STUDIES

4to bifoliate pamphlet; four paginated pages. Neatly folded twice. Some wear along creases, and with top half of recto of first leaf grubby and with one pinhole, otherwise in good condition. Begins 'THE University Chairs of Theology in Scotland are sectarian, in the sense of being restricted to one section of the Presbyterians of Scotland - the Church Established. This restriction has been felt as a very injurious and offence part of Church Establishment in Scotland, because in all other respects the Scottish Universities are national and catholic.'

Text of all three items clear and complete. All three on lightly aged paper, creased and with some wear to extremities. Letter One (8vo, 1 p; 20 lines of text): She thanks Bonham Carter for her 'kind and appreciative letter' and 'will see that through the English Embassy' she receives 'a copy of my short story: "I due prigionieri", of which your son is the protagonist'. (An officer in the Grenadier Guards, during the war Mark Bonham Carter had escaped from a prison camp in northern Italy.) Describes material she is sending relating to her 'literary career'.

16mo (leaf dimensions 13 x 10 cm), 3 pp. Bifolium. Twenty-eight lines. Text clear and complete. On aged and lightly creased paper with small closed tear in margin (not affecting text). He has been asked by 'Miss Caulfield' to 'perform the ceremony of "introduction" with a view to your publishing (if you approved of it) a work she has lately written [...] <"Janet de Rinzy?">'.

4to: viii + 257 pp. In original grey printed wraps. Internally tight, on lightly-aged and foxed paper. Wraps spotted and worn, with chipping to extremities. The preface describes the work as 'una bibliografia descrittiva degli studi di Indianistica fatti in Italia nel periodo che va dal 1911 al 1937.' A descriptive bibliography of Indian studies in Italy, 1911 to 1937. Scarce in Britain: COPAC lists copies at the British Library, Oxford and SOAS.

Gregory's letter: 8vo, 1 p. Thirteen lines of text. Very good on lightly-creased paper. A telling comment on the craze for inscribed copies of books. She is 'sorry to seem disobliging', but considers that 'an author's inscription seems [...] to have significance only when the book in question has been presented to a friend or when it is likely to become profitable to a dealer'. Her book 'qualifies in neither category'. She is 'puzzled to know' how Disspain 'came upon' her address. Gregory's book: 8vo, 208 pp. No dust wrapper. Grubby copy in worn original red cloth binding.

One page, 12mo, asking her friend to dinner "to meet a friend from the country", fearing that "there is small chance of finding you disengaged" with such late notice.

Originally on a piece of paper roughly 405 x 315 mm, with the dimensions of the print roughly 295 x 250 mm. In poor condition: torn and stained and laid down on a piece of thin card, and with the extremities of the margins chipped. Loss to top-left and bottom-right corners. The loss to the top corner includes a corner of the print (roughly 40 x 20 mm), but this only features the sky. A scarce item, with the caption continuing 'The Balloon ascended at 3 O clock in the afternoon and descended safe near Tilbury Fort in Essex at 20 Minutes past four'.

On a piece of paper roughly 5.5 x 13 cm. Good firm signature (8 cm long) on lightly aged and creased paper. Reads 'Faithfully yours | [signed] Marie Corelli'. Fragment on reverse reads '<...> education nowadays <...> hope you <...> induced to <...> estimable'.

Dimensions of paper 3 x 8 cm. Good, firm signature, on lightly aged and spotted paper. The flourish beneath the signature (paraph) has been cropped.

12mo, 2 pp. Seventeen lines of text. On lightly aged and creased paper. Attractive arts and crafts letterhead. Sending his 'mosts profound sympathy in the danger which threatens Chelsea'. He will sign 'the paper [...] with the greatest of pleasure', although he anticipates 'very little good as a possible result'. Suggests a time at which the paper can be sent to him.

Octavo: viii + 201 pages. Good and tight, on aged high-acidity paper, with some chipping and a little light staining at foot. A few pencil marks. In original printed grubby and chipped wraps cloth-taped to spine. Front wrap annotated in pencil. Four-page introduction entitled 'A PLAYWRIGHT'S WORKING LIBRARY.' Even considering the importance and interest of the theatrical collection, the high point is undoubtedly item 102: 'BLAKE, WILLIAM. ORIGINAL DRAWINGS IN WATER COLOURS and INDIA INK by the celebrated WILLIAM BLAKE (Pictor Ignotus).

The six-line letter, which is laid down on a slightly larger piece of lilac paper, was originally on one side of an octavo leaf, but it has had a strip (presumably carrying the name and address of the recipient) beneath the address cut away. It is now in two pieces: 5 x 15.5 and 12 x 15.5 cm. Otherwise very good. Laid down on the top piece is a slip of paper in Hill's hand, reading 'From: Air Commodore Dame Felicity Hill D.B.E. WRAF (retd)'. In the bottom right-hand corner of the second piece of paper is a strip carrying Hill's autograph.

On irregularly shaped piece of paper, roughly 3 x 7 cm, cut around the signature and its double underlining. Good signature, with slight smudging to a couple of letters.

Each plan printed in black on one side of a piece of paper, with areas picked off in blue, green, orange, pink and yellow. Plan No. 1: 72 x 86 cm. Plan No. 2: 88 x 68 cm. Plan No. 3: 76 x 89 cm. The first two very good on lightly aged and creased paper; the third as the first two apart from some wear along a crease resulting in two areas of loss each roughly 2 1/2 x 1 1/2 cm. The various properties (over seventy lots) are numbered, with names of the proprietors of neighbouring estates given.

8vo: 211 pp. In original brown cloth binding, with title in gilt on front board. A good tight copy, on aged paper with occasional spotting, in worn binding with fraying at head and tail of spine. Four-page list of subscribers at rear. Fifteen chapters, with subjects including Wat Tyler, John Cade, Wingham College; the Oxenden and Palmer families, and the manor house of the Archbishops of Canterbury.

8vo: [viii] + 164 pp; [iv] + 183 pp. Bound together in contemporary half calf binding, gilt, marbled boards and endpapers. A tight copy, printed on aged, spotted paper, with occasional light damp-spotting, in worn binding. Bookplate of Aemiliani Reich, on spotted, aged paper, by Gordon Browne, on front pastedown. The first volume has a four-page preface by 'S.M.F.', dated 'New York, July, 1846.' Both volumes contain eight essays.

4to, 12 pp. Disbound and stitched. Very good. The poem covers pp. 3-11, with five 'Notas' on p. 12. Scarce (in the Anglo-Saxon world at least): COPAC only lists a copy at the British Library. Includes a passage on Nelson and 'el feroz Britano'. No copy found in Sanish Union Catalogue etc. (accessed through German Union Catalogue).

On one side of a piece of paper, dimensions 19.5 x 21 cm. Lightly creased. Presumably in response to a request for an autograph. Reads 'Is there a life before Death? | (slogan chalked on wall in Northern Ireland, 1975) | Yours sincerely | [signed] Beryl Bainbridge.' Firm sprawling signature.

On a piece of pink paper, roughly 9 x 11 cm. Neatly laid down onto a piece of white paper. Very good. A reply to a request for an autograph. Reads 'I am | my dear Lady | Yours truly | [signed] Eliza Cook'. The signature is firm and bold, with a small part of the flourish beneath it shaved away.

12mo, 352 pp. In contemporary brown calf half-binding, with marbled boards and grey endpapers. Loose and foxed in worn binding.

12mo, 4 pp. Good. A bifolium, attached by a strip along the inner margin to a leaf removed from an autograph album, docketed 'Mrs. Hobart Hampden, Authoress of "The Changed Cross" '. Postscript written vertically across the upper part of the first page. Concerns a photograph of the recipient's mother: a 'sweet souvenir of such a rare & precious jewel as your dear & beautiful Mother; whom we feel it such a privelidge [sic] to see and to know'.

8vo, 2 pp. Very good. She has been recovering from influenza at Brighton. 'I think your Paper is going on Splendidly [last word underlined] & I am so glad! [last two words underlined]'. 'Yes, isnt Margaret Ettinger a charming Creature! She told me you had talked together of me'. Asks for Ettinger's address. 'How's the home? - how's the charming wife? - & when shall we discuss the affairs of the world, the flesh, & the devil?!' She is well, 'all but my knee, which has been behaving like an ungrateful child'.

Irregularly-shaped (like an 'L') piece of paper, cut from the head of a letter with a mourning border. Dimensions (very roughly) 4 and 3 cm high and 7 cm wide. Good, with minor traces of two tissue mounts adhering to reverse. The following written vertically across three lines of writing: 'to all your family, & I am, dear Sir, truly yours | [signed] H. Martineau'. The remains of the three lines acoss which the above is written read: '<...> dear Sir | <...> I am | <....> ur sister <...>'.

One page, octavo. Good, on lightly rucked paper, with one line a little blurred by damp. She would have replied sooner to her correspondent's 'courtesy in enclosing a stamped envelope', but feels sure she will forgive her when she tells her that she has 'been in constant attendance at a hospital owing to my Father having met with an accident. I can't think what good my autograph will do anyone, but still -'.

One page, 16mo. Good, on lightly aged grey paper, with previous paper mount adhering to reverse. Reads 'I have pleasure in sending you the Autograph you desire'.

Dimensions of card roughly two inches by three and a half wide. Good clear signature reads simply 'With best wishes | Mazo de la Roche'.

12mo: 45 pp. In original light-green printed wraps. Very good on lightly aged paper, with some sunning to wraps. Inscribed by the author "For Mary | with love & all good wishes for Christmas and the New Year, especially the show' | Th." Besterman attempts to demonstrate that the taste for autographs, 'tres loin d'etre malsaine, est au contraire pure et bienfaisante'.

One page, 12mo, on mourning paper. Aged and cropped at foot. Dusty, and with minor paperclip stains to edges, and traces of previous mount on reverse. Reads 'Dear Sir, | I have much pleasure in sending you my Autograph. | Yours truly | "Allen Raine" '. Four-line cutting giving printed biography neatly laid down in bottom right-hand corner.

One page, 12mo. On aged and spotted paper, with traces of previous mount on reverse. Craigie's 'PMTC' monogram in top left-hand corner, and a red '45' in a red circle in top right-hand. Fourteen-line biographical cutting laid down along one edge. Reads 'Dear Sir | I have much pleasure in sending you my autograph. | Yours faithfully | Pearl Mary-Teresa Craigie.'

Four pages, 12mo. Mourning border. Aged and spotted, with remains of three mounts adhering to one edge. She is enclosing a note from 'Miss Yonge', and 'one from Miss Roberts [Margaret Roberts] who wrote "Madlle Mori", "In the Olden Time", "The Atelier du Lys" &c. She refers to Miss Yonges mother in her note'. She is also sending a note 'from Mr. Dodgson too. Who is "Lewis Caroll'. (Alice in Wonderland) - & one from Isa Craig - now Mrs. Knox.