14 December 2010 - Rare Book Sale

#0210

Lot 507/0210

Robinson (Lennox) A typed letter signed ‘Lennox’ to Kitty (O’Brien), dated Friday 13th Dec., no year, ‘typewriter shuddered, doesn’t believe there could or should be such a date,’ 1pp, mostly about ‘Dermod’s book’ (the book he was writing about the artist Dermod O’Brien, published as ‘Palette and Plough’) explaining that he will not be able to get down to work until after Christmas, etc. As a m/ss., w.a.f. (1)

Lot 508/0210

SOLD Hammer price €300

‘Teutonic Muddleheadedness’
Shaw (Geo. Bernard), An interesting autograph signed letter on his own headed paper, 5th July 1927, to Alfred Graves (the writer, father of Robert Graves), about his translation of ‘the Saltair, unquestionable an addition… to our knowledge of Gaelic literature; and the Tigris – Jordan section is new and hes the sort of enchantment that these idiots had the secret of. It would be more polite to call them ecstatic’s; but their complete freedom from Teutonic muddleheadedness make the term unsatisfactory; so let idiots stand….’ ‘Publication, except through some Gaelic Society, seems improbably; but why not make it into a solid quarterly article…?’ With a good signature ‘G. Bernard Shaw.’ As a m/ss., w.a.f. (1)

Lot 509/0210

SOLD Hammer price €260

Shaw (George Bernard) A pre-printed card with autograph signed note, 3 Sept. 1937, to the Editor, Radio Times, explaining that he cannot undertake extra literary work at present, and adding in manuscript ‘I am no good for casual jobs. I lose money by them, and blackleg the young,’ signed with initials G.B.S.; With a second printed card declining to contribute a preface, addressed in a secretarial hand to William J. Walsh of Cloghane N.S., Tuam, Co. Galway. As m/ss., w.a.f. (2)

Lot 510/0210

SOLD Hammer price €260

Robinson (Dolly & Lennox) A collection of four greeting cards from the Robinson home, Sorrento Cottage, Dalkey, each with an attractive ink and watercolour drawing of the cottage (exterior and interior, all different) evidently by Dolly Robinson, each inscribed at rear with good wishes to Mabel & Dermot (O’Brien) by Lennox & Dolly; also with an oval photo by Werner, Dublin, of a young woman, inscribed on front Dolly Travers Smith (i.e. Dolly Robinson), and also with a lg. full photo of a distinguished gentleman in coat and hat, with umbrella, possible Jack Yeats, inscribed on reverse D.L. Robinson. As a coll. Unusual. (1)

Lot 511/0210

Allgood (Sarah) Actress. Autograph signed letter on headed London notepaper, undated, to Mr. Nally (probably T.H. Nally), saying she has settled her Australian tour and will not be returning to Dublin, regretting causing a disappointment, 2pp., with a good signature.
* This may refer to Nally’s play ‘The Spancel of Death’. A performance at the Abbey Theatre planned for Easter Week 1916 was cancelled due to the Rising, and attempts by the author to get the play performed a few years later were unsuccessful, as the original cost (including Sara Allgood) could not be rereassembled. As a m/ss., w.a.f. Important. (1)

Lot 512/0210

SOLD Hammer price €200

Hone (Evie), Stained Glass Artist. Autograph signed letter, 2pp. on her headed notepaper from Marlay, Rathfarnham, dated Oct. 19th (no year), to Mrs.(Kitty) O’Brien wishing her luck with her exhibition, which she cannot attend due to a fractured big toe. ‘I was in Paris for a few days, three weeks ago and saw some good exhibitions but it was really too early in the year.’ With a good signature. As a m/ss., w.a.f.
* Kitty Wilmer O’Brien was herself a painter. (1)

Lot 513/0210

SOLD Hammer price €120

O’Grady (Standish) Author & Historian. Autograph signed letter dated 4.4 (no year) from a Dublin address, 1pp. to a lady (name indecipherable), returning an item. ‘I don’t know if you are still a subscriber’ (possibly to his ‘All Ireland Review’) ‘but I miss the songs you used to send me. I had a notice of “Ethna Carbery” in my last.’ With a good signature, and traces of mounting at corners. As a m/ss., w.a.f. (1)

Lot 514/0210

SOLD Hammer price €780

“Red Roses”
O’Casey (Sean) Playwright. Two interesting autograph signed letters to Mrs. Una G. Albery (Daughter of T.W. Rollaston), Mar. 6th & 24, 1946, each 2pp on his headed paper, the first thanking Mrs. Albery ‘for all you did to get my Play “Red Roses” from the book to the added life of a production,” also arranging to borrow from her book ‘holding within it many reminders of a golden past, when Gaelic Ireland first began to rise from a too-deep sleep,’ The second letter discusses in some detail changes he is making to the last act of “Red Roses” for a possible West End production and a further possible production in the U.S.A.; also mentions suffering an acute bronchial attack in consequence of a chat with a fan who ‘laughed hilariously in my face,’ remarking he ‘had a cough’ Both with very clear signatures. V. good. As a m/ss., w.a.f. (2)

Lot 515/0210

SOLD Hammer price €700

O’Casey (Sean) Playwright. A very good typed signed letter to his friend Andrew (no surname), undated, 2pp. single sheet, thanking him for a holiday spent at ‘your crazy mill,’ and enlarging rhapsodically on what gives him most pleasure in life. ‘One almost sensual pleasure is the smell of turf-smoke. It is what the rose maybe to them as associate roses with happiness .. And then i thought also of your crazy mill, with its crazy Johnson, and your innumerable lackeys, and you, and the weir, and lying awake at night in bed in that store-room.. Rain, too. That’s childhood agian. Leaning over the half-door at my aunt’s house in Roche’s Road, Rathkeale, at the end of the muddy street, the end of the muddy town, and looking at a crow on a telegraph wire,with the rain, plinking from the thatch down my neck. That is Joy – joy then and joy now to remember …,’ With a good signature ‘Sean’, and a post script in m/ss about an advertisement. As a m/ss., w.a.f. v. good. (1)

Lot 516/0210

SOLD Hammer price €420

Edgeworth (Maria) Author. An interesting autograph signed letter, probably to Anna Maria Hall (Mrs. S.C. Hall, author) 2pp. undated, addressed to ‘Dr. Madam,’ addressed rear ‘Mrs. Hall, 59 Sloane Street,’ thanking her for offering to execute some commissions during a visit to Paris, and asking for two items; 2 pairs of black satin slippers (with strings), no smaller than one enclosed as a pattern and ‘a small gold chain as nearly like that which I enclose as you can find without looking far and wide – I gave this the other day to a little child of a friend and cannot replace it easily in London’ etc. Paper browned, but in good condition, and with a good signature. As a m/ss., w.a.f. (1)

Lot 517/0210

SOLD Hammer price €400

Hall (Mrs. Anna Maria) An intergeral autograph signed Letter to an unnamed gentleman, 3pp (single folded sheet) dated 6 March 1828, about her plans to publish ‘a little volume annually with a view to instruct and amuse children. The volume will be illustrated with several fine engravings from pictures of the highest class of art, and its literary content will be formed of the contributions of those writers who have been the most successful guides of youth’ and asking a most important favour.. that you will be good enough to make for me an application to her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent for the distinguished honour of being permitted to inscribe the book to her royal Highness the Princess Victoria,’ etc. With a very good signature. As a m/ss., w.a.f. (1)

Lot 518/0210

Mitford (M.M.) Writer. An Autograph signed Letter, 4pp., from Two Mile Cross, dated Nov. 16th, 1827, to Mrs. (Anna Maria) Hall, saying that at present she will have no excuse to be in town on the 24th, but a piece is going on Monday to Charles Kemble (the producer), and if he should want her for alterations, she will certainly avail herself of the opportunity of seeing Mrs. Hall. also enquires about the success of ‘The Amulet’, says a piece of hers printed there has reportedly also been printed in another magazine, and says she would never send that same piece to two magazines, etc. Postally used, with markings, seal etc. As a m/ss., w.a.f. (1)

Lot 519/0210

SOLD Hammer price €700

Signed by W.B. Yeats & John Masefield
Yeats (William Butler) A copy of a souvenir booklet for his seventieth birthday, reprinted from the Irish Times of June 13, 1935, signed on front cover by both Yeats and his friend the poet John Masefield; a programme for a ‘W.B. Yeats Birthday Dinner’ Royal Hibernian Hotel, 27th June, 1925, organised by Irish P.E.N. and printed by Three Candles, this rare printed programme has three lines from a Yeats Poem on old age.
* Masefield was among the speakers at the dinner, and it is likely the souvenir booklet was signed on that occasion. A rare and attractive pair of items. (2)

Lot 520/0210

SOLD Hammer price €900

Yeats (W. Butler) A very good typed letter to (Stephen) Mc Kenna from Rapallo in Italy, Nov. 1928, enquiring about translation Mc Kenna made from the Irish. ‘Have you got them still, and may I have them for the Cuala Press?… Dublin winters no longer suit me, and so I have come here to Rapallo … Max Beerbohm, Ezra Pound, and Gerard Hauptmann are our neighbours…’ Dictated to my wife, as, ‘my eyes cannot stand much strain especially by artificial light,’ and with the signature possibly also in Mrs. Yeats hand.
With a second letter entirely Yeats’ hand and signed by him from Edward Martyn’s home at Tullira Castle, Co. Galway, August 11th (no year), to Miss Alport, asking her to type the enclosed items and pay herself for doing so, etc. As m/ss., w.a.f. (2)

Lot 521/0210

Yeats (Jack B.) Two good Autograph signed Letters to the painter Patric Stevenson, the first dated Nov. 18, 1950, 2pp (single sheet), thanking for ‘what you say of my exhibition at the Tate – which I did not see myself. If Ivor Hitchens is the painter who uses a fine colour which is like a bright bay horse in sunshine and in shadow, then I do admire his work.’ He invites Stevenson to visit him in Dublin, ‘but you will not see my wife, an she would have like to see you, for she died in the spring of 1947…’ . The second letter, from Portobello House (‘temporary address’) March 20th, 1956, regrets he is unable to get to Stevenon’s exhibition in Belfast, and mentions a photograph with Alfie Byrne. ‘He kept himself always a steadily burning bright little candle, and his lines so clean in a grubby world. I think he was a success in that he was what he wanted.’ Both letters with good signatures, and with orig. envelopes addressed in Yeats’ hand. As m/ss., w.a.f. (2)

Lot 522/0210

SOLD Hammer price €220

Conor (William) Painter. Three single page autograph letters two signed to the painter Patric Stevenson, dated 1952, 1958, & 1959. The signature has been neatly clipped from the first letter, listing works he is sending to a King’s Hall Exhibition, with the prices of each. The second letter also refers to plans for a King’s Hall Exhibition, of which Stevenson was evidently the organiser; the final letter declines an invitation to a sketching trip to Donegal because of family commitments. As m/ss., w.a.f. (3)

Lot 523/0210

Carr (Tom), Painter, An autograph signed letter to the Co. Down Artist Patric Stevenson, declining a suggestion that Carr should be ‘nominated’ as President of the R.U.A. (Royal Ulster Academy). ‘Im afraid I am not reliable or energetic, I have no special talent and no nerves for the platform limelight,’ and suggesting that Stevenson himself go forward. With th envelop. As a m/ss., w.a.f. (1)

Lot 524/0210

SOLD Hammer price €3600

Excessively Rare
From the Collection of Lily Yeats
Cuala Press: Yeats (W. Butler) Poems, 12mo D. (Cuala Press) 1935. LIM. EDN. 30 Copies only Printed, for Eleanor Lady Yarrow. Hd. cold. plate by Victor Brown & with hand painted iniitials and decorations by Eliz. Corbet Yeats. Bookplate of Lily Yeats, orig. untitled plain blue card covers as issued (no wrapper or label called for). Extremely fine copy, in a plian white envelope with inscription in Lily Yeats’ hand. Wade 184.
* One of the rarest W.B. Yeats / Cuala items. Copac records only the T.C.D. copy. Lady Yarrow was the second wife of Sir Alfred Yarrow, founder of the Clyde shipbuilding and engineering company. (1)

Lot 525/0210

SOLD Hammer price €2800

A Great Yeats Rarity
Yeats (W.B.) Is the Order of R.R. & A.C. to Remain & Magical A Order? 8vo Written in March 1901, and Given to the Adepi of the Order of R.R. & A.C. in April 1901. States on cover, ‘This Essay must not be given to any but Adepti of the Order of R.R. & A.C., 30,[2]pp. Uncut, mostly unopened, orig. ptd. brown wrappers, virtually mint copy. Wade 33.
* Signed at end D.E.D.I. (initials of Yeats’ motto within the Order, ‘Daelmon Est Deus Inversus’) Distributed by the poet to his supporters during a dispute within the Order of the Golden Dawn, as to whether members could be obliged to accept limitations on their freedom of expression, also involved Annie Honiman. The Order of Rubidae Rosae & Aureae Crucis’ was a subsection of the Order of the Golden Dawn, of which Yeats was an active member since 1890. Yeats preoccupation with mysticism and magic may seem strange to modern eyes, but its influence on his poetry is undesirable.
* Extremely rare. The size of the Edition is not recorded but probably less than 100 copies COPAC records only the British Library copy. (1)
N.B. correction – but its influence on his poetry is undeniable – not undesirable.

Lot 526/0210

Dolmen Press: Milne (Ewart) Galion. A Poem with a Prologue and an Epilogue. 8vo D. (Dolmen) 1953. Lim. Edn. (200), (Unnumbered out of series). Orig. cloth backed boards.
* Miller 9. The ninth book from Dolmen. (1)