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Richly decorated World War I nurse’s album compiled in one of the largest war hospitals in England. Green quarto-sized album bound in green roan, spine recently renewed; gold patterned endpapers with the booksellers’ label to front flyleaf of ‘Military Parade Bookshop.... Marlborough’. A manuscript title page is the first of 64 leaves of drawings a… Read more…

Official record of the commissioning and fund raising for Halifax’s memorial to the last war of the 19th century. Minute book bound in quarter leather binding in very good condition with rubbing to edges and top and tail of spine. Marbled end papers and all edges. This offers a manuscript record of the proceedings of the committee for the soldiers’… Read more…

Sketchbook containing scenes of the area around St Petersburg by the wife of an English merchant in Russia during the early 19th century. Landscape format sketchbook (approx 11" x 7") containing 35 tissue-guarded sketches. Bound in contemporary half red roan over faded marbled boards with a working clasp. Bookseller’s ticket of ‘H.W. Burgess No 134… Read more…

Working notebook containing letters and photographs compiled by the writer Francesca Claremont for her full length biography of Catherine of Aragon, published in 1939 by Robert Hale. Quarto sized notebook (22.5 × 17cm) containing about 100 pages of postcards, handwritten notes, and expert correspondence about Henry VIII’s first queen. Chipping to t… Read more…

Remarkable collection of Tibetan Sherpa art collected, and possibly commissioned, by a member of Sir Edward Hillary’s ‘Silver Hut’ expedition to Mount Makulu in the Himalayas, including an image of the mountaineers scaling the peak. This collection is introduced by its owner, an unidentified member of Hillary’s 1960 expedition (possibly George Lowe… Read more…

Remarkably extensive Eliott Kastner archive of the production of Pierce Brosnan’s first leading role in which he played a French anthropologist in New York who discovers a group of urban nomads who are not who they seem. The pile of documents sits 10 inches thick and comprises, in brief: Production - Central Files Kastner: Chain of Title original a… Read more…

Commonwealth period Manorial Court Book for the district of ‘Sutton Outsoken’ in central Norfolk detailing fines against manorial custom as well as transfers of copyhold property. Small folio size manuscript bound in a reused vellum indenture from 1623. Manuscript title to front cover: ‘1650 usqe 1660’ - 1650 up to 1660 - with the letter ‘D’ below.… Read more…

Diaries of an elite Downing Street secretary or ‘Garden Room Girl’ who served in Whitehall under Winston Churchill and worked at No 10 under Clement Attlee, 1945-1946. Two small diaries. 1. Lorimer’s Ruby Diary, inscribed on the cover ‘B.Crisp 1940’ and on the flyleaf: ‘Belinda Crisp If found please return without turning this page over’, mostly pe… Read more…

Manuscript records from one of the world’s oldest architectural societies containing hundreds of signatures of leading members of the association including the architect of the Walker Art Gallery. Quarto manuscript book, half green morocco over marbled boards, stationer’s ticket of ‘Joseph A D Watts... Liverpool’ on marbled front endpaper with deta… Read more…

Early manuscript copy - apparently English in origin - of a French novel of diabolic seduction that has inspired everyone from Jacques Lacan to Jonny Depp. Small quarto (16.5x20.5cm) bound in (likely) English full sheep, rubbed with some loss close to outer hinges but boards remain well attached. No decoration apart from a gilt roll to the edge of… Read more…

Seventeenth century manuscript collection from the library of the Yorkshire antiquary William Constable which combines a key document of the Glorious Revolution, a herald painter’s workbook and an early copy of the most comprehensive study of a feudal court. Small folio bound in half calf over marbled boards, extensively rubbed, strengthening to up… Read more…

Unrecorded auction catalogue for the ‘stock in trade’ - sherry, port, ‘coniac brandy’, rum and gin - from a recently deceased St Albans wine merchant, annotated by the auctioneer with the prices achieved. The printed catalogue is octavo size (21x13cm), made up of two bifolia loosely inserted to make 8 printed pages. There is soiling to the outer le… Read more…

Substantial bound manuscript by the poet David Gascoyne (1916-2001) together with an archive of photographs, letters from Gascoyne and his wife Judy Gascoyne and from Alan Clodd of the Enitharmon Press and many others. This collection which dates from David Gascoyne’s later years was acquired by his friend the society photographer Pamela Chandler (… Read more…

Napoleonic War manuscript ship’s log for a British warship in the Mediterranean that would be used shortly afterwards to transport convicts to New South Wales (1819) and Van Diemen’s Land (1821) in Australia. The folio-sized ship’s log comprises two disbound sections of a notebook of a junior British naval officer’s training logbook from 1814. Manu… Read more…

Extensively illustrated Midshipman’s log book of a return voyage from England to Madras with drawings of an albatross-shoot, whale-ships burning oil, a mirage at sea and a sequence of coastal views including St Helena and Tristan da Cunha. Folio-sized manuscript which has been copied by its author from the original document into a printed skeleton… Read more…

Order of Battle from 1792 of the Prince of Conde’s emigre army which was dedicated to over-throwing the French revolutionary government and restoring Louis XVI and the Bourbon monarchy. A single sheet of water-marked chain-lined paper (42x33 cm) bearing a diagrammatic hand-drawn, pen and ink outline of the disposition of the forces of the Prince of… Read more…

Wonderfully silly, satirical guide to the clergy on how NOT to preach, kneel, bless (and most other clerical activities) written by the priest-organist of a leading London church. Croft has used a small quarto-sized exercise book bound in quarter black roan over marbled boards with his manuscript title label and name to the upper cover. Slightly di… Read more…

Manuscript record of a quarter century of secret service by a member of the Corps of King’s Home Service Messengers during the Napoleonic Wars. Small quarto (16.5x20.5cm) covering the quarter century 1795-1822 bound in discoloured vellum with the single word ‘Home’ on a decorative red morocco label to the upper cover. According to Wheeler-Holohan’s… Read more…

A document of the Irish diaspora: a physics manuscript, with strong Newtonian content, written by an Irishman obliged to attend university - the Irish College - in France in the 1770s. Bound in dyed Irish green vellum with the remnants of an inscription in black ink to the upper cover and an old spine label. Splitting along outer hinges does not af… Read more…

Presentation volume inscribed by a distinguished roster of 1000 scientists and officials of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research as a retirement present for its founder. Expensively bound with Frank Heath’s initials on the upper cover, all edges gilt, manuscript title page and 50 card leaves. Vellum-bound list of signers in rear poc… Read more…

Fair copy in French from the 1740s of much of Rollin’s Histoire Ancienne together with an original continuation of the work up to the present day: ‘De L’histoire depuis. J.[esus] C[hrist]’ which deals with ‘Le Royaume d’Angleterre’ and the execution of Mary Stuart by Elizabeth I. Small quarto bound in parchment over pasteboard with traces of printe… Read more…

Autograph note to novelist Andre Maurois who translated Mrs Dalloway into French and wrote an essay on Woolf that introduced her work to the Francophone world. Woolf writes on a small blue, oblong sheet of ‘Strathdon’ watermarked paper on 14th June 1932. She states that she has seen Cory Bell (older brother of her sister Vanessa Bell’s husband the… Read more…

A Yorkshire woollen weaver’s day-book, a small octavo bound in brown leather over board, grazing to panels with rubbing to edges and top of spine; binding sound. Front endpapers comprise a printed ‘Almanack for 1854’ and ‘Commercial Stamps, Taxes &c, Sold by John Baildon, Bookseller, Bull Green, Halifax’. Overleaf a contemporary hand-written ink in… Read more…

A lifetime's financial records of the third member of the Gladstone family to own Fasque House in Aberdeenshire. Lord Lieutenant of Kincardineshire and the third Baronet, Sir John Robert Gladstone was the son of Sir Thomas Gladstone (elder brother of William Ewart Gladstone) and grandson of the Scottish business tycoon Sir John Gladstone who founde… Read more…

Stirring 1925 manuscript speech to Scottish veterans made by Britain's commander on the western front in which he urged Scotland's soldiers to look after each other in peacetime - 'the hardest battle of their lives' - even as they readied themselves for the moment 'when storm and peril once more threaten our beloved country, men such as they, may o… Read more…