. Stamped 'UNCLASSIFIED' on front cover, with manuscript reference 'GVC/54T'. Preface reads 'The present work is the English rendering of a partly revised German manuscript which the Author prepared for the Leipzig publishers Bibliographisches Institut to be published as volume 49 of their series Meyers kleine Handbücher.

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 bifolium: 3 pp. Good, though lightly creased. Tipped in on the blank verso of the second leaf, to a green paper folder on which an eight-line biographical entry of Shand has been laid down. He has left the packet containing the letters which Mrs Smith 'values' so 'highly' at the Reform Club, not wishing, in case it has changed, to send them to Smith's 'address in the Blue Book'. As he cannot 'make a decent excuse' for the delay in returning them, he throws himself on Smith's mercy.

Scottish soldier and diplomat (1755-1843). Four pages, octavo. Good, though grubby on discoloured paper, and a little frayed about the edges. Concerns 'the Subject of Issues which are made by the Barrack Department in North Britain to the Forces stationed in this Part of the United Kingdom, but which are not sanctioned by The King's Warrant'. '[...] | I conceive the Establishment of Regimental Schools to be highly conducive to the good of His Majesty's Service, and peculiarly so in the case of 2d.

16mo (11 x 9 cm) bifolium, 3 pp, 16 lines of text. Mourning border. Good, with slight discoloration to the external pages. He is sending a manuscript 'At the suggestion of the Author, an officer residing in Paris'. If 'on examination' the recipient considers it 'unsuitable for the pages' of the Gazette, he asks for it to be returned to him at 13 Upper Berkeley Street 'when your messenger happens to pass that way'. The author 'is a man of high character and well acquainted with Paris & the Parisians'.

Scottish diplomat and governor of India (1819-98). Four pages, 12mo. On mourning paper. Folded twice. Creased and grubby and with traces of previous mounting adhering. Slight loss at foot of first leaf of bifoliate, affecting one word of text. Headed 'Private'. Haly's letter to the private secretary of the Governor of Madras has been placed in Napier's hands. 'I regret that I feel myself under the necessity of declining the dedication of your intended work.

Stitched 4to notebook, in original brown calf half-binding, with grey paper boards. 71 pp of text, with a further 19 pp blank, across 45 leaves of watermarked laid paper. Leaf dimensions roughly 19 x 15 cm. In good condition: internally clean and tight, on lightly aged paper. In worn boards. Ruled with red lines. Neatly written and entirely legible.