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Author, Title, Summary Price
The Lyric Club, Piccadilly East and Barnes, late-Victorian venue for 'smoking concerts'

[ The Lyric Club, Piccadilly and Barnes. ] Original photographic print of an interior at the 'Lyric Club', with a newsaper cutting reporting that the New Lyric Club is 'starting on its career with every prospect of a brilliant success'.`

The sepia photographic print is 15.5 x 11.5 cm, and shows a sumptuous domestic interior, showing paintings around an ornately carved wooden doorframe, into another room, with hangings draped footstool, piano, and other accoutrements of high Victorian interior decoration. In pencil on reverse: '...

£35.00
Sir Gerald Du Maurier [ Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson Du Maurier ] (1873-1934), actor and theatre manager

[ Sir Gerald Du Maurier, actor and theatre manager. ] Typed Letter Signed ('Gerald du Maurier') to F. A. H. Eyles, asking him not to send him the manuscript of a play.

1p., landscape 8vo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. He thanks him for his letter, but as he is 'not doing anything with one act plays' at present, he states: 'I won't trouble you to send me the manuscript'. The Oxford DNB gives the name as 'Gerald Du Maurier', but the signature clearly...

£35.00
Sir Frederick Augustus Abel (1827-1902), British chemist, Lecturer in Chemistry at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich [ Sir Walter Lawry Buller (1838-1906), New Zealand ornithologist ]

[ Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, chemist. ] Manuscript note, signed by Abel ('F. A. Abel') to Sir Walter Buller.

1p., 12mo. In good condition, laid down on leaf removed from album. The note reads: 'The form of receipt is in the printers' hands. Addressed to Buller at the South Kensington Hotel.

 £35.00
Samuel Limbert Hester (c.1835-1906), Manager, Queensland Mines Agency Ltd and Freehold Goldfields of Queensland, Limited; W. H. Mallett; George Henry Irvine [ Gympie Goldmines; gold mining ]

[ Gold mining in Queensland, Australia. ] Four Autograph Signed Reports (two by S. L. Hister, one by W. H. Mallett and one by G. H. Irvine) relating to properties 'in the Gympie Goldfields district'. With two more related items.

All six items in good condition, with light signs of age and wear. In 1886 Hester, the author of the first two reports, had been described in the London St James's Gazette as 'a miner of experience in the Quicksilver mines of California'. His two reports are crude in comparison with those of...

£280.00
Richard Brinsley Peake (1792-1847), dramatist, author of the 1823 play 'Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein', based on Mary Shelley's novel [ Theatre Royal, English Opera House, Strand, London ]

[ Richard Brinsley Peake, English dramatist. ] Autograph Signature ('R B Peake') and additions relating to 'Mr Mathew's entertainments', made out to 'Mr Gardner', added to a lithographed facsimile letter in his handwriting.

1p., 12mo. Bifolium, addressed by Peake, with broken seal in black wax, to 'Mr Gardner | Globe & Traveller Office | Strand'. In the following transcription the passages in Peake's actual autograph are given in square brackets, the rest being a lithographic facsimile of his handwriting: '...

£56.00
Paul Robeson [ Paul Leroy Robeson ] (1898-1976), African-American singer and actor associated with the Civil Rights Movement; Lawrence Benjamin Brown (1893-1972), African-American pianist and arranger

[ Paul Robeson, African-American singer and actor. ] Autograph Signature, with that of his accompanist Lawrence Brown, on a photographic reproduction of a drawing of Robeson.

The two signatures are on a reproduction of a drawing of Robeson, on a 15 x 11 cm piece of shiny art paper, cut from a programme from Robeson's 1934 tour of Britain. In good condition, lightly-aged. The head and shoulders portrait shows a moody Robeson in collar and tie. The two signature are at...

£56.00
John Hall Wilton (d.1862), agent of Irish actor G. V. Brooke [ Gustavus Vaughan Brooke ] (1818-1866) [ Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London; William Shakespeare ]

[ Gustavus Vaughan Brooke's triumphant return as 'Othello', Drury Lane, 1853. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('J H Wilton') by Brooke's agent John Hall Wilton, describing his 'glorious triumph' on the night after the performance.

For information concerning Wilton, who had previously been associated with P. T. Barnum, see W. J. Lawrence's 'Life of Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, Tragedian' (Belfast, 1892). From the 1840s Brooke had toured England with increasing success, being favourably compared with Edmund Kean and called by...

£100.00
George Soane (1789-1860), playwright, son of the architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837) [ William Wright Massingham ]

[ George Soane, author and son of Sir John Soane. ] Autograph request for payment, composed in doggerel, signed 'G Soane', and addressed to the 'Reverendissimo Signor Massingham' [William Wright Massingham] at the 'Teatro di Principessa'.

2pp., 16mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, aged and worn, with minor traces of glue along one edge from stub. Addressed on reverse of second leaf to 'Signor Massingham | Teatro di Principessa' [i.e. the Princess's Theatre, London]. The request reads: 'Al Reverendissimo Signor Massingham | Be...

£80.00
Francis Elgar (1845-1909), English naval architect [ Harold Frederic (1856-1898), London correspondent of the New York Times ]

[ Francis Elgar, naval architect. ] Autograph Letter Signed [ to W. J. Fisher ], regarding the fund set up at the death of Harold Frederic.

1p., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, with light signs of age. He is enclosing a cheque for two guineas towards 'The Frederic Fund', and writes that he had 'the pleasure of often meeting Mr Harold Frederic at the Savage Club some years ago'. He was 'deeply grieved to hear of his sad &...

£56.00
Dion Boucicault the younger (1859-1929), actor and theatre manager, husband of the actress Irene Vanbrugh [ Sir Arthur Wing Pinero; Duke of York's Theatre, London ]

[ Dion Boucicault the younger, actor and theatre manager. ] Typed Letter Signed ('Dion Boucicault') to 'Mr Clarkson', regarding 'wigs that are being made for Sir Arthur Pinero's new play'.

1p., landscape 8Vo. In fair condition, aged and with a number of vertical crease lines. Reads: 'Dear Mr Clarkson, | Will you please give instructions that any wigs that are being made for Sir Arthur Pinero's new play should be here not later than 11 o'clock on Monday morning next. Our Dress...

£35.00
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