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An eventful ‘Walk in the Dales’ recorded by artist John Gilbey Bowles on 32 leaves of a hard backed black cloth A4 sketch book. Accompanied by friends Richard Fozard and his wife Daphne the captioned illustrations record the outing, each depicting all three figures ‘stop for a pint’, ‘to[o] drunk for walking’, mid day hangover’, ‘panic’, ‘Daphne fo… Read more…

Minutely detailed manuscript record of American cotton imports arriving in Liverpool, written by the Rochdale-born banker and trader James Howarth Midgley. The manuscript contains weekly statements of the sales, imports and stocks of cotton from 1849-1854, breaking down these figures into three categories of cotton, coming from New Orleans, the Por… Read more…

A late 18th century manuscript assessment of the income of the Churches of England and Wales deriving from its cathedrals, deaneries and parishes. Written more than 200 years after the pioneering valuation, Valor Ecclesiasticus, this manuscript seems likely to have played a role in the attempt to resolve with certainty the church’s actual income du… Read more…

A fascinating commonplace book cum family history by the super-connected Norfolk Cresswell family charting the inter-linked lives of the Gurneys, Opies, Frys, Wodehouses and Cresswells. The volume brings together original material by Francis - Frank - Joseph Cresswell, poems by his mother Rachel Elizabeth Fry as well as contributions from other mem… Read more…

Three year diary written by a marine on board HMS Amphitrite which includes an account of meeting the Sultan of Muscat during a visit in June 1902 when the vessel became the largest warship ever to visit the Gulf. Arriving on the China Station the vessel took a ‘long trip across the Pacific Ocean’ via Yokohama to Honolulu in Hawaii where the diaris… Read more…

In very good condition, the ‘First Comprehensive Tool Catalogue’ issued by this Leeds company. A vintage 1954 tool catalogue produced by J.H. Smith in Leeds, the very first British publication which markets the famous Emco Unimat Universal Miniature Machine Tool, priced within at £27 17s 6. J. H. Smith Ltd were the original sole UK concessionaires… Read more…

Unpublished manuscript identifying and classifying the song lyrics written by the English dramatist, composer and theatre manager Charles Dibdin Junior (1768-1833), researched and written by his descendant. Edward Rimbault Dibdin has adapted a tabbed notebook to contain around 800 single line song entries noting titles, first lines, plays and books… Read more…

The manuscript of a Christian Hebraist, a Wiltshire vicar in the last quarter of the 18th century, with a fascination for languages. Rev Edward Spencer has transcribed John Parkhurst’s Hebrew Grammar and followed it with an abbreviated version of Byrom’s Universal Shorthand, completing his study with several test transcriptions that he set himself:… Read more…

Affectionate and remarkably comprehensive, a friendship album compiled at ‘Yale College’ by Elizur T Washburn on what his friend A D Parker describes as ‘your hasty & unexpected departure from College’. Compiled in July 1826 Washburn persuaded 99 members of the 108 members of his graduating class to contribute to the book, and many have contributed… Read more…

A 445 pp. primary source in the form of an accounts ledger bursting with detail which provides a window into the socio-economic life, craft techniques and community networks of of a wheelwright and carpenter working in mid-19th century Messingham, Lincolnshire. Beyond simple bookkeeping John Gowsell’s (1860 -1872) written ledger reveals how the agr… Read more…

The arrival of the trendy holiday curate as depicted by Graham Oakley in this witty, quintessentially English story. The original artwork was executed for the illustration found on p.2 of the published volume that accompanies it; the pen and water colour image is wonderfully evocative of the 1970s with its chaotic high energy and visual humour as t… Read more…

Full length autograph working manuscript spread over 22 exercise books, paginated by Hadfield to page 1162. Textually distinct from the published version, Hadfield writes with a blue fountain pen, double-spaced, correcting extensively as he worked with frequent swirling crossings-out. There are two quite distinct openings to the novel, the earlier… Read more…

Lightly illustrated, entertainingly written teenage diaries by the precociously accomplished future British landscape and portrait painter, and nephew of the renowned ‘Norwich School’ artist John Sell Cotman. The first and more extensive volume from 1867 (Cotman was then 17) covers his final months of intense study with William Thomson Griffiths, h… Read more…

A collection of song lyrics, correspondence and set lists spanning nearly half a century of performing life of the singer and actor, Marianne Faithfull. This includes a song from 1964 that was intended to be Faithfull’s debut single - except that she found it ‘awful’ and refused to record it. Three of Faithfull’s albums are particularly well repres… Read more…

Fine late 18th century English manuscript atlas beautifully drawn, almost certainly by a child, and offering 68 full-page maps, 32 in outline and a further 36 with keyed explanatory apparatus. The manuscript’s creator, probably in or around London, details a colonial-era map of North America (California as peninsular) entitled ‘Ten Northern America… Read more…

Typed first draft manuscript of 465 pages offering several thousand manuscript corrections and alterations made during its composition by the author Maurice Baring. Alongside his novel ‘C’, Adeane was Baring’s most popular and influential novel, telling the story of a complex and unfaithful marriage between a London barrister and his wife, Fanny, w… Read more…

Remarkable unpublished autobiography of a young French immigrant to the USA in the 1890s, who became a ranch-owner in Montana before turning to civil engineering and finally, after his return to France, publishing extensively on occultism and founding the Societe Unitive - a sort of psychic wellness group avant la lettre. Written in English and cle… Read more…

Officer’s log book of a merchant West Indiaman engaged in supplying horses and mules to the enslaved African and African-American servicemen of Britain’s West India Regiments - and on the homeward journey bringing back a cargo of sugar manufactured by their enslaved cousins in the plantations of the Caribbean. Both Atlantic crossings were fraught w… Read more…

Unpublished records of a secretive early 19th century precursor of the modern credit ratings industry. The Society of Mutual Communication for the Protection of Trade was founded in order to allow London business men to spot deadbeat clients, share information between businesses as well as managing debt recovery from failed transactions. This vellu… Read more…

An Appointments diary-plus which covers Marianne Faithfull’s 2005 US tour journal in support of her album Before the Poison. The tour took her to The Town Hall, New York (March 12) and in the following days Park West, Chicago and the Henry Fonda Theater, Los Angeles. The diary charts Faithfull’s busy Parisian life during the early months of 2005 be… Read more…

A remarkable multi-national vellum-bound autograph book and album that witnesses the moment when General Allenby captured Jerusalem in December 1917, ending 400 years of Ottoman rule and establishing British control over Palestine during World War I. Apparently compiled by a Jewish woman called Shulamith Shabtai whose name appears repeatedly as wel… Read more…

An archive of affectionate, funny and deeply personal hand-written postcards and letters spanning the years 1972 - 1984, sent from American singer, dancer and actress Eartha Kitt to close friends Stewart and Peter Harries. The Harries brothers were part of Kitt's inner circle who often hosted her and collaborated professionally on various projects.… Read more…

A signed, framed Certificate presented in 2014 to the singer-songwriter Marianne Faithfull by the artist and musician Yoko Ono, recognising that ‘You have been put through the thorns of scorn and misunderstanding... Your work as a creator of music, actor and performer has shown like a beacon in the world...’ - sentiments that might apply as much to… Read more…

Four page setting of Feste’s song ‘Come Away, Death’ from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Written over four oblong octavo pages (a bifolium extracted from a book of printed manuscript paper) with prettily embossed borders. Neukomm sets the music for a low voice over two verses and with a keyboard accompaniment that introduces and ends his setting. At… Read more…

A remarkable and mystical unpublished short story written in April 1898 by a young woman called ‘Ecila’ - presumably a reversal of her actual name, Alice - which presents as a sort of adolescent fever dream in which the young woman is led through a mystical landscape, distracted by Sensuality and finally arrives at a vision of the Goddess Truth. Th… Read more…