Provenance (36 items)

[Jefferson, History of the Independence of the United States of America. [Association copy:

13. [Jefferson, John Garland / Thomas Jefferson Circle] Botta, Charles.

History of the Independence of the United States of America. [Association copy with provenance – riddle: From the library of one John Garland Jefferson, being either the brother of American Civil War Hero Thomas Garland Jefferson and received as a gift from his namesake father, John Garland Jefferson (as stated on the endpaper in contemporary ink), with his name signed in ink to the fontispiece of Volume One or alternatively, being John Garland Jefferson (born 1815 – date of death unknown), the son of Captain Samuel Allen Jefferson (1776-1843)]. Translated from the Italian by George Alexander Otis. With ten illustrations and six maps.

Ninth Edition, In Two Volumes, Revised and Corrected. New-Haven, T.Brainard, 1839. Octavo. Volume I: Frontispiece, 473 pages with four maps and four illustrations (including frontispice) / Volume II: Frontispice, IV, 468 pages with six illustrations (including frontispice) and two maps. Hardcover / Original full eather with gilt lettering and ornament on spine and boards. Bindings a little rubbed. Lower spines stronger rubbed and only very slightly damaged but the Volumes and bookblocks overall very firm and in very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Some plates and pages with foxing (as usual with this edition). Both tissue-guards for the frontispieces in place. A stunning set regarding the American War of Independence with an interesting provenance.

EUR 680,-- 

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Montague / Dorgan - Typescript Draft MS for a book of poetry by Theo Dorgan. With occasional manuscript corrections

14. [John Montague Collection] – [Montague, John] Dorgan, Theo.

Typescript Draft MS for a book of poetry by Theo Dorgan. With occasional manuscript corrections / suggestions / annotations by Dorgan’s early mentor John Montague, the Typescript MS was held among the private papers of John Montague in his West Cork Home. The typescript includes poems like “Closed Circuit”, “The Promised Garden”. Montague is approving several of the poems by simply applying a tick. John Montague made suggestions in pencil on the structure of “Elegy for a Schoolfriend” and more in depth-suggestions on “Nasty Archer”, “Her Body”,″The Width of a Room Between Us”, “Return”, “Reconciliation”, “Sunday Afternoon”. When asked about helping to date this early draft of his poetry, Theo Dorgan immediately gets back to us and he places it from memory into the early 1980’s. Theo Dorgan was surprised and seemingly chuffed that John Montague held on to this Manuscript and he recalls: “These poems, some in revised versions, make up the backbone of my first published collection, ‘The Ordinary House of Love’.” Dorgan continues: “I’m happy to say that most of them survived Montague’s eagle eye, which was of course a great comfort to me at the time. Still is!” Some of these poems selected had previously been published as broadsheets etc. but the skeleton of the Draft hints already at readying it for publication. Theo Dorgan graciously gives us even more information: “Some of the poems in the eventual book go back to when I was a student, others were definitely written in the second half of the 80s. The bulk of it, however, is in this MS. I base my estimation in part on the fact that what you have is a typescript produced, it appears, on the IBM golfball machine that was the pride and joy of Triskel Arts Centre. That machine was bought in 1980 or 1981, I’m fairly sure of that. I was Literature Officer there, then.” Theo Dorgan was part of John Montague’s circle of mentored poets, even though in an email-exchange with him about this typescript he mentions that “John Montague worked far more with Thomas McCarthy, Maurice Riordan and Gregory O’Donoghue than he did with me, and in many ways Gregory O’Donoghue was at that stage the most accomplished of us all – the only one included in JM’s Faber Book.” What followed then in our conversation with Theo Dorgan is a great example why manuscripts, letters, autographs, typescripts and the connections we often make with documents from the past have such meaning in explaining our emotional ties with people who matter to us on our way of forming personality. They are memories transforming into images, floods of empathy and nostalgia for personal moments lost but treasured because they helped us form our values. Presented with the old typescript, Theo Dorgan’s emotionality is tangible and he confesses more in an internal dialogue with himself and John Montague than with us: “I’m sorry to say that the reason John Montague worked with those others more than he did with me is because, in my shameful, youthful arrogance, I much preferred to trust my own judgement, and also, I suspect, because I was closest to John in temperament and feared coming unduly under his influence. That said, there was no-one whose good opinion of a poem I valued more, and we were close all our lives after. Very likely it was a case of old stag/young stag ! Montague taught us by indirection, he made his extensive library of modern and contemporary poetry available to us without stint, would wait for us to find an affinity (as, e.g. mine with Robert Graves and Galway Kinnell) and would then, in a long, ongoing conversation, help us to understand what it might mean for our own poems that we felt such affinities. A guided companionship in reading and making, if you will.”

Ireland, c.1981-1982. A4. 43 pages typescripts. Paperclipped. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Some fingerstaining and residue of rust from the paperclip. Wonderful and extremely valuable document of not only a collaboration between two of Ireland’s landmark writers but moreover witness to the becoming, the birth of a true poet. Also included (from a different source) is a second printing of the first edition of the subsequent publication “The Ordinary House of Love” – signed by Theo Dorgan. Right at the beginning of the printed version, instead of a dedication to John Montague, Theo Dorgan placed a quote from Montague’s poem “Wine Dark Sea”: ‘For there is no sea / it is all a dream there is no sea / except in the tangle / of our minds; / the wine dark / sea of history on which we all turn / turn and thresh / and disappear.’ (Collected Poems, page 255). Provenance of the annotated typescript: From the private collection of John Montague’s papers in his recently sold West Cork Home.

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Provenance: From the personal library of Adrian Liddell Hart / Collection of 28 Volumes of John Lehmann's "New Writing", some bearing the name of Adrian Liddell Hart

17. [Lehmann, John] / [Liddell Hart, Adrian] / [Harold Acton] / [Manuscript Postcards from Lehmann to Liddell Hart].

Provenance: From the personal library of Adrian Liddell Hart / Collection of three personal autograph/manuscript-postcards from John Lehmann to Adrian Liddell Hart, together with 28 Volumes of John Lehmann’s “New Writing”, some bearing the name of Adrian Liddell Hart, including Volume I (includes George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” in second edition). Besides the 28 Volumes of Lehmann’s “New Writing”, the collection also includes: 1. John Lehmann’s personal copy of Sean O’Faolain’s “Vive Moi!” – An Autobiography (First Edition, London, Rupert Hart-Davies, 1965), with John Lehmann’s name on the front free endpaper and some markings in the text. / 2. John Lehmann – Pleasures of New Writing – An Anthology of Poems, Stories and other Prose Pieces from the pages of NEW WRITING. Edited by John Lehmann. (First Edition, London, John Lehmann, 1952). [Even though this Volume is also from Liddell Hart’s library, it bears a different name of a pre-owner on the half-title].

Mixed Editions. 30 Volumes. London, John Lehmann / Allen Lane – Penguin Books / Rupert Hart-Davis, 1940-1965. Octavo. [The Postcards written from Venice, Florence and Santa Barbarabetween the years 1952 and 1977 / Postcard I: From John Lehmann in Venice to Adrian Liddell Hart: “This city does not boast a supply of the “Sunday Dispatch”, and as the writer was gripped and enthralled by the last installment on June 1st, he hopes you will keep copies of the …for him to read on his return in ten Days time – J.” / Postcard II: From John Lehmann in Florence to Adrian Liddell Hart: “Am staying with [Sir] Harold Acton here in his marvellous Villa – calme luxe [″Villa La Pietra”], all night……pity, you aren’t with me. Off to the sea this afternoon – may post this in Porto Ercole. Your old friend is relaxing. Gracefully – Love J.” [Date hard to decipher, possibly in 1962] / 3. Postcard III: From John Lehmann in Santa Barbara in California to Adrian Liddell Hart: “Terribly sorry to hear about the broken leg, may it mend quickly, as surely it must undo the ministrations of Florence …..Nightingale. I expect to be in England all March, but then off again – to Jimmy Carter Country – Love J.” [20.2.77]. Hardcover and Softcover. Of the series of 28 Volumes of the “New Writing ″ Series, only three with stronger signs of wear and in poorer condition. All others in very good condition with only minor signs of wear. Lehmann’s personal copy of Sean O’Faolain’s Autobiography with the original dustjacket in poor condition but the Volume itself very good.

EUR 1.480,-- 

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Provenance: From the personal library of Adrian Liddell Hart / Collection of books on Military History, Strategy

19. [Liddell Hart, Adrian] / [Liddell Hart, Basil H.].

Provenance: From the personal library of Adrian Liddell Hart / Collection of thirteen (13) books on Military History, Strategy and two of his father’s, Sir Basil Liddell Hart, publications. Most of the books with the bookplate of Sir Basil Liddell Hart but with the name of Adrian written to the endpaper. The collection includes: 1. John Strachey – On The Prevention of War (1962) / 2. Lawrence Freedman – The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (1982) / 3. Edward Mead Earle – Makers of Modern Strategy – Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler – Edited by Edward Mead Earle with the collaboration of Gordon A.Craig and Felix Gilbert (1966) / 4. B.H.Liddell Hart – History of the First World War (Reprint London, 1979) / 5. B.H.Liddell Hart – Why don’t we learn from History ? (First American Edition, New York, 1971) / 6. Hugh Thomas – The Spanish Civil War – (Third Edition, Penguin Books, 1977) / 7. Robin Lane Fox – Alexander The Great (Futura, 1975) / 8. Arturo Barea – The Track – It became a battlefield, there where they built the road across Morocco (Four Square Books, 1958) / 9. Steven Runciman – The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (Cambridge University Press, 1969) / 10. Geoffrey Rawson – Nelson Letters (Dent & Sons, 1971) / 11. Christopher Duffy – Borodino – Napoleon Against Russia, 1812 (Sphere Books, 1972) / 12. R.L.V.ffrench Blake – The Crimean War – Concise Campaigns (Sphere Books, 1973) / 13.Pieter Geyl – Napoleon: For and Against (Penguin Books, 1965) //

Mixed Editions. 30 Volumes. London, John Lehmann / Allen Lane – Penguin Books / Rupert Hart-Davis, 1940-1965. Octavo. [The Postcards written from Venice, Florence and Santa Barbarabetween the years 1952 and 1977 / Postcard I: From John Lehmann in Venice to Adrian Liddell Hart: “This city does not boast a supply of the “Sunday Dispatch”, and as the writer was gripped and enthralled by the last installment on June 1st, he hopes you will keep copies of the …for him to read on his return in ten Days time – J.” / Postcard II: From John Lehmann in Florence to Adrian Liddell Hart: “Am staying with [Sir] Harold Acton here in his marvellous Villa – calme luxe [″Villa La Pietra”], all night……pity, you aren’t with me. Off to the sea this afternoon – may post this in Porto Ercole. Your old friend is relaxing. Gracefully – Love J.” [Date hard to decipher, possibly in 1962] / 3. Postcard III: From John Lehmann in Santa Barbara in California to Adrian Liddell Hart: “Terribly sorry to hear about the broken leg, may it mend quickly, as surely it must undo the ministrations of Florence …..Nightingale. I expect to be in England all March, but then off again – to Jimmy Carter Country – Love J.” [20.2.77]. Hardcover and Softcover. Of the series of 28 Volumes of the “New Writing ″ Series, only three with stronger signs of wear and in poorer condition. All others in very good condition with only minor signs of wear. Lehmann’s personal copy of Sean O’Faolain’s Autobiography with the original dustjacket in poor condition but the Volume itself very good.

EUR 480,-- 

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