Showing 16260 results

Letter from John Ruskin of Denmark Hill to an unnamed correspondent, 29 Mar [1864]. Recalling the gracious reception he had once been accorded at Bradford [Mar 1859], thanking him for his compliments and for an invitation to lecture there again [Apr 1864]: 'I can't say pretty things any more...If you will let me say a few simple things in a quiet way I'll come, if my health permits me ...' Autograph, with signature. Written on black-edged paper [Ruskin's father died on 3 Mar 1864].

Letter from Raymond Wilson Chambers of University College London, Gower Street, London to Dr [H F] Heath, Registrar of the University of London, Jun 1901. Concerning Chambers's duties as a supervisor at University examinations and referring to his work in the library at University College.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from John Ivatt Briscoe of Twickenham, [Middlesex] to an unknown recipient, 29 Apr 1828. Referring to the bill for better regulation of savings banks: making 3 points concerning security, liability of trustees, and the advantages of exact legal regulation. Autograph, with signature.

3 letters from Henry George Grey (3rd Earl Grey) of Howick, [Northumberland] to J L Ricardo MP, 16 Jun-4 Jul 1855. Dealing mainly with a free trade agreement between Barbados and Canada, and a proposed loan to Turkey.

Autograph, with signature. With 1 envelope.

Letter from Eden Phillpotts of Eltham, Torquay, [Devon] to Miss Vulliamy, 18 Oct 1901. 'May I come begging for a cause very near my heart? The memorial to Mr [R D] Blackmore is now an accomplished fact & it only remains to test the number of those who admired his work ...'

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from George Chalmers of the Office for Trade, Whitehall to T Cadell, Esq, publisher, 17 Feb 1821. Referring to Chalmers's work Caledonia.

Autograph, with signature.

(1) Letter from John Mitchell of 35 Wimpole Street, [London], to W M Maude, 24 May 1820. 'The Pamphlet you were so obliging to send me, I have read with great attention; and I think the reasoning of it so sound that I intend to vote for Lord Sutton's motion ...' ; autograph, with signature.

(2) Covering note from [W M Maude] to John Mitchell, [c1820]. Accompanying a 3rd edition of James Bischoff's pamphlet Reasons for the immediate repeal of the tax on foreign wool (1820); note undated and unsigned.

Letter from James Yates of Lauderdale House, Highgate, London to Samuel [A Thompson Yates], [1861-1871]. Mentioning 5s 6d paid to Mr Sackett for 'the engraving of Baskerville ... A person named Matthews in Birmingham has published a new edition of the view of the houses at Birmingham, which were destroyed at the Riots [of 1791 against Joseph Priestley and other non-conformists]. One of these is a view of Baskerville House. It [the house] was purchased and enlarged by Mr John Ryland, and in that state was destroyed by the mob ...'

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Sir thomas Bernard of Wimpole Street, [London] to Samuel Parkes, chemist, 20 Nov 1816. Thanking him for making corrections to Bernard's proposals for the repeal of the salt duties. Autograph, with signature. The blank leaf is endorsed: 'Sir Thos. Bernard, 22d Nov. 1816'.

Letter from Thomas Clarkson of Woodbridge, [Suffolk] to Peter Clare of Manchester, 21 Apr 1826. Thanking him for details of a successful petition: 'Yours indeed is a great triumph, when you consider the opposition, if I may so call it, of the Boroughreeve ... It was much the case at Glasgow, where the hireling [James] Macqueen, the Editor of a Glasgow paper [?Glasgow Herald], and pensioned by two of the West Indian legislatures, and a host of W. India planters owners of West Indiamen and coopers, mechanics working for that employ resided ... There is ... something so good in our cause [the abolition of slavery], that it must always make its way among a moral people.

Autograph, with signature.

7 letters, mainly written to Marian Evans, [1860]-1874. Correspondents include Sir Edward C Burne-Jones, Sir Frederic Burton, John Chapman, George Henry Lewes, Edmund Owen, Herbert Spencer and Sir Charles V Stanford. Several of the letters express appreciation of the quality of George Eliot's writing.

All letters are autograph, with signatures.

Letter from William Wilberforce of Iver, Buckinghamshire to the [? Home Office], 2 Aug 1823. Asking for 'Mr. Peele' [i.e. the Home Secretary, Robert Peel, later Sir Robert Peel] to consider 'the application of several highly respectable people in favour of Geo. Fish [convicted at Hull] ... that instead of being transported for 7 years according to his sentence, he may be placed in the Penitentiary in the not unreasonable hope that the principles which were instilled into him in his childhood may there be reviv'd'. Requesting that any decision be communicated to him at Elmdon House near Coventry.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from George MacDonald of 39 Melville Street, Edinburgh to Mr [Robert] Balgarnie, 21 Jun 1885. Thanking him for an invitation, which he hopes to accept. 'I suppose the month of August would do for Scarborough - but so far we are not even sure that we shall not be in Bordighera before the end of that month. We are getting very good gatherings here.'

Autograph, with signature.

6 letters written by Thomas Campbell, c 1815-1841. Correspondents include Lord Jeffrey [Francis Jeffrey], Cyrus Redding and Bess Campbell. Topics covered include social engagements and Campbell's health.

All items are autograph, with signatures.

Letter from Thomas Hoskins Webb of Camden, Maine to Joseph Hume, 11 Aug 1849. Thanking him for his 'kind attention to my inquiries relative to the important subject of Postal Reform'; sending him a copy of a pamphlet issued by 'our Free [sic] Postage Association, wherein you will find an extract from one of your letters to me, and in an Appendix the statistics by you kindly funished'; offering to send extra copies should Hume or Mr Rowland Hill desire any. Webb mentions 'another subject or project designed for the public good. I mean a "People's Library". Altho' we abound in Charitable, Literary, and Scientific Institutions, we have nothing of this description. We have Athenaeums, Social Libraries, Circulating Do., Mercantile Do., Apprentices' Do., Historical Do., but not one People's Library... The great mass of the community, the People, emphatically so called, have no right of admission to any of these places...'.

Autograph, with signature. A note in another hand states that a reply was made on 28 Aug 1849; initialled: 'D'.

Letter from Sir Samuel Romilly of Gray's Inn, London to John Baynes (also of Gray's Inn), Embsay Kirk, near Skipton, Yorkshire, 2 Sep 1785. Regrets but excuses Baynes's silence: '... if [the lakes in Cumberland] are half as beautiful as they are described to be I dont wonder yt you cannot turn yr attention to anything yt is enveloped in y smoke of London... I have heard a gr[ea]t deal since you have been gone abt our friend y Count [i.e. Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau] tho not from himself or his belle amie [Henriette-Amélie Van Haren, Madame de Nehra]. That great deal, however is only a great many books wch he had written ...'. Mentioning a work of Mirabeau's that had been banned in France. 'Have you seen [John] Adams, the American ambassador [later US President]? I dined y o[the]r day in compy with him and his wife and w[ha]t is much better his dau[ghte]r who is so pretty ... As for y Fa[the]r he is quite M. l'Ambassadeur and seems afraid to say any thing without mystery lest one sho[ul]d find out yt he is not of a higher order of beings that oneself'. Discussing the state of patent law in respect of new inventions and examines way of making it more beneficial to patentees. Concludes with remembrances 'to our good friend Dome'.

Autograph, with signature. Endorsed with the name: Thomas G Whytehead.

Letter from Michel Chasles of Paris to Augustus De Morgan, 31 Aug 1852. On mathematical matters.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Robert Bald of Edinburgh to Joseph Hume MP, 27 Apr 1826. Excusing his silence 'but ... I have been uncommonly pressed with mineral surveying and reporting thereon arising in a great degree from the conflicting elements which arise betwixt master and servant. Coals rise in price to an exorbitant rate, and the great manufacturing interests of Glasgow & chief consumers of coal there agreed to have the districts surveyed as to the means of supplying the City with abundance of coal at a moderate rate, and to lay rail ways into the coals fields which were the best'. He encloses "two copies of the treatise I wrote regarding the coal trade of Scotland and the slavish system of bearing coals by women. I have been attacked and run down for doing so: this I care nothing about ...'. Autograph, with signature.

Letter from T Guinier of Societe l'Avenir Realiste, 23 rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honore, Paris to Frere Hubert, 15 Jul 1868. Covering letter to copies of the brochure Realisme Social, detailing subscription rates: 'en vous priant de bien vouloir utiliser les uns et les autres de la maniare qui vous paraetre le plus fructeux [sic] pour assurer la propagation de nos idees et la reussite de notre A'uvre de regeneration social'.

Autograph, with signature. A note states that the letter was answered on 19 Jul 1868.

Letter from William Cooke Taylor of the National Anti-Corn Law League, 67 Fleet Street, London to [John Lewis] Ricardo, [MP for Stoke-upon-Trent], 15 Mar 1844. Announcing that 'the Somerset House School of Design has given a very favourable hearing to the proposal for establishing a branch in the Potteries ... If you persevere in your design of offering a prize for model or pattern, which I believe would be of great value to your constitutents & certainly highly creditable to yourself, I would deem it a favour ... to announce your intention in one of my articles'. Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Michel Chasles of Paris to Augustus De Morgan, 4 Oct 1852. On mathematical matters.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Richard Cobden of Manchester to Mr [?George] Moffatt, 23 Dec 1845. 'Not a word passed between [Earl] Grey and me upon any other subject than corn - I called on him solely for the purpose of urging the Whigs to stick to our principle, and to explain that the League could not swerve a hairs breadth from its path of Total and Immediate to suit any party. This is all that passed - [Viscount] Palmerstons name was of course never mentioned or referred to ... The Whigs are lower than ever by this exhibition of impracticableness at a moment when every other question ought to have been suspended at least till they had dealt some-how or other with that food crisis which alone called them into place and alone warranted them in assuming a power which otherwise they did not possess. At such a time to squabble over seats at the Council board! If I had been Lord John [Russell], history should have rather said of me that I had sent into the parish vestryroom for a dozen select men of the parish to form my cabinet, until I could in my place in Parlt. birng on the total repeal of the corn law, than that I had allowed any two or even twelve men to stop me in my course when once pledged to such an undertaking'.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from John Lunan of Spanish Town, [Jamaica] to Rear-Admiral Sir Home Popham, 15 Oct 1819. Sending a copy of his book, which 'he flatters himself ... may assist Sir Home in obtaining a knowledge of our Slave Code'.

Autograph, unsigned.

Letter from Cornelius Walford of 86 Belsize Park Gardens, London to Professor [Herbert Somerton] Foxwell, Cambridge, 14 Sep 1882. The J P Esqre referred to in the preface is James Postlethwayte. He is supposed to have calculated the table of probability contained in the work.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from George Warde Norman of the Bank of England to [Edward Pleydell-]Bouverie, 3 Mar 1870. Thanking him for his good opinion 'as to my pamphlet on Comparative Taxation'; undertakes to send him 'a small volume of Papers, which I had printed for distribution last autumn ... [I] feel that my literary career is over'.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from W G Burns of Derby to Colonel [Thomas Perronet] Thompson, 23 Feb 1846. 'As I think it [a] pity you should be ignorant [of] the nature of the arguments [u]rged against free trade principles I send you a specimen of [w]hat a clerical opponent can [d]o ...'

Autograph, with signature. Written on the dorse of the title page and the end fly leaf of a pamphlet [by Henry Robert Crewe] The repeal of the Corn Laws (1846).

Letter from John Ramsay McCulloch of the Stationery Office to [S J Loyd], Baron Overstone, 23 Mar 1863. Covering letter accompanying a proof copy of the 3rd edition of McCulloch's Treatise on the principles and practical influence of taxation and the funding system (1863); McCulloch has 'marked the passages which I think would answer best for reference'.

Written in another hand and signed by McCulloch.

Letter from Henry Roberts of 31 Prince's Square, Kensington Gardens, London to C C Nelson, 16 Mar 1861. 'The lecture which you attended some months since at the So[uth] Kensington Museum [now the Victoria and Albert Museum] has just been published by the Ladies' Sanitary Association [under the title Healthy Dwellings]'.

Autograph, with signature.

6 letters from Richard Doddridge Blackmore of Gomer House, Teddington, [Middlesex] to Blackmore's publishers, Messrs Smith, Elder and Co of 15 Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, London, 1876-1879. Mainly concerning the publication and sales of Blackmore's novel Erema (1877). All letters are autograph, with signatures (except the last, from which the signature appears to have been cut away).

Letter from Thomas Clarkson of Playford [Hall, Suffolk] to Dykes Alexander, c 1830-1840. 'I am going to do a thing, which through delicacy I have never yet been able to do, though I have been at Playford for twenty three years; - that is, to ask you and your cousin Samuel [Alexander] to give a trifle, however small, to the inclosed case...'.

Autograph, with signature. Dated 'Friday afternoon'. With a list of charitable subscribers, including William Allen '... and your son Richard has fiven me a sovereign unasked ...'.

Letter from George Rose of Old Palace Green to John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield, 11 May 1814. Covering letter accompanying a printed copy of a speech delivered by Rose in the House of Commons on 5 May 1814, in favour of the status quo with respect to Corn Laws. He states: 'I am for a full and fair protecting price to the grower'.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from John Woodrow of the Cannon Hotel, Cockspur Street to [Patrick] Colquhoun, 26 May 1818. Covering letter sending a copy of his pamphlet on savings banks and friendly societies.

Written in another hand and signed by Woodrow.

Letter from H Jones of 54 Dorset Street, Fleet Street, London to Colonel [Charles Richard] Fox, 24 Jun 1841. Covering letter (written on behalf of the Property Tax Association) to a printed copy of Joshua Scholefield's speech, (made in the House of Commons on 23 Mar 1841) proposing that a property tax be substituted for the existing customs and excise taxes. Jones forecasts that the proposed property tax 'is likely to become a populat topic at the [forthcoming] elections' and expresses the hope that Fox would be elected MP for Tower Hamlets.

Autograph, with signature.

2 letters sent from officers of the Sambre and Meuse Central Railway Company, London, to John Philippart, 1845. Describing developments and public interest in the Belgian railway and asking for Philippart's support as a member of the managements committee; an explanatory pamphlet accompanied the first letter.

Both letters are autograph, with the signatures of company employees: (i) Osmund Lewis; (ii) G D Carvalho.

Letter from William Cobbett of Botley, Hampshire to an unknown recipient, 20 Jul 1808. Recommending Mr Dickins of No 1 Borough Road, 'not a damned roguish author, but a person of great literary talents, great taste in writing ... He has, by causes, arising not from his vices, by [sic] from unavoidable misfortune, been, for sometime past, in the King's Bench (the rendezvous of the muses).'

Autograph, with signature.

2 letters from John Gale Jones of 5 Wilsted Street, Somers Town, [London] to unknown recipients, 1828. (1) Covering letter to a copy of Jones's Oration on the late George Washington (1825). 'Should you deem it worthy of any little token of your esteem for the memory of that exalted character ... it will be gratefully acknowledged', 25 Apr 1828. (2) Acknowledging 'the liberal present of a sovereign', 28 Apr 1828.

Both letters are autograph, with signatures.

Letter from Sara Coleridge of Keswick, Cumberland to [John] J Morgan Esq of 71 Berners Street, Oxford Street, London [a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was staying with Morgan's family in London], 5 Sep 1812. '... to request the favor of you to use your influence with my husband to prevail on him to send me a few lines immediately, for I have been so long [since Apr 1812] waiting for a letter from him ... I will thank you to represent to him that I want a little money very much ... for my sister [Edith] Southey having lost 30 pounds by the failure of the Workington Bank, and having occasion for money at present more than is convenient for S [i.e. Robert Southey, Edith's husband] to draw for - I own I feel very uncomfortable at the thought of not being able to settle my accounts with him ... I have bought the books for the boys; I was obliged to send to London for them ... I have also been obliged to get all their school books bound, the Aeschylus among the rest which was coming to peices [sic]. Please also say that we have not been able to find at Grasmere that "Reynard the Fox" which C [her husband] designed for Southey, and that probably he has it with him in town ...'

Autograph, with signature. A note in the hand of her 9-year-old daughter, also Sara, appears at the end of the letter.

12 letters and 1 postcard, all addressed to Silvanus Phillips Thompson, 1891-1909. Written by the following people: George Carey Foster; John Hopkinson; Sir Joseph Lister (later Lord Lister); Lyon Playfair, Lord Playfair; Sir William Ramsay; Sir Arthur Rücker; John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh; Sir William Thiselton-Dyer; and Sidney Webb (later Lord Passfield). Topics covered include the University of London and the role of King's College within the University.

All items are autograph, with signatures.

Letter from A Moray Williams, 19 May 1932. Address: North Stoneham House, near Eastleigh, Hampshire. To [Thomas] Sturge Moore. Thanks him 'for reading my version of Sakuntala [Shakuntala] so carefully ... I know now that my version is not an adaptation of Kalidasa or a possible stage play of the Sakuntala story. But your kind and helpful criticism encourages me to try again and I think I shall do so'.

Autograph, with signature.

A pencilled draft of a letter from Sturge Moore to W B Yeats (offering commiserations on the death of his friend and patron, Lady Gregory) appears on the dorse of the second leaf.

Letter from Samuel Roberts of Park Grange, [Sheffield, Yorkshire] to George Thompson, c/o Alexander Cruickshanks, Meadowside, Edinburgh, 26 Oct 1833. Covering note to a copy of Roberts's An address to the members of the two Wilberforce-Committees, London and York, concerning a suitable memorial to the late William Wilberforce, slavery abolitionist.

Autograph, with signature.

This note is written on a blank portion at the end of the third page of the printed pamphlet. The date stamp, frank, seal and address are on the fourth (back) page.

Letter from John Taylor of the Cannon Coffee House, Charing Cross to Alexander Dalrymple Esq, 17 Feb 1795. Covering letter to a 1794 proof copy of Captain Taylor's Considerations on the practicability and advantages of a more speedy communication between Great Britain and her possessions in India [advocating the superiority of the overland route above the usual sea voyage]. 'I hope I have profited by the advice you was kind enough to give me some time ago in regard to the accompanying plan ... I have ... condensed the subject and am now busy in arranging what authorities I have been able to collect ...'.

Autograph, with signature.

(1-2) Letters from William Arthur Rücker and Sir Thomas Thorpe to Mr Lupton, 20 Jan 1904. Accepting a dinner engagement on 26 Jan 1904 to meet Mr Miall.

(3) Letter from Richard Burdon Haldane to William Arthur Rücker, 24 Feb 1904. Making a dinner engagement.

(4) Printed mourning card for William Arthur Rücker, who died 1 Nov 1915.

The 3 letters are autograph, with signatures.

Letter from William Fiennes to [John] Swynfen [MP] of St Anne's Lane, Westminster, 29 May 1648. 'I have sent you a narrative of the former proceedinges about the castle of Banbury (my house) ... The gentlemen have spoken with me, and my cousin Knightly will report this to the House [of Commons] ... Excuse me for putting you to this trouble I assure my selfe the House will not misuse me if rightly informed, wch that they may be I desyre yo favour with some other of my frendes ... Lett me be lett alone to inioye [enjoy] mine owne and I am satisfyed. Sr I shall remayne Your affectionate frend to serve you'.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Francis Tomwsidwy of Gayton, [Northamptonshire] to William Bamwell Esq, Upton, [Northamptonshire], 15 Feb 1602. '... I thanke youe, and thinke my selfe beholding unto youe that it will please youe to afford me these kyndnes to fence my ground wth yor owne thornes (wch I confesse) will be muche more durable than my smoth wood, for the price of them I referre mee to yor selfe and will pay youe what soe ever shall beste please youe.' Mentions Tomsidwy's resolution to sell 'Oldfyeld' and his journey to Northampton with his wife. Written and signed in an italic hand [presumably Tomsidwy's own].

3 letter from Richard Pery of London to Richard and John Wisse (or Wise), merchants, of Totnes, Devon, 1621. Concerning the sale of wine and related payments.

All letters are autograph, with signatures and seals.

Typed copies of 11 letters from Samuel Quincy of London and of St John's, Antigua, to his wife Hannah Quincy, 1771-1781. Including a copy of 1 letter to 'Hal' [probably Hannah's brother, Henry Hill].

With a covering letter from Miss Grace W Treadwell of 42 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Massachusetts, to Edward Alfred Jones, 1915. Forwarding the copies. Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Tom Turner of Shawlands, Bank Crest, Baildon, Yorkshire to [Thomas] Sturge Moore, 20 Dec 1943. Covering note accompanying a copy of a book of poems by Lionel Johnson, as 'a little reminder of the 1890's'. Autograph, with signature.

A forged letter written and signed by an unknown hand to resemble George Meredith, sent to an unknown recipient, late 19th century. '... your scheme of a new magazine, which is to be an indicator of the specially good things published monthly or generally, promises usefulness'.

Letter from James Henry Leigh Hunt of [7 Cornwall Road], Hammersmith, [London], 15 Dec [1853-1858] to an unidentified librarian. 'Do not imagine - to speak Hibernice - that I have lost sight of the missing books ... my inability to visit the bookshops is very inconvenient to me ...'.

Autograph, with signature.

A collection of 80 letters and 14 poems, purporting to be written by William Makepeace Thackeray (60 items); Thomas Hood (32 items) and Horatio Nelson (2 items), [1801-1861]. Most items are undated.

Forgeries, mainly bearing forged signatures.