SURREY

On a piece of yellow paper (roughly 7.5 x 10 cm), laid down on a light-green page (roughly 14 x 8 cm) torn from an autograph album. Lightly aged and spotted, but good overall. Reads ' "Remember that if you are in the right you can afford to keep your temper. When you are in the wrong you can't afford to lose it" | [signed] J B. Hobbs.' And in a smaller hand, diagonally in the bottom right-hand corner 'Best wishes to Peter Briggs | [signed] JBH'.

A collection of twenty-two items, with one printed envelope, all in good condition, and relating to a complex order to one of the United Kingdom's best-known business concerns. Interesting for the light it casts on the best business practice in the British building industry of the 1930s. Includes typed two-page foolscap estimate, dated 1 November 1930, initialed and on the firm's letterhead, addressed to H. V.

Seven pages. On four skins of vellum, each roughly eleven inches by nine wide. Attached with green ribbon, and with various stamps and two wax seals. Good: lightly aged and creased. The premises are at 77 and 79 North End, Croydon.

Striking advertisement, in red ink, on one side of a piece of paper roughly seven inches by seventeen wide. With something of a prewar feel, it reads 'DORKING URBAN DISTRICT | BOOK, WASTE PAPER | and CARDBOARD DRIVE | [in box on right] 12th April | TO | 1st May | 1948 [end of boxed text] | Save the Nation from having to import Waste Paper from abroad | PROVIDE | MORE Employment = MORE Cartons for Food | = MORE Materials for Housebuilding ='.

The Dictionary of National Biography states that T. J. Dibdin (1771-1841, closely associated with Sadler's Wells, Drury Lane and the Surrey Theatre) wrote 'nearly two thousand songs and about two hundred operas and plays'. This list, which covers the whole of his life from his earliest known work in 1789 to his death in 1841, is compiled with considerable care on the rectos and some of the versos of 79 bound and numbered leaves (most being the letterhead of the North-East Coast Exhibition, of which E. Rimbault Dibdin was the Director).

Octavo. 16 pages. Disbound pamphlet from the Churchill Babington collection. Good, but with first and last pages somewhat grubby.

Octavo: 106 pages. AUTHOR'S COPY WITH AUTOGRAPH INSCRIPTION. Good only. No dustwrapper. Tight copy in original black cloth binding (dusty and spotted), with worn green paper label (spare label at rear). Some spotting and foxing. A few pencil marks in text. Inscription on front free endpaper reads (in ink) 'To be returned to | Dr Marie Stopes | Norbury Park | Dorking | Surrey'; (in pencil) "Please keep as clean as possible as it is my only copy. | M C S'.

Folio. Unbound and in original plain brown wraps. Thirteen plates, each with tissue guard. Foliated 30 recto to 36 verso. Plates clean with very minor spotting, but wraps stained, frayed and dogeared, with head and foot of spine creased and torn. Nevertheless an interesting survival in its original state of part of an important example of Victorian official publishing.

English judge and Tory politician (1816-88; DNB). Both letters 3 pages, 16mo, and both in good condition. Interesting letters giving his views on an important matter.

These illustrations are marvellously evocative of the period before Croydon was ruined architecturally. Suitable for framing. They are photographic, in black and white, and approximately 7 inches by 9 1/2 inches, on sheets of paper approximately 10 1/2 inches by 13. Dusty and with a little spotting but in good condition overall. Captions read: 'NORTHERN END OF MIDDLE ROW'; 'HIGH STREET FROM WHITGIFT'S HOSPITAL'; 'BUTCHER ROW, SURREY STREET'; 'MIDDLE ROW, LOOKING SOUTH'; 'THE TOWN HALL, 1890'; 'INTERIOR OF THE TOWN HALL.

Actor and lessee of the Surrey Theatre (1774-1831; DNB). The recipient is the songwriter and dramatist Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841; DNB). 2¼ inches by 4¼. Creased, grubby and with a closed tear not affecting signature. Reads 'meeting. - | Yrs | Dr Sir | very truly | R W Elliston | To | Thos Dibdin | &c &c &c'.