Shop — page 2 of 3

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…

Oswald Birley’s painting-saturated diary written in the winter months of his year abroad in the Mediterranean which records his obsession with Velasquez who would go on to inspire the artist’s enormously successful practice, as well as offering an eye witness account of the Friday ceremonial of the penultimate Ottoman Sultan. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:… 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…

Portfolio of signed comic and erotic sketches by the Nebraskan born artist Clarence Anderson, compiled while living in Washington Square in New York City. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: The sketches are housed in an ‘Anchor Clasp Envelope’ on which Anderson has written ‘Rough Sketches C.W. Anderson 41 Wash[ington’ Sq[uare] New York City.’ Old repairs to edg… Read more…

Alexander Todd’s personal archive including school prizes from Glasgow schooldays, his Nobel Prize lecture and dozens of retained copies of his papers and speeches. Alexander R Todd (1907-1997) was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the synthesis of nucleotides - the groundwork for Watson and Crick’s elucidation of DNA. Born… 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…

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. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Folio-sized manuscript which has been copied by its author from the original document in… Read more…

Congratulatory letters to Sir Alfred Stanley Fordham K.B.E., C.M.G. (1907-81) who was educated at Eton and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge  before joining the Foreign Service and becoming a career diplomat. He was Vice-Consul in San Francisco in 1932. Other stations in his career included Lima (1933–1936), Guatemala (1936–1943), Los Angeles (… Read more…

165 pieces of Conservative Party electoral ephemera gathered together by the victorious candidate in the General Election of 1922 in East Dorset. It is a collection of original letters (handwritten and typed), postcards, telegrams and cables sent to Gordon Ralph Hall Caine on his election victory for the East Dorset seat. The letters have been tipp… Read more…

Manuscript fair copy of the German classical scholar Johan Georg Graevius’s commentary on Suetonius Lives of the Caesars, possibly compiled by someone with connections to Graevius himself. No later than the mid 18th century this is an imposing manuscript with an end note that appears to read: ‘Datore officiore codillos’ - suggesting it might be the… Read more…

Minutes of an important but almost forgotten organisation, the ‘Medical Defence Association’, a collective, well-supported attempt made in Britain by members of the profession in the 1870s to target and outlaw malpractice and charlatanry by purported members of the medical profession. Predating the better known Medical Defence Union, the first minu… Read more…

‘Reminiscences of HMS Gloucester. Commissioned at Plymouth 30th January 1913 - NOT FOR PUBLICATION’, a diary cum memoir seemingly intended as a rejoinder against those who criticised the inactivity of the British navy during the early years of the Great War. This small folio, 349pp, originally intended as a W/T Cabinet Log book is full of well pres… Read more…

Autograph manuscript bound up with a bespoke typed transcript of Arthur Symons’ essay on translation, cased by Sangorski and Sutcliffe. This manuscript essay does not appear to have been published, and previously formed part of the collection of the bibliophile and performer Barry Humphries who had a particular interest in the theory and practice o… Read more…

An extensive collection of diaries, photographs, blueprints, letters and documents - and even a painted sample sheet of Longwood’s famous wallpaper from the 1920s - which together record the rescue and rebuilding of Napoleon Bonaparte’s dilapidated home on St Helena. Longwood housed Napoleon from December 1815 to his death in 1821, was bought by th… 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…

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…

A volume of love poetry written by a young Liberal politician who had fallen head over heels with the glamorous, newly single opera singer, renowned for her performances in Gilbert and Sullivan operas. A note laid into the volume reveals that it featured on BBC Antiques Road Show in February 2007. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Beautiful, bespoke vellum bin… 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…

An interesting vellum bound handwritten early text in very good condition. Attractive limp vellum binding, sound if a little discoloured. Remnants of spine supports laced into velum cover remain visible as are remnants of previous ties close to foreedge. Spine hand titled in brown ink ‘Ronda in Logicum’ [Logical Cycle]. Front endpapers cracking ove… Read more…

A personal account book belonging to Henry Collingwood Selby (1748 -1839) of Swansfield House, Alnwick and Holy Island covering the period circa. 1777 -1797. Page after page records his observations and his financial dealings with the great, good and notable persons of the area. Names and places are peppered throughout. Money is lent to Dr Thomas P… Read more…

Ernest Shackleton's Heart Of The Antarctic Nimrod Expedition frontispiece signed by 16 crew members including the expedition leader Shackleton himself, Adams, Mackintosh, etc. Other signers include, in alphabetical order: Jameson Adams; Bertram Armytage; Philip Brocklehurst; Bernard Day; Ernest Joyce; Alistair Mackay; Aeneas Mackintosh; Eric Marsha… Read more…

Inscribed with drawings and doodles by the artistic super-couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the unveiling of Rivera’s newly completed masterpiece, the Detroit Industry Murals at the city’s Institute of Art, early in 1933. With these drawings into a child’s autograph album, made a few days before their departure for New York City, Kahlo and Riv… Read more…

Late Victorian album recording a walk undertaken by two friends from Land’s End to Weymouth. J H Evans and H Marchant set off on Monday July 1 st 1889 and arrived at their destination on Saturday July 13 th 1889, having departed Paddington at 1145 am on Saturday June 29 th arriving in Penzance and overnighting before heading to Land’s End. The albu… Read more…

Young Anglesey man’s meticulously and decoratively laid out, hand written mathematical manuscript: full of calculations, rules and answers divided into sections titled Rule of Three in Decimals, Interest, Commission, Purchasing of Stocks, Compound Interest, Discount, Equation of Payments, Barter and Fellowship. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Half bound marb… Read more…

Strong early 18th century commonplace book compiled by an educated adult reader of contemporary and near-contemporary English language writers who include John Wilkins, Thomas Browne, John Locke, Pascal (a French exception), Dryden and Congreve, but most strikingly of all, Shakespeare. The manuscript writer quotes from Hamlet's greatest soliloquy,… Read more…