Shop — page 7 of 34

The headmistress’s copies of a sequence of otherwise unrecorded Cambridge University printed and compiled manuscript reports (30 in total) on a pioneering London school for girls. Queen’s College, London in fashionable Harley Street is a girl’s school founded for governesses, and then open to any young woman, started in 1848 and numbering Gertrude… Read more…

A moralising chapbook dated Stockport, November, 1837. Homemade, vernacular, card wrappers in very good condition with old folds. Hand stitched to the printed leaves and inscribed on the wrapper: ‘Mess.rs Geo Wilson & Co’ in black ink. Vignette of a blacksmith at work on the title page. 12 pages all intact, in very good condition. Read more…

23-page pamphlet dedicated to the description and promotion of the R. 100 commercial airship, the first ever designed for world operation, designed and constructed in Howden, Yorkshire by the Airship Guarantee Company, Ltd, Maiden flight on the morning of 16 th December 1929. A little wear and darkening to the edges of the original, illustrated pri… Read more…

First Edition of the translation of a unique Arabic Manuscript on archery of circa. A.D. 1500 which is part of the Garret Collection of manuscripts in Princeton University Library. Includes an inlaid note card stamped and dated Princeton, August 11th 1942 to Dr Robert Elmer from the author, signed Nabih. In very good plus condition with very slight… Read more…

Letters home from a second generation Glaswegian surgeon describing the ‘horrors of war’ he experienced in China as a Naval Surgeon during the Taiping Uprising of 1861-2. The Rebellion - actually a pan-Chinese civil war - was the most bloodthirsty conflict of the 19th century, estimated to have cost between 20 and 30 million lives and Grieve’s rema… Read more…

A collection of 32 interleaved playscripts and cookbooks, technical handbooks, pocket almanacs, botanicals and bibliography which contains hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of work freely given by the books’ owners as they added to the printed texts on subjects as diverse as gothic architecture, early music, surgery, roses, illicit marriages, a… 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…

A beautiful set of Davies’ 48 photogravure plates depicting the Norfolk Broads still in their original portfolios as first issued, with a distinguished Norfolk provenance. These beautiful and evocative photographs by ‘the man who found the Broads’, (Charles Carrodus) are the works of the first of the great Broads photographers and a landmark in Eng… 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…

The first printing of one of the most important 19th century Acts of the British Parliament which ended the slave trade in 1807. The passing of this bill into law on 25 March 1807 marked a turning point in the campaign led by William Wilberforce against this cruellest of trades transporting human cargoes between Africa, the West Indies and the Amer… 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…

True first edition, first issue of E M Forster's family saga with the motto 'Only Connect', considered by many to be his masterpiece. This edition has absolute primacy with four pages only of advertisements following the printed text - in the second issue from later in 1910 the advertisements extend to eight pages and include a notice of this novel… Read more…

A selection of 37 window-mounted, hand coloured views around Regent’s Park in a super-luxurious bespoke Sotheran’s binding. Chunky square format (25x25cm) bound in crushed red morocco with gilt lettering, raised spine bands - a little fading to the spine. Marbled endpapers with red morocco turn-ins and slight off-setting to the marbling. Card leave… 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…

Rare collection of psalms and hymns printed for the Chapel of the Magdalen Hospital in Southwark in London ‘for the Reception of Penitent Prostitutes’. One of the reformed prostitutes is depicted in the frontispiece - the young women who sung these hymns were shielded from view in the octagonal chapel from behind a curtain. The Magdalen Chapel beca… Read more…

Annotated Cambridge edition of Julius Caesar owned by the life long Shakespearian George ‘Dadie’ Rylands who began directing Shakespeare at school, oversaw professional recordings of the plays at Cambridge and schooled in Shakespeare some of the leading actors of the twentieth century. In association with the Marlowe Society and a group of professi… Read more…

The first two parts of the Journal of the earliest British club specifically constituted to explore caves. This is one of twelve copies made using carbon paper and containing original silver gelatin photographs as illustrations, painstakingly tipped into each of the copies. There were the only two issues of this journal published but we cannot loca… Read more…

William Parson’s 1826 Leeds Directory, owned and inscribed by a Leeds butcher and a female family member also from a butchering family - both of whom are referenced in the printed text. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONl: Small octavo bound in half black roan; fold out map of Leeds is present but detached. Signatures of ‘John Cockshott Farsley 1826’ and ‘Mary A… Read more…

From the library of a distinguished British scholar of Ezra Pound, this collection of essays has been inscribed by its editor the poet Peter Russell: ‘For mother with love from Peter [Russell] October 30th, 1950 - the date of publication, being the sixty fifth birthday of Ezra Pound’ with Russell’s ownership stamp and ‘Please return to’ above - no… Read more…

Early edition in pleasingly unsophisticated contemporary sheep binding, unadorned except with blind rules Small octavo in very good early 18th century full sheep, just starting at the tail of the hinge between front board and spine; no pastedowns; engraved title page on verso of A1, as if functioning as a frontispiece; fraying to foreedge of this l… Read more…

First English edition in black buckram publisher’s binding with gilt lettering to spine in near fine condition with very slight bumping to top and bottom of spine. Dust jacket in very good condition with small tear to top of spine and wrinkling to spine and front cover. A translation of the 1961 Russian first edition containing additional amendment… 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 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…