PRINTING

Both items good on lightly-aged paper. Letter One (12mo, 2 pp): Having considered the question of the fee for a piece of writing, he does 'not know very well what to say. Perhaps you might give me what the Hibbert Journal pays its contributors.' (Docketed in pencil in the margin: 'What is that?') He 'could do the work when the College Session is over - at the end of March'. Asks to be informed 'what is necessary of the arrangements', and to be sent 'the sheets of the book.

12mo, 3 pp. Bifolium with mourning border. Good: lightly aged and with a slight bloom at the foot. Text clear and complete. Written to a business partner, and providing an insight into the everyday workings of the Edwardian book trade. The beginning of the letter appears to be a response to suggestions by Service of authors to write a book on Holland. Begins 'Dear Mr. Service, | We cannot employ Clive Holland again until he has at least put his "Egypt" into a shape in which we can venture to reprint it.

12mo, 1 page. Bifolium with address ('John Gough Nichols Esqre. | 25 Parliament Street | London') on reverse of second leaf. Grey paper. Fourteen lines. Text clear and complete. Good: lightly aged and with one corner slightly creased. Begins 'I have much pleasure in again committing to your care Torkingtons M.S. Pilgrimage with my Transcript, & shall be gratified by seeing it embodied in a Vol: of the Camden Society Publications. How soon will the Volume be issued?' In a postscript enquires after a copy of Sir George Chetwynd's 'Catalogue of Provincial Coins'.

4to, 1 p. Eight lines in typescript and one line in manuscript. Good, on lightly-aged paper. With stamped Envelope addressed in manuscript. The firm is 'sorry to hear' that she intends to 'take two volumes' over her book on Henry III, not considering that 'a biography of him could succeed in more than one complete volume. To take him to 1237 in the first volume would spoil the completeness of what we feel should be a one-volume biography.' He adds in manuscript: 'I hope we will not prove too unwieldy.'

12mo (21 x 13 cm), 1 p. On green paper. Clear and complete. On aged, creased and grubby paper. Reads (manuscript text in square brackets): Messrs. Williams & Norgate present their compliments to [Sir John Philippart] and beg to inform [him that the Asiatic Socy Calcutta send them the Journal, as it is published to be forwarded to him, if he does not require it, W & N will return the numbers to Calcutta'. Docketed in a contemporary hand at head: '10 packets returned 31st May 1870'.

12mo, 4 pp. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. He was introduced to the recipient 'by Mr. Philip Malleson of Croydon, when I wanted to send an Essay to The Albemarle'. Asks if he 'might be disposed to let me write a volume on Jane Austen or Leigh Hunt for your Dilettante Library', Austen being 'specially before the public just now'. He has edited Austen's novels and two 'well received' volumes of selections from Hunt for 'Mr. Dent's Temple Library'. 'If you do not care to arrange for either of these authors I would suggest Miss Burney[,] Hazlitt or T. L. Peacock.

12mo, 2 pp. Bifolium. Eleven lines. Text clear and complete. On aged, grubby paper. Spike hole in top left-hand corner (not affecting text). Docketed at head. Granting Maguire permission to publish extracts from the out-of-print 'Greenwood's Selections from Wellington's Despatches [sic]', providing he makes 'the full customary acknowledgement of the source whence they are taken'. The two parts of Maguire's 'British Army under Wellington' appeared in 1906 and 1907.

12mo, 2 pp. Good, on lightly-aged and creased paper. Giving the details of three titles from Thorp's 'large catalogue' which he hopes are still available (one is ticked in pencil and the other two marked as sold). 'Also can you let me have a cheap copy of John Masefield's "Sea Life in The Time of Nelson" and J. R. Hutchinson's "The Press Gang Afloat & Ashore." Publishers and prices of both items are noted in pencil, with 'Cheque Noted' in margin.

Dimensions of card roughly 7.5 x 12 cm. Ten lines. Cream card with letterhead, stamp and other matter printed in brown. Lightly aged but good. Addressed to 'J. R. Thursfield, Esq. | Fryth | Great Berkhamstead [sic]'. Letterhead and text of letter at right angles to the address on the other side. Informing Thursfield that Jusserand's 'Literary History of the English People' ('a copy of which you have received') will be published on 20 February 1895, 'and that notices may appear on or after that date'.

12mo (roughly 16.5 x 9.5 cm): 24 pp. Good, on aged paper, with slightly dogeared corners. No stitching or stapling binding the leaves together. An attractive production, more sophisticated than is usual with a chapbook. Crisply printed in small type. Title enclosed within a decorative border and containing vignette of the royal coat of arms. Headed, in a small neat contemporary hand, 'Purchased at Whitby. | 30 Aug 1862'. The poem 'Lines on the Fate of Lord Derwentwater' (pp.18-19, 24 lines in six stanzas) begins 'How mournful feeble Nature's tone, | When Dilston Hall appears;'.

12mo, 1 p. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Large bold signature. He has 'no present intention of publishing any book on [his] career'. It may be that the correspondence planted a seed, as three years after the writing of this note Lysons published 'Early Reminiscences' (John Murray, 1896).

12mo (leaf dimensions 22.5 x 14 cm): 12 pp paginated [3] to 14. Lacking (presumed) title-leaf. Unstitched, and consisting of one sheet of paper, 45 x 28 cm, folded twice to make four leaves; and one half sheet, 22.5 x 28 cm, folded to make two leaves. Text clear and entire, on heavily aged and spotted paper chipped at extremities. In an attempt to defend a perceived attack on his honour, W. D. B. prints, with commentary, three letters written by him to the editor of the Naval and Military Gazette, only the first of which was published (6 August 1839).

Printed in black and sepia on both sides of a leaf of watermarked wove paper, 45 x 30 cm. On lightly-aged paper with one vertical and two horizontal fold lines. The seven sample pages feature a total of six illustrations, in a variety of styles, two by Herb Roth. The arrangement is as follows. Recto: Title ('Specimen Pages from Books made at the Walpole Printing Office in New Rochelle, N.Y. 1929-1932') with vignette of Walpole. Specimen One, titled 'Piratical Barbarity, &c.', with illustration of pirate ship by Roth. Specimen Two, title-page of T. S. Eliot's 'John Dryden. The Poet.

8vo: 24 pp. Stitched as issued. Inscribed at the head of the title-page 'For Mr Walpole'. Text clear and entire. Good, on foxed paper, with one dog-eared corner. A couple of manuscript annotations, one in the form of a footnote, and one correction, whether by the inscriber or recipient unclear. The author defends his claim that he 'cannot believe otherwise, than had the claimant to the Devon Peerage been an humble individual, less affluent, and less powerfully connected, he would not have succeeded in his claim'. Scarce: the only copies on COPAC at the Durham and the British Library.

12mo: 1 p. Eight lines of text. Good, though creased. Letterhead printed with the words 'Joan Hassall' and a 5 cm short rule decorated with a tiny dove. She apologises for the delay in sending 'this signature': 'I lost your nice little piece of paper, and then I broke my pen.' Disspain's 'letters of appreciation' give Hassall 'very real pleasure' and she is 'most grateful' for his 'good opinion'.

Printed in brown on a piece of watermarked laid paper, 29 x 36 cm. Dimensions of image 18 x 22 cm. On lightly-creased paper, with a few short closed tears to margins at extremities. A bustling scene, from the top storey of a building, showing the traffic of coaches, carriages and carts around the church, which is seen from the front with St Paul's Cathedral in the background. In addition to the pencil signature, the print has the dated facsimile signature 'Hanslip Fletcher 1912'.

12mo: 26 pp paginated 101-126. Stitched. In original worn, creased and grubby green printed wraps. Internally clean, except for the first two leaves, both of which are grubby, with loss to the first leaf affecting two lines of text. 'Farmer Brown's Blunders' is a dialect poem, with explanatory footnotes; the other item is a spoof letter by 'Hannibal Hollow'. There are no records of first or second editions of this item, or of any other edition in which the two pieces are printed together. Scarce: the only copy on COPAC, dated to 1860, at the British Library.

12mo: 8 pp, unpaginated. Stitched. In original green printed wraps. Text and illustrations clear and complete, on browned high-acidity paper with damp staining at head. Wraps foxed and with slight chipping to extremities. The cover features a striking crude woodcut (12 x 9 cm) of David's 'Napoleon crossing the Alps'. The first page features another woodcut (9 x 7 cm) of a martial figure on horseback, with sword drawn.

12mo: 50 pp. Stapled. In original green printed wraps. Engraving of both sides of the 'Pontefract Siege Shilling' on title, with 38 engravings of both the obverses and reverses of coins in text. Printed on light-blue paper. Internally tight and clean, with rusty staples, foxing to edges and wear and chipping to the faded and spotted wraps. Blank back wrap loose and repaired. Scarce: no copy in the British Library or on COPAC, although there is a copy among the Fitzwilliam coin catalogues. Another Verity catalogue, from the 1870s, is in the V & A Library.

12mo, 15 pp. Stitched as issued. Text clear and complete on aged, worn and foxed paper. Can be dated from references in text, and from quotation on title from 'Arthur Arnold, M.P.' (Arnold's career in the House of Commons ending in 1885). Carries a few contemporary marks in light pencil, and a column in shorthand on the blank reverse of the last leaf. Excessively scarce: no copy in the British Library, on COPAC or on WorldCat.

All nine are printed on art paper, roughly 18 x 12.5 cm. Tipped in onto 27.5 x 21 cm leaves. The mounts have the title, 'THE GLOOMY THICK WOOD | By Kay Nielsen' and a border surrounding the plate, both printed in olive. The collection is in very good condition, with occasional nicking to the mount. None of the items carry any indication that they have been cancelled or rejected. Providing a fascinating insight into the quality-control process in early twentieth-century book illustration, with most of the items rejected because the colours are slightly off-register.

The engraving illustrates the biblical passage describing an incident during the wreck off Crete of a ship carrying Saint Paul. Acts 27:35: 'And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and when he had broken it, he began to eat.' Printed on one side of a piece of paper, 28 x 19 cm, with one rough edge. A striking image, irregularly shaped, with white lines against a black background, showing centurions and others on the deck of a ship on a stormy sea, with land in the distance.

Printed on one side of a piece of cream paper, roughly 33.5 x 25.5 cm. Laid down on card. Clear and complete, with a good impression of the plate (22.5 x 17.5 cm), on lightly-aged, grubby paper, with slight wear to extremities. Presumably produced for display in a shop window. The title ('THE LIFE AND WORK OF | W. HOLMAN HUNT. | BY ARCHDEACON FARRAR.') at head, and 'SPECIMEN PLATE.' at foot, in large orange letters; the rest printed in black. Beneath the plate: 'THE SHADOW OF DEATH. | BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. T. AGNEW & SONS. | LONDON: J. S. VIRTUE & CO.

Item One: Handbill headed, beneath the City of London shield, 'Description of the Design for the Ticket of Admission to the Banquet at Guildhall, on Tuesday, 9th November, 1875.' Printed in purple on one side of a piece of lilac paper, roughly 20.5 x 13 cm. Text clear and complete, on creased and aged paper, with 1cm closed tear to one corner. At foot of page: 'BLADES, EAST & BLADES, | 11, ABCHURCH LANE, CITY. | Established 1832.' The description runs to thirteen lines.

4to bifolium of three pages, together a seperate leaf (dimensions of leaf in all cases 26 x 20 cm) carrying on one side one set of the three illustrations. Printed in black, and each page enclosed within a red decorative border. Creased and foxed, but a scarce piece of ephemera in acceptable overall condition. The first page of the bifolium is headed, in a variety of decorative fonts and point sizes, 'John Wright & Co.

Both items very good, each printed on one side only of a piece of thin shiny card, dimensions 11 x 15 cm. The arrangement of the text is the same in both cases, but one is printed in blue and green, and the other in blue and gold. An attractive piece of Victorian typography, laid out in a variety of decorative fonts and point sizes, with a strong hint of Gothic revival about it. Reads 'HANNAH WALLIS, | Plain & Ornamental Printer, | IN LETTER-PRESS, LITHOGRAPHY, & COPPERPLATE, | ACCOUNT-BOOK MAKER, | Stationer and Bookseller. | ARTISTS' MATERIALS OF THE BEST QUALITY.

On one side of a piece of wove paper roughly 23.5 x 19 cm. A delicate and scarce piece of ephemera, in a remarkably good state of repair. Possibly a proof, as a thin blank strip along one of the vertical edges, intended to be detached and discarded, still adheres. The menu itself is crisply printed in the centre, covering a space roughly 17 x 13.5 cm.

Printed in red, black, blue, gold, orange and green on one side of a piece of paper, dimensions 20 x 12.5 cm. Good, on lightly-aged and spotted paper. Minor traces of stub on blank reverse. Attractive item, with twenty-six lines of rubricated text, surrounded by an ornated decorative border of foliage and birds in imitation of an illuminated manuscript. Headed 26, Queen's Row, Pimlico opposite the Royal Mews.', beneath which: 'Valentine Elkins Bookseller &c. of Baker St. Portman Sqe. Begs most respectfully to inform the Nobility & Gentry inhabitants of Belgrave Sqre.

On one side of a piece of paper 21 x 14 cm. Mourning border. Very good, on lightly aged and spotted paper. Twenty-four lines of text announcing the 'death of our esteemed partner [...] for so many years [...] our fellow-labourer in the field of literary enterprise'. Cassell is described as 'a man of vigorous intellect and untiring energy, whose constant aim it was to render effectual assistance towards moral, social, and religious elevation of the people'.

12mo: [ii] + 14 pp. Unpaginated. Frontispiece of Blake's celebrated print. Internally tight on lightly-aged and grubby paper, and with the reverse of the frontispiece slightly discoloured. Staples a little rusty. In grubby white wraps. A signed presentation copy. Boldly written on the front wrap: 'Lawrence Binyon C.H. with the compliments of [signed] H. Edward Newton'. A characteristic production by the boisterous author of 'The Amenities of Book-Collecting'. At end: 'A. EDWARD NEWTON | "Oak Knoll" | Daylesford, Berwyn P.O., | Pennsylvania'.