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  1. RAYLEIGH, John William Strutt, Baron.

    Two autograph letters, signed, to the mathematician Thomas Bromwich.

    Terling Place, Witham, Essex, 19 June 1916, and 4 Carlton Gardens, Pall Mall, London, 7 March 1917.

    In the first, brief, letter, written from Rayleigh’s home at Witham in Essex and dated 19 June 1916, Rayleigh agrees to forward a paper to the Royal Society: ‘I will gladly communicate Mr White’s paper to R. S. The extension of what I did is interesting, and he points out a stupid mistake of mine...

    £750

  2. PASTEUR, Louis.

    Visiting card with autograph note.

    [No place, undated.]

    With the autograph note ‘Avec ses remerciments très empressés’. 45 rue d’Ulm was the address of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, where Pasteur began his education and where he taught intermittently before being appointed director of scientific studies in 1856.

    £400

  3. PALMERSTON, Henry John Temple, Viscount.

    Autograph document signed, approving a plan for a ‘Prison for Boys’ at Durham...

    Whitehall, 2 February 1853.

    A document signed by Lord Palmerston as Home Secretary. He signifies his approval of ‘the annexed plan [no longer present] of a Prison for Boys, on the upper floor of the South Wing of the Gaol for the County of Durham’.

    £400

  4. NIEL, Adolphe.

    Autograph note signed.

    [No place], 19 March [1851 or 1852].

    A brief note in which the French army general and statesman Adolphe Niel (1802–1869) urges the continued support of an elderly war widow living in the south-west of France.

    £150

  5. MÉRIMÉE, Prosper.

    Autograph note signed ‘Pr. Mérimée’.

    [Paris?, undated].

    A brief note by Prosper Mérimée, headed ‘Samedi’, making arrangements for a meeting with an unnamed male friend the following day: ‘A demain mon cher confrère avec grand plaisir’.

    £125

  6. LIEBIG, Justus von.

    Autograph letter, signed, to an unnamed English nobleman.

    Munich, 10 December 1857.

    A fine letter from Justus von Liebig to an unnamed English nobleman.

    £1250

  7. LIEBIG, Justus von.

    Autograph letter to the publishers Heinrich Ludwig Brönner.

    Darmstadt, 16 September 1847.

    Letter from the German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) to H. L. Brönner, the Frankfurt publishers and booksellers named after their eighteenth-century founder.

    £750

  8. LAMB, Sir Horace.

    Autograph letter, signed, to Thomas Bromwich.

    6 Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield, Manchester, 9 March 1916.

    A letter from Sir Horace Lamb (1849–1934) to fellow mathematician Thomas Bromwich. Lamb held the chair of pure mathematics at Owens College, Manchester, from 1885 until 1920. He ‘was a talented and inspiring teacher, whose lectures to generations of mathematics, engineering, and physics students...

    £125

  9. KRUGER, (Paul) Stephanus Johannes Paulus.

    Printed document signed, granting land in the town of Volksrust to Gideon Jacobus Johannes...

    Pretoria, April 1897 and 5 May 1897.

    A printed document signed by Paul Kruger as president of South Africa.

    £500

  10. JEROME, Jerome Klapka.

    Autograph letter, signed, to W. B. Forster Bovill.

    Brussels, Wiltcher’s Hotel, 11 May 1904.

    A very good letter in which Jerome K. Jerome expresses his great admiration for the South African novelist and suffragist Olive Schreiner (1855–1920).

    £500

  11. HUMBOLDT, Alexander von.

    Autograph letter signed ‘Humboldt’, to an unnamed female recipient.

    [Paris,] ‘Ce samedi’, [no month or year but not after 1827].

    An excellent, intimate and unpublished letter in which Humboldt excuses himself for his reclusiveness, explaining that he had been tormented by pleurisy all winter.

    £2500

  12. HARRIS, James, later first Earl of Malmesbury.

    A small group of documents.

    [1779–1785].

    Harris (1746–1820) was ‘the leading British diplomatist of the final quarter of the eighteenth century’, noted for his skills as a linguist, and his popularity and easy social skills.

    £325

  13. HALÉVY, Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie.

    Autograph musical quotation, signed.

    Paris, 15 May 1846.

    Fromental Halévy (1799–1862) showed musical promise at an early age and entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1810, becoming a pupil of Cherubini for composition the following year. In 1827 he became professor of harmony and accompaniment there, in 1833 of counterpoint and fugue, and in 1840 of composition....

    £750

  14. EHRLICH, Paul.

    Autograph letter, signed, addressed to ‘herr hospitalmeister’.

    [Frankfurt,] ‘Westendstrasse 62’, [no date].

    A brief note by the bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), pioneer of haematology and discoverer of salvarsan, to a local hospital director, regarding notes on the bulletin board.

    £750

  15. DUMAS, Alexandre.

    Autograph letter, signed.

    [Paris, not before 1859.]

    A short note by the novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) sending a theatre ticket and arranging to meet the unknown recipient at the Comédie-française (‘theatre francais’) at midday the following day. He says that he will do whatever he can to obtain a small box at the Théâtre...

    £750

  16. DISRAELI, Benjamin.

    Autograph envelope signed.

    [Probably London, c. 1874–1880.]

    An envelope probably dating from Disraeli’s second premiership (1874–1880). Lady Emily Peel (1836–1924) was the seventh daughter of the eighth marquess of Tweeddale. Lady Emily Hay, as she then was, married the politician Sir Robert Peel, third baronet, on 13 January 1856, but she left her husband...

    £100

  17. DAVY, Sir Humphry.

    Autograph letter, signed, to Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay, discussing the unrolling of papyri...

    ‘23 Grosvenor Street London’, 26 May 1821.

    An unpublished letter in which Davy discusses his examination of papyri entrusted to him in Paris by Sir Charles Stuart, then British Ambassador to France.

    £750

  18. CROOKES, William, Sir.

    Autograph letter, signed, to Sir John Evans.

    London, 7 Kensington Park Gardens, 26 May 1892.

    The scientist Sir William Crookes writes to congratulate the archaeologist and geologist John Evans on his imminent knighthood: ‘I must take this opportunity – the last perhaps in which I can call you “Mr” – to offer you my sincere congratulations on the honour which I see is to be conferred...

    £250

  19. MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of.

    Document, signed ‘Marlborough’, appointing a gunner at the Canadian settlement...

    [London,] Office of Ordnance, 24 December 1714.

    A commission appointing the intended recipient (never filled in) ‘to be one of the Gunners belonging to his Ma.ties Guarrison of Annapolis Royall, you are therefore Carefully and Diligently to Discharge the Duty of a Gunner in the said service by doing performing all manner of things thereunto belonging...

    £950

  20. CHERUBINI, Luigi.

    Autograph note signed ‘L. Cherubini’ regarding the cellist Auguste Franchomme.

    [Paris,] 19 December 1825.

    A short note in which the composer and director of the Conservatoire de Paris Luigi Cherubini records that ‘Mr. Franchomme’ has been admitted into the class of ‘Mr. Seuriot’ and that he will begin there on 22 December 1825.

    £350