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ALBUM – WRITERS, SCIENTISTS & NOTABLES Album containing some 120 autograph letters, cut signatures and autograph free fronts, with good Scottish provenance, nineteenth-century
20 November 2024, 13:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £10,240 inc. premium
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ALBUM – WRITERS, SCIENTISTS & NOTABLES
Album containing some 120 autograph letters, cut signatures and autograph free fronts, the majority from eminent literary and scientific figures of the nineteenth-century, comprising:
Writers, including: Charles Dickens (to John Murray, thanking him for the guide books and thinking of "...roming into 'foreign parts' before summer is out...", 6 March 1844); Caroline Norton ("...I cannot. The Doctors are to consult about my son... and I must be here...", with autograph envelope); Mary Berry (invitation to Mr Murray "at real seven o'clock"); Maria Edgworth; Amelia B. Edwards (recalling happy times in Switzerland); Walter Scott (series of six autograph letters, the first to John Campbell Swinton of Broadmeadows expressing his intention to write a Border sketch of the battle of Otterburn, another a letter of condolence (1827), one regarding a friend's translation to Miss Swinton, another arranging to meet, etc., 1814-1830); Robert Southey (autograph fragment of 16 lines recto, 17 verso, unsigned, a passage from his essay 'Moral and Political State of the British Empire', published Quarterly Review, Vol. XLIV, January 1831); Edward Bulwer Lytton (2); George MacDonald (2); Henry Mackenzie (2); Margaret Oliphant (2 to Mr Dean regarding her son); Jane Porter; Catherine Sinclair ("...Miss Richards is going to marry the Spanish General Cabrera, a sort of half civilised barbarian, who shot 25 ladies at a siege, to revenge the death of his mother..."); Fanny Trollope (2); Charlotte M. Yonge (2); Thomas Carlyle (letter of recommendation); William Thackeray; W.H. Lecky; Thomas Babington Macaulay ("...I return the Chandos MS. It is highly curious and interesting..."); R.B. Sheridan; George Anson Byron, 7th Baron; physician and essayist John Brown (2); with Horace Walpole (salutation cut from an address panel "To The Honorable Mrs Walsingham"), Matthew Arnold (cut signature), Robert Browning (autograph subscription); Fanny Burney (autograph free front, unsigned), John Ruskin (cut signature), etc.
Scientists (many to Thomas Davidson), including: Thomas Huxley (regarding Davidson's article on Brachiopods); Charles Lyell (praising Davidson's work, "...I never however could obtain proof that the Nummulites went down into the cretaceous strata...", four pages, 26 March 1869); palaeontologist Gideon Mantell ("...my grand collection is in the British Museum: altho' only a part is exhibited..."); Roderick Murchison ("...I rejoice that your book is launched..."); Adam Sidgwick ("...I knew something of your great labours among the Braciopods..."); natural historian Thomas Brown; William Carpenter (on the relation of animal life to temperature and pressure); Richard Owen ("...I thank you for the addition to my store of literature on that favourite Class...", July 1856); Mary Somerville (2, one inviting Miss Swinton to "...meet some of the Arctic Expedition..."); archaeologist Austen Henry Layard; Michael Faraday (autograph subscription); John Herschel (cut signature), etc.
Others including: abolitionist Thomas Clarkson (autobiographical letter on "Extraordinary Phenomemon in the origin of the Abolition of the Slave Trade as it relates to myself", six closely-written pages); Jane Franklin (thanking for tickets); John Franklin (cut signature); art historian Elizabeth Rigby; Scottish economist Thomas Chalmers; Moses Montifiore (letter in Hebrew and one other); Max Muller; Florence Nightingale (autograph envelope, unsigned); and much else, occasional notes and observations within by George Swinton, c.1932, each leaf with loose typed transcription, index at rear, note on provenance in ink on last leaf, with accompanying typed letter of provenance dated 2001, 104 numbered leaves, dust-staining, discolouration and marks, red straight-grained morocco, gilt title on upper cover 'Men of Letters', g.e., 4to (278 x 215mm.), nineteenth-century; housed in a purpose-made solander box
Writers, including: Charles Dickens (to John Murray, thanking him for the guide books and thinking of "...roming into 'foreign parts' before summer is out...", 6 March 1844); Caroline Norton ("...I cannot. The Doctors are to consult about my son... and I must be here...", with autograph envelope); Mary Berry (invitation to Mr Murray "at real seven o'clock"); Maria Edgworth; Amelia B. Edwards (recalling happy times in Switzerland); Walter Scott (series of six autograph letters, the first to John Campbell Swinton of Broadmeadows expressing his intention to write a Border sketch of the battle of Otterburn, another a letter of condolence (1827), one regarding a friend's translation to Miss Swinton, another arranging to meet, etc., 1814-1830); Robert Southey (autograph fragment of 16 lines recto, 17 verso, unsigned, a passage from his essay 'Moral and Political State of the British Empire', published Quarterly Review, Vol. XLIV, January 1831); Edward Bulwer Lytton (2); George MacDonald (2); Henry Mackenzie (2); Margaret Oliphant (2 to Mr Dean regarding her son); Jane Porter; Catherine Sinclair ("...Miss Richards is going to marry the Spanish General Cabrera, a sort of half civilised barbarian, who shot 25 ladies at a siege, to revenge the death of his mother..."); Fanny Trollope (2); Charlotte M. Yonge (2); Thomas Carlyle (letter of recommendation); William Thackeray; W.H. Lecky; Thomas Babington Macaulay ("...I return the Chandos MS. It is highly curious and interesting..."); R.B. Sheridan; George Anson Byron, 7th Baron; physician and essayist John Brown (2); with Horace Walpole (salutation cut from an address panel "To The Honorable Mrs Walsingham"), Matthew Arnold (cut signature), Robert Browning (autograph subscription); Fanny Burney (autograph free front, unsigned), John Ruskin (cut signature), etc.
Scientists (many to Thomas Davidson), including: Thomas Huxley (regarding Davidson's article on Brachiopods); Charles Lyell (praising Davidson's work, "...I never however could obtain proof that the Nummulites went down into the cretaceous strata...", four pages, 26 March 1869); palaeontologist Gideon Mantell ("...my grand collection is in the British Museum: altho' only a part is exhibited..."); Roderick Murchison ("...I rejoice that your book is launched..."); Adam Sidgwick ("...I knew something of your great labours among the Braciopods..."); natural historian Thomas Brown; William Carpenter (on the relation of animal life to temperature and pressure); Richard Owen ("...I thank you for the addition to my store of literature on that favourite Class...", July 1856); Mary Somerville (2, one inviting Miss Swinton to "...meet some of the Arctic Expedition..."); archaeologist Austen Henry Layard; Michael Faraday (autograph subscription); John Herschel (cut signature), etc.
Others including: abolitionist Thomas Clarkson (autobiographical letter on "Extraordinary Phenomemon in the origin of the Abolition of the Slave Trade as it relates to myself", six closely-written pages); Jane Franklin (thanking for tickets); John Franklin (cut signature); art historian Elizabeth Rigby; Scottish economist Thomas Chalmers; Moses Montifiore (letter in Hebrew and one other); Max Muller; Florence Nightingale (autograph envelope, unsigned); and much else, occasional notes and observations within by George Swinton, c.1932, each leaf with loose typed transcription, index at rear, note on provenance in ink on last leaf, with accompanying typed letter of provenance dated 2001, 104 numbered leaves, dust-staining, discolouration and marks, red straight-grained morocco, gilt title on upper cover 'Men of Letters', g.e., 4to (278 x 215mm.), nineteenth-century; housed in a purpose-made solander box
Footnotes
'MY KINDEST COMPLIMENTS AND MY DAUGHTER'S ATTEND THE MISSES SWINTON': A FINE ALBUM OF AUTOGRAPH LETTERS WITH ILLUSTRIOUS SCOTTISH PROVENANCE.
This collection brings together prominent literary figures such as Charles Dickens and Robert Southey and a good selection of female authors, notably Mary Berry and Caroline Norton, with a group of scientific correspondence directed to the Scottish palaeontologist Thomas Davidson (1817-1885) from the likes of Lyell, Huxley, Owen and Mantell (see lot 45 for a letter from Darwin). There is a particularly Scottish feel to the album, which includes a group of six letters by Sir Walter Scott, which formed the basis of the collection. Also represented here is the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, with an exposition on how he came to the abolitionist movement, and letters on more domestic matters, one regarding the viewing of Ravenswood in Melrose being sold by a cousin of Sir Walter Scott ("...The situation is delightful... The price asked by Mr Scott for the whole house, furniture, plate, land etc was six thousand eight hundred pounds...").
The letters are addressed predominantly to members of the Swinton, Davidson and Murray families and have been retained by the family until now. A note by George Swinton, dated 22 April 1931, and written in ink on the last leaf of the album explains the genesis of this fine collection and the interconnection between these families: "...It was sent to me a week ago by my cousin Edith Davidson... There are two other volumes, one of letters of Ecclesiastics, the other of Statesmen. These she has kept. This one she sent me as a present. She is rather vague as to when the autographs were put into the books – probably some twenty-five years ago – and even vaguer as to how they were collected... The collection really begins with the six letters of Sir Walter Scott, most of which were written to our mutual grandfather John Swinton... a great many of them seem to have passed through the hand of old John Murray, the publisher... The Murrays were old family friends of both the Swintons and the Davidsons... Quite probably there were many others, thrown away...". A typed letter from John Swinton dated September 2001 also accompanying the album explains further: '...Many of the letters have Swinton connections, like that of Thomas Brown which is written to my g.g.g.grandfather's sister, and he [his grandfather George Swinton] came to the conclusion that those that had not been collected by Randall himself were collected by his mother...'.
Provenance: Randall Davidson, 1st Baron Davidson of Lambeth, archbishop of Canterbury (1848-1930, bookplate); his widow Edith Davidson (née Tait, 1858-1936); given to her cousin Captain George Sitwell Campbell Swinton (1859-1937); his grandson Major-General Sir John Swinton of Kimmerghame (1925-2018); thence by descent.