TWENTIETH

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Long Autograph Letter Signed ('Considerably Older Mrs. T.') from Angela Thirkell to 'Dear Em' [Mrs Meinertzhagen].

Author: 
Angela Thirkell (1891-1961), English novelist, mother of Colin MacInnes [Em Meinertzhagen]
Publication details: 
27 April 1956; on letterhead of Mrs G. L. Thirkell, 1 Shawfield Street, London SW3.
£85.00
Long Autograph Letter Signed ('Considerably Older Mrs. T.') from Angela Thirkell

4to, 2 pp. 44 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. With stamped envelope addressed in autograph. Discussing the appalling final illness of 'poor Margery', beginning 'What happened was Cruel. Quite suddenly and I forget now how long ago - perhaps 3 months - all her insides fell out as it were.

Writers Against Apartheid [broadsheet magazine containing poems by MacDiarmid, MacNeice, Empson]

Author: 
I. F. White, editor, 'Writers Against Apartheid' [South Africa; racism; Sean O'Casey; Hugh MacDiarmid; Louis MacNeice; William Empson]
Publication details: 
Printed by Villiers Publications Ltd., Ingestre Road, London, N.W.5.
£280.00
I. F. White, editor, 'Writers Against Apartheid'

Broadsheet bifolium, 4 pp. Text clear and complete. On lightly-aged paper, worn along fold lines. Poetry collection, containing twenty-eight poems by writers including 'Mazizi Kunene (In Exile, London, 1960)' and Hugh MacDiarmid, whose two poems have the footnote 'We are especially pleased to print these two new poems by Hugh McDiarmid, contributed despite the painful after effects of his recent car smash. We wish him a speedy and complete recovery.' Masthead endorsement by Sean O'Casey: 'I am with you in all efforts to create perfect race equality the world over.

Autograph Note Signed ('M. Willson Disher') to the Secretary's Office, Clarendon Press, accompanying a statement of his 'qualifications'.

Author: 
Maurice Willson Disher (1893-1969), British theatre critic and playwright
Publication details: 
16 December 1948. 24 Bradstock Road, Ewell, Surrey.
£56.00
Autograph Note Signed ('M. Willson Disher') to the Clarendon Press

4to, 1 p. Trimming at head has resulted in loss to the first line of Disher's address; otherwise text clear and complete. On lightly-aged and creased paper, with jagged trimming at head and in bottom right-hand corner, and three punch holes to margin. Bearing the stamp of the Secretary's Office, Clarendon Press, Oxford. He is returning the 'corrected typescript' and is setting out his qualfications. The bottom section to the letter contain eight lines of these. Disher describes himself as 'contributor to leading journals on the subject of public entertainments in general'.

Manuscript journal of a South African lady, 1948, returning after many years in England, including an account of her memories 'of the Cape as a girl'.

Author: 
[South African journal of a returning middle-class lady, 1948]
Publication details: 
Dated 'Bellaire Private Hotel | Fish Hoek | Cape Province | Jan. 18th. / 48.' [18 January 1948]
£380.00
Manuscript journal of a South African lady, 1948

4to, 166 pp. In ruled 'University Exercise Book'. Text clear and complete. On lightly aged paper, tight, in shaky binding with worn boards. The identity of the diarist is unclear. Her husband is named 'Berten', and their are references to 'Minie' (daughter?) and 'Kate' (South African sister-in-law?). A loosely air mail letter may provide a clue to the identity of the diary's author. Dated 30 April 1962, it is written by P. J. Duncan of Newlands to Miss Ruth Ince-Jones (diarist's daughter) of Geneva, Switzerland.

A Case of Sleeping Sickness Studied by Precise Enumerative Methods: Further Observations.

Author: 
Major Ronald Ross, F.R.S., and David Thomson, M.B., Ch.B., D.P.H. [Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; sleeping sickness]
Publication details: 
'Reprinted from the Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology Vol. IV, No. 4, March, 1911. Issued by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Liverpool, at the University Press, 57 Ashton Street.
£45.00
Ronald Ross, A Case of Sleeping Sickness , pamphlet

4to, 21 pp and fold-out graph. In original green wraps. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged paper, with rusty staples. Describing the case of 'a strong young Englishman, age 26, weight 154 lbs., [who] was infected in N.E. Rhodesia near the River Luangwa in September, 1909'. Fold-out graph of 'Number of Trypanosomes per c.mm.'

Mimeographed typed report by the firm's London office titled 'The Story of Toni Home Permanent Wave and an explanation of Public Relations'.

Author: 
Foote, Cone & Belding Ltd, advertising agency [Toni Home Permanent Wave; hairdressing]
Publication details: 
London: 1948.
£75.00

8vo, 26 pp. In very good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Contained within a blue card folder. Preceded by contents: '1. What is Public Relations? [3 pp] 2. Objectives of Toni Public Relations Plan. [6 pp] 3. Background Story of Toni. [7 pp] 4. Public Relations Releases. [10 pp] 5. The Trade Press follow our line.' [cuttings from three periodicals, including 'Hairdressers' Weekly Journal' and 'New York Times'.] From the collection of the Kent businessman Franklyn Rogers.

Folder of mimeographed typed advertising and promotional reports and memoranda assembled by the firm's London office on behalf of the Watchmakers of Switzerland.

Author: 
Foote, Cone & Belding Ltd, advertising agency [Watchmakers of Switzerland]
Publication details: 
Between 1949 and 1950.
£165.00

All items clear and complete, in a brown card folder, and in good condition on lightly-aged paper, with occasional rust marking. Items are often accompanied by covering letters from members of the agency. Includes, among other items: 'Outline Proposals for Action in the British Market', August 1949 (8vo, 9 pp); 'The British Watch Market', August 1949 (8vo, 19 pp); 'Jewelry News Digest Number 19 | For The Swiss Federation of Watch Manufacturers', November 1949 (8vo, 13 pp); 'Swiss Watch Repair Parts Programme' (8vo, 19 pp); 'Report of F. H. Publicity Montreal Office | Jan. 30th to Feb.

Ten catalogues (five of the first firm and five of the second) of autograph letters, manuscripts, historical documents.

Author: 
Myers & Co. (Booksellers) Ltd.; Winifred A. Myers (Autographs) Ltd.
Publication details: 
Myers & Co. (Booksellers) Ltd., 102, New Bond Street, London, W.1: 1941, 1955 (2), 1956 (2). Winifred A. Myers (Autographs) Ltd., 80, New Bond Street, London, W.1: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965.
£100.00

The ten items are all in the same 12mo format, each stapled and in coloured printed wraps. Page range between 56 and 106. Internally good, with occasional chipping to the high-acidity paper wraps. Rusting staples. A total of c.4500 items, catalogued in detail by a pioneer in the field and a President of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association. Containing a mass of information about a wide range of individuals ans subjects, from 'Musicians' to 'Prime Ministers', George Gissing to George III, Lord Byron to Florence Nightingale, and Robert Browning to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The first sixteen volumes of 'The Autograph Collectors' Journal', retitled, from vol.5 no.4 (Summer 1953), 'Manuscripts'.

Author: 
National Society of Autograph Collectors; The Manuscript Society
Publication details: 
Vol.1, no.1 (Chicago: The Norman Press, 'Published by The National Society of Autograph Collectors', October 1948) to vol.16 no.4 (Chicago: 'Published Quarterly by the Manuscript Society', Fall 1964).
£450.00

Sixteen vols, the first seven quarto and last nine octavo. Index to vols.1-11 loosely inserted. Good (apart from issue for Summer 1957 which has slight damp damage), crudely bound in eight volumes of blue cloth, with titles in neat manuscript on white label on spine (one of the bindings stained and two in a lighter shade of blue with titles stamped in gilt). Well produced and profusely illustrated, with informative and scholarly articles, advertisements, and sections on 'the auction market' and 'manuscripts in the news'.

Nine volumes of newspaper cuttings, collected by Cuming Walters in his capacity as editor of the Manchester City News, containing all his editorials and articles relating to the Great War, including the whole of his pseudonymous 'Journal of the War'.

Author: 
John Cuming Walters (1863-1933), Editor of the Manchester City News from 1906 to 1932 [The Great War; World War I]
Publication details: 
Complete from 8 August 1914 to 25 October 1919
£250.00

This archive records the day-by-day response to the Great War of a cultured and intelligent English newspaper editor operating outside the Fleet Street hegemony. It charts his change of opinion from initial optimism (8 August 1914: 'The instinct is to strike - it is nature's own law.

Viking with a Loose Shelailleigh. Tales from Irish America. [playscript]

Author: 
Peter Dee [Peter Rogers Dee] (1939-1999), New York playwright and poet
Publication details: 
[Unpublished typescript.] [Circa 1992.]
£100.00

Photocopy of word processor typed print-out. 8vo, [ii] + 53 pp. Good. In plastic binder. Title carries Dee's address. Second page lists the twelve sections of the play. Loosely inserted is a photocopy of a long review, with photograph, from the East Hampton Star, 26 March 1992, of 'a dramatic reading' of the play at Canio's Books, Sag Harbor. The play was not published, and there are no copies of this item on WorldCat or COPAC.

The Carrionflower Writ [complete run of ten issues, from 1 to 9/10 and including 2a].

Author: 
Javant Biarujia, editor [Nosukumo, Melbourne; Ian Birks; Jurate Sasnaitis, Philip Siss; Kris Hemensley; Chris Mann; Raimondo Cortese; Adrian Rawlins; Australian literature]
Publication details: 
Melbourne ('at Labassa'): Nosukumo. 1985 to 1990.
£350.00

Each issue a single broadsheet, folded twice to make eight pages. On different light shades of paper. In good condition. An energetic collection of Australian 'poetry on the margins', with unconvential typography and striking illustration. Described, on cover of issue 3, as 'An art and literary broadsheet issued on an irregular basis'. Poets include Ian Birks, Jurate Sasnaitis, Philip Sipp, Kris Hemensley, Chris Mann, Raimondo Cortese, and Adrian Rawlins. Excessively scarce: no copies of any issues in the British Library, or recorded on COPAC, let alone a complete run.

The Entermores. A Play by John Cowper Powys.

Author: 
John Cowper Powys [Paul Roberts]
Publication details: 
Written by Powys circa 1905. Roberts' transcript 'for a public reading of the play at the Powys Society's Annual Conference', 28 August 1994.
£150.00

8vo, [iii] + 66 pp. Computer printout in plastic binder. Text clear and complete. Creasing to first four leaves, otherwise in very good condition. On title-page: 'ACTING COPY ONLY'. Note by 'C. W.' on next page: 'This version of the script is taken from Paul Roberts' unedited first draft transcription for a public reading of the play at the Powys Society's Annual Conference, at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, at 7.30pm on Sunday, 28th August, 1994. | Where words have still not been deciphered in the transcript, temporary ones have been inserted.

Small collection of material relating to 'Music Today', comprising two advertisements, the programme for the inaugural concert, and a Typed Letter Signed from Hamilton to V. W. A. Conn, with the autograph draft of Conn's letter to Hamilton.

Author: 
Iain Hamilton (1922-2000), Scottish composer, chairman of the 'Music Today' contemporary music programmes, held in the Royal Festival Hall Recital Room [Samuel Beckett]
Publication details: 
All items dating from 1960.
£165.00

For more information relating to this influential series of concerts, see 'Pursuit: The Uncensored Memoirs of John Calder' (2001). Seven items, including two duplicates. Text of all items clear and complete. In fair condition, but with one side of a duplicate advertisement heavily sunned (see below). ONE: Typed Letter Signed ('Ian Hamilton') from Hamilton to Conn (husband of the poet Jeanne Conn), 12 February 1960. 4to, 1 p. Eighteen lines. Responding to Conn's criticisms, explaining reasons for cutting short discussion and cancelling part of the programme, and giving future plans.

Typed Letter Signed ('G. R. Hall Caine') to Sir Thomas Moore of Hatchards bookshop, regarding 'the rehabilitation of this business'.

Author: 
Gordon Ralph Hall Caine [G.R. Hall Caine](1884-1962), Chairman and Managing Director, Argosy & Sundial Libraries Limited, of London and Liverpool [son of the novelist Hall Caine (1853-1931)]
Publication details: 
23 June 1947; on Argosy & Sundial letterhead.
£95.00

8vo, 1 p. Text clear and complete. On creased and lightly-aged paper. He is glad that Sir Thomas appreciates 'the seriousness of our position', and the reasons for asking Hatchards 'to release Mr. Edgeley to us for approximately six months in order to enable him to concentrate mainly upon the rehabilitation of this business'. Not a minor matter; according to one source the firm had '2,217 branches and 1.3 million books in circulation by 1934'.

Autograph Signature, in form of monogram, on part of letter.

Author: 
Sarah Prideaux [Sarah Treverbian Prideaux] (1853-1933), British bookbinder
Publication details: 
Date and place not stated.
£28.00

On a piece of grey paper, 5 x 9.5 cm, cut away from a letter. Good. Thin strip of white mount adhering to right-hand edge. The signature is in the form of a monogram, with Prideaux's initials S and T combined to make a stylized shape with long diagonal stroke, which cuts through the final 'P.' The letter's valediction reads '<...> all my divans. | Yrs. | [signature]'. Lengthwise to the right of the signature, the slip is docketed 'Miss Sarah Prideaux | celebrated as a Lady Bookbinder whose Work has taken prizes at all the great exhibitions'.

Typed Letter Signed ('Naomi Mitchison') to 'Miss Finnemore'.

Author: 
Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999), writer [Hilda Finnemore?]
Publication details: 
Undated [c. 1932]. On letterhead of River Court, Hammersmith Mall, W.6.
£56.00

12mo, 1 p. Eight lines. On lightly-aged paper with creasing to head and part of stub from autograph album adhering to the reverse.

Autograph Letter Signed to [Dorothy] Owston-Booth.

Author: 
Ishbel Macdonald (1903-1982), hostess at Downing Street of her father the British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald
Publication details: 
30 September 1936; on letterhead of Upper Frognal Lodge, Hampstead, NW3.
£56.00

4to, 1 p. On cream paper with letterhead printed in green. Fair, on lightly spotted and creased paper. She cannot make an appointment for an interview 'for various reasons [...] The chief reason being that I do not give interviews'. Owston-Booth was a contributor to the Windsor Magazine.

Scrapbook of material collected on a trip to Scotland for the 1958 Edinburgh International Festival, including letters, programmes, tickets, maps, postcards, newspaper cuttings.

Author: 
The Edinburgh International Festival, 1958 [Victor Conn of Eltham]
Publication details: 
[1958. Items from England and Scotland, collected in 'A Collins Scrap Book'.]
£280.00

Around 140 items, laid down on 53 pp of a contemporary 37 x 25 cm stapled scrapbook. In original red and orange wraps, with 'Edinburgh Festival 1958' in manuscript on front cover. The collection is in good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with occasional items a little discoloured from mounting. The scrapbook itself is slightly grubby and ruckled. Collected by Victor Conn of Eltham, London, who was presumably responsible for the neat captions to some newspaper cuttings and other items.

[International Studies.] Israel. Documents, Facts and Figures. [with map]

Author: 
[The State of Israel, 1950; The Diplomatic Press and Publishing Co.; Jewish; Judaism; Palestine]
Publication details: 
London: The Diplomatic Press and Publishing Co. 13, Cotswold Gardens, N.W.2.
£95.00

12mo: 48 pp. Fold-out map of Israel at rear. In original grey printed wraps. Advertisements. Pro-Israeli pamphlet, aimed at British Jews (see advertisements for the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Review, the Zionist Review, El Al, the Anglo-Israel Association). Divided into five sections: 'A People's Destiny', 'Basic Outline of the Coalition Government Programme', 'Jerusalem and the Holy Places', 'Israel Today', 'Defence' and 'Chronology'. Uncommon: COPAC only lists copies at the BL and LSE.

Official instructions for the carrying out of an execution at Prisons in a British Colony.

Author: 
William Stirling, 'Ancien Assistant au Laboratoire de Police Technique de Lyon' [executions; hanging]
Publication details: 
[Offprint from the 'Revue Internationale de Criminalistique', vol.6 (1934).] Lyon: Joannes Desvigne et Cie, Editeurs, 36 a 42 Passage de l'Hotel-Dieu. 1934.
£56.00

8vo: 4 pp (paginated 3-6). In original light-green printed wraps. Text in English, clear and complete. Good, on aged paper, with slight discoloration to wraps. Blind accession stamp of the British crime writer Jonathan Goodman (1931-2008). The following sentence is deleted in pencil: 'The above instructions have been observed at executions interessed [sic] by one.' A 'plan of the authorized scaffold' is said to be 'attached', but is not present. No copy recorded on COPAC or WorldCat.

An Experiment in Working Class Education. The Workers' Educational Association.

Author: 
H. O. Meredith [Hugh Owen Meredith; The Workers' Educational Association]
Publication details: 
Birmingham: Birmingham Printers, Ltd., 14, Pershore Street. [1906.]
£65.00

4to: 6 pp + [ii]. Disbound. On aged spotted paper with slight chipping and loss to extremities. Text clear and complete. Report, in small type. Inscribed by Meredith at head of first page: 'Read by Hugh Meredith, M.A. before the British Association at York. 1906.' Scarce: no copy in the British Library and the only copy on COPAC at Oxford.

Visits With Henry Miller: A Woman's Point of View. ['50 - copy Limited/Signed Edition']

Author: 
Mamie Gertz [Henry Miller]
Publication details: 
Ann Arbor, Michigan: Roger Jackson, Publisher, 1995.
£180.00

12mo, 36 pp. In wraps, with art paper flyleaves. Very good. Number 26 in the signed edition of fifty copies, which, according to a note by the publisher, 'contains a second photograph of Mamie and Elmer Gertz, rather than the single photograph which is contained in the Trade Edition [of two hundred copies]'.

Coimisiún na Gaeltachta [Commission of Inquiry into the Preservation of the Gaeltacht]. Report.

Author: 
Commission of Inquiry into the Preservation of the Gaeltacht [General Richard James Mulcahy, Chairman]
Publication details: 
Dublin: Published by the Stationery Office. [Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 1926.]
£450.00

Folio, iv + 133 pp. One fold-out map, roughly 86 x 61 cm, titled 'Map No. 3. [the other two maps being issued separately] Coimisiún na Gaeltachta. Map of Ireland showing the Irish speaking districts [in pink] and the partly Irish speaking districts [in yellow] as defined by the Commission.' Stapled. In original cream printed wraps. Clear and complete. A fair copy, slightly dogeared but tight, on aged paper, in worn and spotted wraps and with rusted staples. A document of the highest importance in the history of the Irish language.

Printed (British government?) report entitled 'A Plan for China.'

Author: 
British Government Plan for China, 1925 [League of Nations; Great Britain; Foreign Office]
Publication details: 
Dated 'April, 1925.' [Foreign Office, London?]
£480.00

A curious document which, whether it emanates from the British Foreign Office or not, provides valuable insight into informed British opinion on China in the period following the First World War. Printed on fourteen 34 x 21.5 cm leaves, paginated 1-13 with title on fourteenth leaf. On paper with the Britannia watermark of Waterlow and Sons Limited, London. Stapled. Text clear and complete on aged and foxed paper.

Prospectus and application form for the Anti-German League, together with two other items of promotional material.

Author: 
E. J. Balsir Chatterton, founder, The Anti-German League [First World War Zeppelin raids on London]
Publication details: 
All three items undated [1915 or 1916]. One printed by 'Willsons', New Walk Printing Works, Leicester.'
£150.00

All three items good. Item One: Prospectus and application form, headed 'The Anti-German League. Introduction by the Founder.' Three pages, in a bifolium. Leaf dimensions 27.5 x 21.5 cm. Printed in blue. The 'Introduction' covers the first two pages, flanked by columns bearing the words 'Lest We Forget.' and 'MOTTO: "Everything German Taboo." ' It includes the headings ' "Made in Germany" - The Mark of the Beast' and 'The Alien Menace'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Stanley Buckmaster') to [F.] Meade[, Secretary, Official Press Bureau].

Author: 
Stanley Owen Buckmaster, 1st Viscount Buckmaster (1861-1934), Liberal politician and Lord Chancellor [the Official Press Bureau; Great War; censorship]
Publication details: 
12 April 1915; on embossed government letterhead of the Official Press Bureau, Whitehall.
£35.00

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'.

Olive, Cypress and Palm. An Anthology of Love and Death. Compiled by Mina Curtiss.

Author: 
Mina Curtiss, ed. [Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly]
Publication details: 
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1930.
£56.00

8vo: xvii + 296 pp. In original black cloth, with design in silver stamped on front board. No dustwrapper. Faded spine and lightly-marked cloth. Inscribed by Curtiss on front free endpaper: 'To Ellery Sedgwick - | Most gratefully - | Mina Curtiss | Christmas, 1932.'

Two Manuscript Diaries, covering the years 1916 and 1917.

Author: 
Geoffrey Clifford Tyndale [Divorce Law; Legal History; Reading Lists; The Times of London]
Publication details: 
1 January 1916 to 3 January 1918.
£450.00

Two 8vo diaries, by Charles Letts, the first 'improved' and the second 'self-opening'. Both in heavily worn covers, lacking spines, but internally clean, on aged paper, and with the text entirely legible. Both diaries end with a brief set of accounts. The diaries are filled with details of the life of a young English lawyer in London during the Great War, including references to the many legal cases in which he was involved.

The Plight of the Creative Artist in the United States of America.

Author: 
Henry Miller [Bern Porter]
Publication details: 
[Houlton, Maine: Bern Porter, 1944.]
£75.00

8vo: paginated 3-38. Four full-page reproductions of Miller's paintings. In original yellow printed wraps. On brittle, aged paper, with the body of the book detached from the wraps, which are worn and with one corner at front creased. Title taken from front wrap. One of 950 numbered copies, signed by the publisher on the final page (beneath 'Publisher's Addendum') 'Bern Porter | 25 South St | Houlton Maine | Copy # 296'. Shifreen &Jackson A37a. Uncommon. Apart from the British Library, COPAC only lists copies at Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford and Bristol.

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