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A remarkably rich wartime sketch-book in which John Piper recorded his 1943 summer tour of Devon and Cornwall in the company of Geoffrey Grigson, sketched Welsh landscapes as well as the Victorian villas and churches of the English Midlands while he stayed at Renishaw Hall, home of his friends Edith and Osbert Sitwell. Piper’s sketches include chur… Read more…

Twelve year diary (1907-1919) of a distinguished Scottish servant of the British Empire, who represented Scotland as an international footballer in the very earliest of all competitive matches with England in 1870 - and loathed his ministerial boss, the young Winston Churchill. Scion of the aristocratic Baillie-Hamilton family (Earls of Haddington)… Read more…

A 10 page manuscript extract from Talbot Rothwell’s original screenplay for Carry on Cleo together with his hilarious typescript proposal/ synopsis of the movie and a full ‘First Draft’ typescript screenplay which contains perhaps the earliest appearance of the oft-voted funniest ever line, ‘Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.’ Talbot Rot… Read more…

Unknown except for a single copy held by the De Morgan Foundation, this is a full length memoir written by the artist and writer Emilie Russell Barrington in which she recalls her decades-long friendship with the preeminent Arts and Crafts designer, potter and friend of William Morris, William de Morgan. In this memoir which she wrote in the final… Read more…

Two sketchbooks drawn and painted by the children’s author Alison Uttley and two by her husband James whose early death, she would later claim, inspired and necessitated Uttley’s prolific output. The first sketchbook records Alison Uttley’s honeymoon with James Uttley when they travelled along the south coast of England and matches the third item i… Read more…

20 letters and notes from the artist Eric Gill to his friend the publisher, book collector and artistic patron of his work, Desmond Flower. In these letters Gill writes about his work at the BBC and creating a sculpture on the Lancashire coast in Morecambe, makes corrections and emendations to his book Art Nonsense which was published by Flower’s f… Read more…

The artist William Hatherell’s collection of letters and documents relating to his work as an illustrator in the 1890s-1920s. Among c70 items is Hatherell’s retained copy of a famous letter to him by Thomas Hardy praising his 1895 illustrations for Jude the Obscure, which the novelist wrote ‘to express my sincere admiration for the illustrations of… Read more…

Seven lively and affectionate letters from a pioneer in British 20th century art written to a lifelong friend, accompanied by a small portrait watercolour depicting Pauline Konody in their art school days in Nottingham. Knight writes warmly and sympathetically to Konody, sharing her excitement at big commissions including her work on a big portrait… Read more…

A fascinating group of correspondence, ephemera and even a plan of his Halifax mansion, Belle Vue, which was retained by Charles Trollope as a memento of his time as Commander of British Forces in Nova Scotia in the late 1850s. This includes the first ever telegram received in Halifax via the Nova Scotia Electric Telegraph Company. The telegraph wa… Read more…

A unique and extraordinary record of the life of an English explorer and adventurer in Patagonia between 1907 and 1920 who worked out of Puerto Prat between 1907 and 1914 and then Ultima Esperanza until 1920. Willis’s Patagonian life is told through his very large album (31x26cmx8cm) that he filled with photographs, panoramas, letters, a dance card… Read more…

A very busy, comprehensively revised, first draft autograph manuscript comprising nearly half of Raven’s second novel from his witty and scabrous novel sequence, Alms for Oblivion. Perhaps on account of his rackety later years Raven’s manuscripts do not appear to be represented in any of the major research libraries; this one was gifted to a ‘Dr Sc… Read more…

A heavily corrected full-length typescript of George Steiner’s magnum opus on translation bearing around 500-700 autograph emendations and additions to the text. These range from single word corrections to full paragraphs in Steiner’s hand. The typescript comes from the estate of Elsa Southern, Steiner’s longterm secretary and assistant in Cambridg… Read more…

Appointments diary from their family home in Lord North Street, Westminster, of Mary Wilson, wife of the past and future Prime Minister Harold Wilson, during his phase as Leader of the Opposition to Edward Heath’s Tory government in 1973. From dinners with Lord Goodman to her packing list for the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool in October 1973… 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…

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…

Autograph manuscript, typescript, corrected proofs and supportive letters from Sir John Betjeman to the author of this memoir of Papa Stour who met her during a visit to the island and helped see the book through to publication. Stella Shepherd and her husband Dennis who illustrated her book moved to Papa Stour in the Shetlands in 1962, to become,… 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…

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…

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…

A remarkable memento of the creative presence of the artistic super-couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera - ‘equals and accomplices’ as they were described - in the mid-western city of Detroit, early in 1933. With these drawings into a young woman’s autograph album, made a few days before their departure for New York, Kahlo and Rivera marked the clos… Read more…

An extraordinary memento of the creative presence of the artistic super-couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera - ‘equals and accomplices’ as they were described - in the mid-western city of Detroit, early in 1933. With these drawings into a young woman’s autograph album, made a few days before their departure for New York, Kahlo and Rivera marked the… Read more…

Visually fascinating photographic diary written by an officer with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps who - against all rules - took a camera to the front which allowed him to record the Battle of El Alamein (1942) as well as the chaotic British evacuation from St Nazaire (1940) from where he offers an eye witness account of the sinking of HMS Lancastri… Read more…

Private journal of an English aristocrat, recent Cambridge graduate, Mayfair-resident, avid ball and theatre-goer and, paradoxically, future husband of the socialist and suffragist Ruth St Maur with whom he parented the 8th and 9th Dukes of Portland. Known by his third given name, Frederick - William George Frederick Cavendish Bentinck (1856-1948)… Read more…

A singular early nineteenth century letterbook that centres on a polemical essay sent to Thomas Brand, 20th Baron Dacre, on the state of the British nation and the need for multiple reforms, notably parliamentary reform which would be achieved in the Great Reform Act only two years later. To the rear of the volume Dacre’s thoughtful reponse to his… Read more…

An exceptionally high-powered album recording the activities of an intellectual country-house salon, compiled by Ursula Denison, nee Bridgeman (1823-1883) and offering stellar contributions by the intellectual friends that she shared with her archaeologist, politician and diplomat husband. Albert Denison, 1st Baron Londesborough (1805-1860) was the… Read more…