Literature

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Cabinet Photograph, head & shoulders, Signed "Charlotte Mary Yonge"

Author: 
Charlotte M. Yonge
Publication details: 
Elliott & Fry, no date
£135.00

110 x 150mm, albumen print laid down on larger card, very good condition

Manuscript Fair Copy, in an eighteenth-century hand, transcribing two poems: 'Prize Monody on the Death of David Garrick Esqr. ffor the Vase at Bath-Easton, By Miss [Anna] Seward.' and 'To Miss Seward | Impromptu' by 'W[illiam] H[ayley].'

Author: 
Anna Seward (1742-1809), poet known as 'The Swan of Lichfield'; William Hayley (1745-1820), poet and patron of William Blake [David Garrick (1717-1779); Bath Easton, villa of Sir John Riggs Miller]
Publication details: 
Seward's poem dated 'Bath-Easton (the Villa of Sir John Miller,) near Bath | ffeb. 11. 1779.' Hayley's poem without place or date.
£220.00

Totalling 5pp., 4to, with Seward's poem on the first 3pp., and Hayley's on the following 2pp. Disbound from a notebook. In good condition, on lightly-aged and worn paper which has been cropped at the foot, resulting in the loss of two lines of text from Hayley's poem, and with the strip with the trimmed line from the foot of the first page of Seward's poem laid down at the head of the second page.

Byron painted by his Compeers; or, All about Lord Byron, from his marriage to his Death, as given in the various newspapers of his day [...]

Author: 
[Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lady Byron, etc.]
Publication details: 
London: Samuel Palmer, 20, Catherine Street, DStrand [London], 1869
£200.00

112pp., 8vo, printed paper wraps, 4pp. insert (advts) at back, wraps grubby, slight chipping, spine worn. Information (about its purchase?) written top front cover

Typescript titled 'William Wordsworth. | his Books.' Divided into 19 'lots'.

Author: 
[The Library of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Poet Laureate]
Publication details: 
Without place or date. [1910s?]
£150.00

8pp., on eight leaves of foolscap 8vo, with a ninth leaf carrying the title (headed 'Library' in manuscript). Fair, on aged and creased paper. The first page carries four entries, all beginning in 'A', from W. P. Alison's 'Remarks on the Poor Laws etc of Scotland, 1844' to a total of 54 volumes of the Annual Register. The four items are attributed the lot numbers 1, 3, 2 and 4 in manuscript. The second page carries seven items beginning with 'B' (ending with 'Border Laws 1705.'), with the first and second given lot numbers in manuscript.

Autograph Letter Signed ('C: Philpot') from Charles Philpot, rector of Ripple, offering to publishers [Cadell & Davies] 'a MS volume intitled "An Introduction to the literary history of the fourteenth & fifteenth centuries"'.

Author: 
Charles Philpot (1760-1823), rector of Ripple, near Deal, Kent [Thomas Cadell (1773-1836) & William Davies, London publishers]
Publication details: 
Ripple near Deal [Kent]. 20 March 1798.
£135.00

2pp., 8vo. 39 lines of text. On aged and lightly-stained paper, with one chipped edge. Unobtrusively repaired with archival tape. Addressed 'Gentlemen', the letter begins 'Pardon me for recommending to your notice a MS volume intitled "An Introduction to the literary history of the fourteenth & fifteenth centuries", which will this day be forwarded to you by the Deal & Canterbury Coach. In taking such a liberty I have no excuse to offer but wha is supplied by your high reputation & extensive concern in every department of literature'.

[Handbill; prospectus] New Weekly Illustrated Periodical. Once a Week! A Miscellany of Literature ...

Author: 
[Charles Dickens]
Publication details: 
May 1859.
£80.00

Four pages, 12mo, detached, a little roughly from book (some damage where bound in). It includes the explanation of "the cessation of [Bradbury & Evans] connection with 'Household Words'", headed "Mr. Charles Dickens and his late Publishers", discussing relationship with Dickens and his desire to publish personal revelation without consultation with the publishers.

[Manuscript Notebook] "Rebecca Diary" [Notes concerning the libretto of the opera "Rebecca", music by Wilfred Josephs], based on the Daphne du Maurier novel

Author: 
[Wilfred Josephs, composer (1927-1997)] Edward Owen Marsh, librettist, author, translator (Anouilh, Cocteau, Gogol, etc)
Publication details: 
[Opera matinée 1983]
£280.00

Circa 78pp., used, some pages added, text worked over, red boards, hinge strain, mainly good condition. Indexes to Acts, lines through manysections. Contents include: questions for Wilfred [Josephs] ("Sets? | Scenes? | Act II???"]; stage directions; suggestions about characters; directions; music ("(5) Mrs v H [van Hopper] tells A. she is hopeless against Rebecca"); "final faults"; sets; dialogue; problems; phone numbers and addresses; more (detailed) points for Wilfred [Josephs]; suggested lines for a duet; characters with actors' names e.g. Mrs v. H[oppen] Nuala Willis (as happened); etc.

[Handbill; verse] Colored Cavalier

Author: 
[H. de Marsan, publisher & bookseller; E.A. Sparks, illustrator]
Publication details: 
H. de Marsan, Songs, Ballads, toy books. 60 Chatham St, NY. "Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by H. DE MARSAN [...] Clerk's Office [...] for the Southern Dustrict of New York".
£320.00
Colored Cavalier

Handbill, one page, crudely coloured border with images of a black troubadour with banjo[?] , a native American, and a trapper [?], 26 x 17cm, three stanzas each eight lines plus chorus, edges chipped, laid down on a larger page. Commences, "Oh! listen a while., a story I will tell; | It will please you to death, I know berry well [...]" Decorative border signed "E A Sparks" ("Printed within colored pictorial border (De Marsan trapper border J, in Wolf, E. Amer. song sheets)." One copy of this imprint listed by WorldCat, two of another imprint (later).

Part of a Manuscript, review of John Chetwode Eustace's "Tour in Italy [London, 1813) (reviewed in Edinburgh Review, 1813)

Author: 
Henry Peter Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord Chancellor of England (1778-1868)
Publication details: 
[1813]
£480.00

Full article published in Edinburgh Review, vol.21, pp.378-424. Manuscript, two pages, 4to, trimmed at bottom with loss of text, with light corrections and additions, giving the text for pp.407-8, excluding two lengthy quotations from the book to which Brougham gives the reference only. The trimming had led to the loss of the passage from "In the Conservatorii or charity schools [...] He gives as an instance one Conservatorio where four hundred ... where four hundred...",apart from a few words (subject of pasage partly "repentant women" and vice in Naples).

Autograph Letter Signed to a "Mr [Stanquer?], heavy handedly declining an invitation (perhaps it was 1843 and Southey had jy=ust died??).

Author: 
Caroline Southey (1786–1854), poet, second wife of Robert Southey
Publication details: 
Greta Hall, Friday Evng, no date.
£120.00

Two pages, 12mo, remnants from being tipped on to album page, , staining, text clear and complete. "I feel myself compelled, circumstanced as I ma - to decline all invitation. Were it otherwise I should with great pleasure avail myself of yours - | My friends are answering for themselves - & I am very sorry it will be in the negative - but as they have declined similar invitations from the persons who have paid them the same kind attention, they cannot with propriety make exceptions..."

Autograph Letter Signed to "Deidre [Dolly Lynd, sister of essayist, Robert Lynd]. IN IRISH. about Irish affairs including the degrading death of Michael Collins. With original envelope on which Robert Lynd's daughter, Maire Gaster, gives backg.round.

Author: 
Micheal Mac Liamoir [Michael Mac'Liamoir; Micheál Mac Liammóir] (1899-1978), Irish actor, dramatist, impresario, writer, poet and painter
Publication details: 
26 August 1922
£1,500.00

6pp., 4to, good condition, IN IRISH, translation as follows: "(On top) Write to me soon! ||Deirdre, my dear friend – I was delighted to receive your letter. Thank you very much. Forgive me for not writing much earlier: we are all greatly upset here over the deaths of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins – isn’t it terrible news! I cannot believe it is true – I don’t know what the country will do without them. It disgusts me to think of Michael Collinsand the way they killed him like a dog; a curse on them, may they choke, the dirty villains!

Autograph Letter Signed "G. Bernard Shaw", playwright, to "[Frank] Rutter", art critic etc., about his unsuitability for a humorous article and humour itself.

Author: 
George Bernard Shaw, playwright
Publication details: 
10 Adelphi Terrace, W.C. , 10 May 1901
£1,350.00

Two pages, 4to, corrections and additions in his hand, fold marks, staining, some heavy, but text clear and complete. "I am not a good subject for a humorous article, because I am supposed to be a humorist myself. Now you may confidently make it a rule never to touch subjects that are already considered funny. You will find it easy to write an amusing imaginary interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury; but I defy you to make anyone laugh at an interview with Mark Twain. Mark made his reputation as a humorist with a description of a visit to the Holy Land.

Copy of Two Typed Letters from the London publisher Martin Secker to the Scots-Canadian author Frederick Niven, the first asking for 'one more chance' to publish his work. With typed copies of two of Niven's replies, the first extremely critical.

Author: 
Frederick Niven [Frederick John Niven] (1878-1944), Scots-Canadian writer [Martin Secker [Percy Martin Secker Klingender] (1882-1978), London publisher; J. B. Pinker, literary agent]
Publication details: 
Secker: both from Number Five, John Street, Adelphi; 26 and 28 February 1913. Niven: both from Holmleigh, Church Hill, Loughton, Essex; 27 February and 2 March 1913.
£280.00

Sent by Niven to his literary agent J. B. Pinker, whose date stamp is on the first of Secker's letters. All four items in fair condition, on aged and lightly-creased paper. Secker's first letter: 1p., 4to. He begins by praising 'Denny's display' [a window display of Niven's work in Denny's bookshop in the Strand]: 'I am wondering whether you managed to get the photograph into any of the papers. Shall I send it to the Bookman?' He continues: 'The sales [of Niven's novel The Porcelain Lady] up to date amount to 434 in England.

Part of Document Signed "W Scott", as one of the Principle Clerks of the Court of Sessions.

Author: 
Sir Walter Scott, lawyer and author.
Publication details: 
No date or specified place.
£380.00
Part of Document Signed "W Scott"

Two pages, c.17 x 14cm, paper trimmed with loss of text, staining making it difficult ro read some of text, text in another hand unless Scott's legal hand differed from his novelist's (see image on my website). Text of recto: "appears to be justly due at the date of the sequestration with all the expenses thereon And I the said George Brown Bind and Oblige myself and my foresaid to free and relieve the said James Orr and his foresaid of the cautionary Obligation above written and of all loss damages and expenses which he may incur or sustain in consequence thereof.

Autograph Letter Signed G. Bernard Shaw, playwright, to [Frank] Rutter, art critic etc., about his unsuitability for a humorous article and humour itself.

Author: 
George Bernard Shaw, playwright
Publication details: 
10 Adelphi Terrace, W.C. , 10 May 1901
£850.00
Autograph Letter Signed G. Bernard Shaw

Two pages, 4to, corrections and additions in his hand, fold marks, staining, some heavy, but text clear and complete. I am not a good subject for a humorous article, because I am supposed to be a humorist myself. Now you may confidently make it a rule never to touch subjects that are alreadyconsidered funny. You will find it easy to write an amusing imaginary interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury; but I defy you to make anyone laugh at an interview with Mark Twain. Mark made his reputation as a humorist with a description of a visit to the Holy Land.

[Printed Verse] The Welcome to Ilkley

Author: 
Anon.
Publication details: 
Burley, 4th Sept.1834
£180.00
Welcome to Ilkley. Printed poem.

One page, 12mo,green paper, bifiolium (rest blank), 3 verses, 14 lines each (total 42 lines), preceded by the statement "Written for the Charity Bazaar") and 6 line quotation from Cowper ("Here stay thy foot; - how copious and how clear ... from an Eternal source"). Verses start "Welcome to Ikley! Lady fair ... That God hath bless'd the spring!". No other copy traced (none on COPAC etc). See scan on website inventory.

Leaf from the notebook of the Victorian artist George Cruikshank, carrying two pages of serious sketches, each signed by him 'Geo Cruikshank'.

Author: 
George Cruikshank (1792-1878), English caricaturist and illustrator
Publication details: 
Undated, but on paper with watermarked date 1824.
£450.00
Leaf from the notebook of the Victorian artist George Cruikshank

In ink on both sides of a 4to leaf of wove paper, watermarked 'J GREEN & SON / 1824'. None of Cruikshank's drawing or writing is affected, but one corner of the leaf has been cut away, and there is another thin strip cut from another. Fair, on aged paper. One page carries a full-length drawing of a bearded athletic man in shorts and sandals, making a sweeping theatrical gesture with his right hand, and holding a spear in his left. Beneath the drawing is Cruikshank's signature, and a study of the left foot.

Leaf from an early edition of John Dryden's translation of Plutarch's Lives, marked up with autograph emendations for a revised edition by the Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough, with leaf carrying longer emendation's in Clough's hand.

Author: 
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), English poet, critic, translator and educationalist [John Dryden's translation of Plutarch]
Publication details: 
Undated [early 1850s?]
£1,200.00
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), English poet

The two leaves were evidently disbound from a copy of an edition of Dryden's Plutarch, in which the grey 4to leaf of writing paper following the 12mo printed leaf was one of those that interleaved the volume. In fair conditon, on lightly-aged paper. The two leaves are tipped in onto a larger leaf removed from an album. The printed leaf is 12mo, from volume 5 of Dryden's translation, with the pages numbered 511 and 612 [sic]. The two sides of the leaf carry a total of approximately 25 emendations and deletions.

[Printed handbill poem by 'B. B.'] On a favourite Dog, interred in the Grounds of Dryburgh Abbey, MDCCCXIV. [With Victorian photograph of a dog.]

Author: 
'B. B.' [Sir Brooke Boothby (1744-1824)?] [Dryburgh Abbey, property of David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan]
Publication details: 
Date and publisher not stated. [Scotland, circa 1814?]
£400.00

Poem: On one side of a piece of 12mo paper. Fair, lightly-aged and a little ruckled, with traces of gum from previous mounting on the blank reverse. The 12-line poem is written in heroic couplets, and begins 'POOR, faithful animal, adieu! - | To Nature's kind affection true, | For fourteen years, thy grateful heart, | Devoted, play'd its humble part.' At the end a contemporary hand has ascribed the poem to 'B. B.', and the same hand gives the date as 'September 3d'.

[Printed handbill.] Sonnet on the late Dutchess of Gordon. [By Sir Brooke Boothby.]

Author: 
[Sir Brooke Boothby (1744-1824)] [Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon (1748-1812), Scottish Tory political hostess]
Publication details: 
[Circa 1810.]
£280.00

Printed on one side of a 4to leaf, to which a black mourning border has been given by hand. Well printed on wove paper. Fair, on lightly-aged and ruckled paper. The author's name is not given, and the title reads 'SONNET | ON THE LATE | DUTCHESS [sic] OF GORDON.' The poem begins: 'IS then the bright expansive spirit flown, | That wont to animate the admiring throng? | Does the fair theme of many a poet's Song | Exist in pleasing memory alone?' The poem was also printed in 'The Poetical Register, and Repository of Fugitive Poetry, for 1810-1811' (London: F. C. and J.

Eight Typed Letters Signed from Axel Munthe, author of 'The Story of San Michele', written in a charming and entertaining style to his young friend 'Miss Judith' - Judith Masefield, daughter of the English poet laureate John Masefield.

Author: 
Axel Munthe [Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe] (1857-1949), Swedish physician and author of 'The Story of San Michele' [Judith Masefield (1904-1988), daughter of the Poet Laureate John Masefield]
Publication details: 
Written from Italy and London in 1930 and (perhaps) 1931.
£1,600.00

'The Story of San Michele' is one of the most popular works of the twentieth century, and this delightful correspondence bears ample testimony to the extraordinary allure of its author. The eight letters are entirely legible, in fair condition on aged paper. They total 3 pp in folio, and 8 pp in 4to. The sequence is tentative, none of the letters giving the year. The numerous errors, in large part due to Munthe's growing blindness, are largely unnoticed in the following transcripts. Letter One (2 pp, 4to). 'Rome Villa Svezia Via Aldrovandi 27 Feb 8 [1930]'.

Two Autograph Letters Signed ("E. Blunden") to "J.S.B." (J.S. Billingham, bookseller. Northampton) and postcards.

Author: 
Edmund Blunden
Publication details: 
Tokyo, 9 Jan. 1924 and 20 April 1927
£160.00

Poet, teacher and scholar (1896-1974). Two pages, 4to and one page, 8vo, both with envelopes (from Tokyo). (1924) A substantial letter sent when he was just settling in a his contract to 1927.

[Printed pamphlet, limited to 200 copies.] Memorial Exhibition of Works by Norman Douglas (8th December 1868-9th February 1952).

Author: 
Alan Anderson; Cecil Woolf; Moray McLaren [Norman Douglas]
Publication details: 
'On display during July 1952 at Edinburgh Central Library | George IV Bridge | Edinburgh'. [Printed by McLagan & Cumming, Edinburgh.]
£125.00
Memorial Exhibition of Works by Norman Douglas

'This Bibliographical Catalogue, compiled by Cecil Woolf and Alan Anderson, is limited to two hundred copies.' 8vo, 9 pp. In original green printed wraps. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with single manuscript correction in green ink. Full-page introduction on Douglas by Moray McLaren. Scarce: the only copies on COPAC at Oxford, the British Library, and the National Library of Scotland.

The Dream. By the Author of Frankenstein. [Extracted from 'The Keepsake for MDCCCXXXII'.]

Author: 
'The Author of Frankenstein' [Mary Shelley]
Publication details: 
[London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1832.]
£56.00
The Dream. By the Author of Frankenstein.

12mo, 18 pp (paginated 21-38) + one engraving (facing p.24). Good, on lightly-aged paper, with the engraving somewhat foxed; in good modern grey card wraps, marbled endpapers, and printed label on front. First appearance in printed form. On nine leaves disbound from 'The Keepsake for MDCCCXXXII', edited by Frederic Mansel Reynolds. Mary Shelley's story is on the seventeen pages 22-38, with the drophead title 'THE DREAM. | BY THE AUTHOR OF FRANKENSTEIN. | Chi dice mal d'amore | Dice una falsità. | ITALIAN SONG.' The engraving, by Charles Heath from Miss L. Sharpe, is titled 'Constance'.

Autograph Letter Signed "Charles Morley" to unnamed male correspondent

Author: 
Charles Morley [Charles Robert Morley] (1853-1916), editor of the Pall Mall Gazette
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the Pall Mall Gazette, Northumberland Street, Strand; 2 June 1884.
£38.00
Charles Morley [Charles Robert Morley] (1853-1916), editor of  Pall Mall Gazette

3 pp, 12mo. Bifolium. 21 lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Begins 'I shall really be very sorry, and I know that I speak for my chief, if you will not allow your paper to be published.' He considers it 'by far the most interesting and exhaustive of those that we have received, and its non-appearance some days ago is due to a hittch which occurred at the last moment.' He was 'so reluctant' that it should be lost, that he disregarded the 'excision that you made at my request'.

Autograph Letter Signed from the Irish poet Aubrey de Vere, containing an appreciation of the theologian Richard Holt Hutton, with references to the new edition of his poems, the publishers Macmillan & Co, Baron von Hugel, and the Tennyson family.

Author: 
Aubrey de Vere [Aubrey Thomas de Vere] (1814-1902), Irish poet [Richard Holt Hutton (1826-1897), writer and theologian]
Publication details: 
August 1895; on letterhead of the Athenaeum, Pall Mall, London.
£130.00
Autograph Letter Signed from the Irish poet Aubrey de Vere

16mo, 4 pp. 64 lines. Text clear and complete. Hutton was a friend of both de Vere and his correspondent, and 'this will always remain a link between us; for no one who ever knew him can forget him; & no one who remembers him can ever cease to honour him'.

Autograph Letter Signed ('F. Anstey') from the humorist Thomas Anstey Guthrie to the Editor of 'The Academy', responding to a request for comment on a list of suggested members for an 'Academy of Letters'.

Author: 
F. Anstey [Thomas Anstey Guthrie] (1856-1934), humorist [James Sutherland Cotton (1847-1918), editor of the 'Academy', 1896-1903]
Publication details: 
8 November 1897; on lettehead of 16 Duke Street Mansions, Grosvenor Square, London.
£56.00
Autograph Letter Signed ('F. Anstey') from the humorist Thomas Anstey Guthrie

12mo, 1 p. Text clear and complete. Marked up for publication, with the first sentence deleted. On aged and stained paper. He 'can only say that your list seems to me as representative as any that could be drawn up', and that he does not 'feel in a position to offer any criticism upon it'. The edited version of Anstey's letter appeared with others in 'The Academy' in November 1897, in a piece with the opening sentence: 'We have received a large correspondence in response to our request for comment on the list of suggested members for an ACADEMY OF LETTERS published last week.'

Two Autograph Letters Signed (both 'F M Peard') from the Victorian author Frances Mary Peard to the wife of the London solicitor Robert Cole, FSA, regarding the physical condition and situation of 'the Signora', 'Mme Sineo [Sineo-Benaducci?]'.

Author: 
Frances Mary Peard (1835-c.1923), Victorian author [Robert Cole, FSA, London solicitor and autograph collector; Madame Sineo-Benaducci]
Publication details: 
Letter One: 7 June [1880s?]; Sparnon, on deleted letterhead of Meadfoot Lodge, Torquay. Letter Two: without date or place.
£180.00
Frances Mary Peard (1835-c.1923), Victorian author

Both items in good condition on aged paper. A dramatic, almost novelistic correspondence, regarding 'the Signora' (named in the second letter as 'Mme Sineo', who is staying at her house in Torquay and is apparently too frail to return to her London house. Letter One: Docketed 'No 1'. 12mo, 4 pp. Peard states that she has not 'written of late about the Signora. She has got fairly well again, but she does not seem to us fit to return to London, & I hear that her doctor does not think she ever will be fit.

Autograph Note Signed from the historian Frederic G. Mather to R. E. Thompson, regarding his article on 'Buffalo' in the 'Encyclopaedia Americana'.

Author: 
Frederic G. Mather (1844-1925) [Rev. Robert Ellis Thompson (1844-1924), author]
Publication details: 
15 November 1882; 315 Prospect St, Cleveland, Ohio, on cancelled letterhead of the Senate Chamber, Albany, State of New York.
£56.00
Autograph Note Signed from the historian Frederic G. Mather

8vo, 1 p. Good, on lightly-aged paper. A covering letter for 'the supplementary article on Buffalo' (in the 'Encyclopaedia Americana' supplements to 'Encyclopaedia Britannica', 1883-1885, the first two volumes of which Thompson was editor).

Autograph Card from Frederick Maher to J. Charles Davis of Proctor's Theatre, New York, regarding his acquaintance with the author 'Frank Forester' (Henry William Herbert).

Author: 
Frederick Mather (1833-1900), author, editor of the Chicago 'Field' and Superintendent of the New York and United States Fish Commissions [Henry William Herbert ('Frank Forester'), 1807-1858)]
Publication details: 
19 November 1893; on printed card of the New York and United States Fish Commissions, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.
£75.00
Autograph Card from Frederick Maher to J. Charles Davis

13 x 7.5 card. Fair, on aged paper, with minor creasing to one corner. Stamped and addressed on one side to 'Mr. J. Charles Davis | Proctor's Theatre | New York'. The unsigned card (with the words 'and United States' deleted from the heading) has partly printed text. Mather completes it in pencil, acknowledging the 'inquiry about Frank Forester' and stating that 'as a boy I knew him and shot with him but my recollections would be of no value'. He ends by saying that he will 'try to brush them up' on his 'return from the west'.

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