Angove, John.

In the Early Days – The Reminiscences of Pioneer Life on the South African Diamond Fields.

Kimberley and Johannesburg, Handel House, 1901. 12.5 cm x 18.5 cm. Frontispiece, 212 pages. 21 illustrations. Hardcover [publisher’s original brown cloth] with stamped lettering on spine and front board. Unusually excellent condition with only minor signs of external wear. Private giftinscription on front free endpaper: “To Ernest James Weaver – with best wishes from…27.10.12”. Rare !

Tilman, H.W.

Two Mountains and a River.

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1949. 14 cm x 22.5 cm. Frontispiece, XII, 232 pages. 83 illustrations on 37 plates. 6 maps, including sketch map of the mountainous region of Central Asia dominated by the Hindu Kush, Himalaya and Karakoram ranges Hardcover [publisher’s original blue cloth] with gilt lettering on spine. Very good- condition with only minor signs of external wear. Bump to lower corner of front board. Signs of damp staining to foot of some pages throughout book. Interior otherwise bright and clean and sharp cornered. Summary of book on loose ephemera within book.

Howarth, Patrick.

The Year is 1851.

London, Collins, 1951. 17 cm x 22.5 cm. 256 pages. Several black and white illustrations throughout. Original Hardcover. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Ex-library copy with stamp (The Times Library, London) plus some related numbering in pencil all to rear pastedown. Pages clean.

[Cumberbatch, Benedict] Cumberbatch, Henry Arnold / Rees, Helen / Basil Benwell Rees / William Benwell Rees / Etheldreda Blanche Barker / [Sir Winston Churchill / Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne [Private Secretary to Sir Winston Churchill]].

Large Family Archive of the Benwell Rees – Family, including William Benwell Rees (brother to actor Benedict Cumberbatch’s grandmother Helen Rees, by marriage to British Diplomat Henry Arnold Cumberbatch, who was Consul in Romania, Turkey and Lebanon ). The archive includes at least one manuscript letter by Henry Arnold Cumberbatch and around one thousand documents chronicling the lives of the ex-patriate Benwell Rees family from 1890-1970 in Alexandria and Monaco, including William Benwell Rees, whose marriage to Etheldreda Blanche Barker cemented the family’s role in the highest circles of Alexandria life. The archive also charts their son Basil Rees’ decade in Monaco under Princess Grace and Prince Rainer III where he served as President of the British Association in the 1950’s-‘60s and solicited a letter written by Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne, on Winston Churchill’s behalf on Chartwell headed paper in which the former Prime Minister declined to attend an event in Monaco [signed by Montague Browne]. The archive is held in five heavy volumes, bursting with a plethora of amazing and wonderful historical letters, ephemera, emotional messages and telegrams, old images, theatre-programmes, and especially also includes programmes of plays in which ancestors of Benedict played (J.M.Barrie, Shakespeare etc.). The original letters and documents paint an interesting picture of Benedict Cumberbatch’s grandmother’s side of the family history in the Levant, their service in the Middle East and their social lives. The five volumes are bound in bespoke red morocco over textured paper-covered-boards and they contain at least one reference to Helen Rees next to a newspaper-clipping and dozens of wonderful handwritten letters and cards. Each volume about four inches across spine with title in gilt to upper cover and around 100 leaves in each with documents mounted recto and verso throughout, with photographs, invitations, business materials and clippings that chart the family’s life in their service for the British Colonial Office. The five Volumes include for example: Volume 1: The Benwell Rees’: begins with Egyptian Gazette, 1890 and a programme for a performance c1900 at the Port Theatre, Marina, Alexandria of Rumpelstilkskin; visiting cards and contemporary reports of the marriage of W B Rees and Etheldreda Blanche Barker in Alexandria, February 1901; Windsor Hotels prospectus and flyer (a WBR enterprise); 1913 Casino de Monte Carlo ticket for Ethel Rees; Kings School Canterbury ephemera and St Johns’ College, Cambridge for Basil Rees from 1920’s, graduated June 1924. Volume 2: The Benwell Rees’ Vol II, 1920’s-1990’s: includes J M Barrie, Quality Street programme for English Girls’ School, Alexandria, 1941; invitations from Princess Grace of Monaco etc Volume 3: Basil Rees Vol III, cover nearly detached, 1953- Basil Rees living at 2 Rue Origene, Alexandria, and covering period of move to Palais Majestic, Monaco after which he served as President of the British Association and his sudden death in 1967. Invitations to dinner and place settings with the Prince and Princess of Monaco. Birthday greetings; international stamp collecting societies. Photographic ‘Permis de Sejour’ for William Benwell Rees in Monaco, October 1918. Volume 4: Basil Rees Vol. IV Begins with telegram from Rees to the Queen; mostly very extensive formal correspondence concerned with Rees’ Presidency of he British Association in Monaco; invitations, notes, printed volume of Statutes of association from 1950, royal correspondence with Monaco and Britain. Volume 5: Basil Rees 4-5 1902 Vol II; William Basil Benwell Rees; Royal Navy ID card, British Forces, September 1943 – other material relating to Rees’ work as Duty Defence Officer at the Royal Navy Defence Base in Alexandria, HMS Nice. Volume begins in 1902 and includes Alexandria Dog Show, W B B Rees at Jesus College, Cambridge; Egypt NAAFI permits; lock of Basil Rees’ hair, aged 2 etc.

Alexandria / Monaco / etc., c. 1902 – 1967. Octavo. Half Morocco. Bindings stronger rubbed and slightly damaged.

Spenser, Edmund / Renwick, W.L. [editor].

A View of the Present State of Ireland. [With loosely inserted softcover-pamphlet of the original publication: ‘A True Relation of the Present State of Ireland’ originally published by Benjamin Allen of London in 1641].

Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970. 14.5 cm x 22 cm. 230 pages. Illustrated. Includes a Map of Ireland. Original Hardcover with original dustjacket in protective collector’s mylar. Excellent condition with only very minor signs of wear. Some occasional, fine markings in text with pencil.

Buchanan, R. Ogilvie.

An Economic Geography of the British Empire. With Forty-Nine Diagrams and Maps and Sixteen Numbered Plates in Half-Tone Printed in the Text.

London, University of London Press, 1935. 15 cm x 21.5 cm. X, 346 pages. Hardcover [publisher’s original turquoise cloth] with lettering on spine and bordered front board. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear and soiling. Binding firm and strong but slightly cocked. Textblock solid with sharp corners. Interior bright and clean. Bookseller’s label on front pastedown.

Stuart de Rothesay, Charles Stuart, Baron (1779-1845) / Strangford, Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, 6th Viscount (1780 – 1855).

Original, unpublished letter by Anglo-Irish diplomat, Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford, to Sir Charles Stuart [Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay], asking him for a favour to send a Lantern to an address in Paris [?]. Strangford writes from his post as British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Stockholm, where he was posted between 1817 and 1820.

Stockholm, 1819. 2 octavo – pages on 1 sheet, folded. Excellent condition. Signed by Strangford.

Stuart de Rothesay, Charles Stuart, Baron (1779-1845) / Hay, Robert William (1786-1861) / Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1780 – 1831) [Baron de Rousseau – French Orientalist and French Consul at Tripoli] / Alexander Gordon Laing (1794 – 1826) [Scottish explorer and the first European to reach Timbuktu] / Hanmer Warrington / Foreign Secretary for Prime Minister Wellington, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen [Lord Aberdeen].

Original, unpublished and meaningful letter by British official and Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Robert William Hay, addressed with urgency to former secret agent in Spain and Portugal, Sir Charles Stuart de Rothesay, Scottish nobleman, and English ambassador to France (1815-1830); alerting Ambassador Charles Stuart of Hay’s arrival in Paris and his wish to ask him if he has “anything to communicate to me in regard to that Royal [Baron] Rousseau, The Barbary Consul”. Hay is in this letter preparing Stuart in order to investigate the situation around the death of explorer Alexander Gordon Laing in Africa. Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Sir R[obert] W.Hay, who had been informed about the situation around Laing’s missing Journals per private letter from the British Consul in Tripoli, Hanmer Warrington, announces his arrival in Paris to protest to the French government and advices ambassador Stuart:″I conclude that he [Baron Jean-Baptiste Rousseau] is by this time out of guarantiae, but I hope that by ensuing at Paris he will only get out of the frying Pan with the fire”. Hay continues: “I hope you will go with me (in case it be necessary) to the Minister, whoever he may be, in [?] Departement this ….were incredibly false for it. The French Govt. are really disposed & prosecute the Enquiry bon a fide. I think that same may acq…[….]…..on the other hand, if the French Govt. do not enter into y. enquiry with a good spirit, it will be in Rousseau’s …..to baffle me with the utmost facility in all our attempts to get at the truth. I spoke to Lord Aberdeen [George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Foreign Secretary for Prime Minister Wellington] on the day I left London, & he gave me full permission to conduct measures with you for the …of this affair. Yours very truly R.W.Hay”.

[London], [1829]. 5 octavo – pages on 2 sheets, folded. Excellent condition. Signed by Hay and dated probably “Monday, 19 Oct. [1829]”.

Wilkinson, Mrs (Annie Margaret).

A Lady’s Life and Travels in Zululand and the Transvaal During Cetewayo’s Reign – Being The African Letters and Journals of the Late Mrs Wilkinson.

London, J.T Hayes, 1882. 13 cm x 19 cm. VIII, 264 pages. Hardcover [publisher’s original blue cloth] with gilt lettering on spine and front board. Name of preowner on endpaper in ink: “J. Babington Jones – June 1894” [possibly Julian Babington Jones]. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Interior bright and clean.

Symons, N.V.H.

The Story of Government House [Raj Bhavan].

Bengal, Bengal Government Press, 1935. 14.5 cm x 22 cm. Frontispiece (Lord Wellesley as Govenor General, 1800 from a painting by R. Home), 155 pages, XVII. Some black and white photographic plates and illustrations throughout. Original Hardcover. Good condition with obvious signs of external wear. Book block and binding intact although frontipiece is cleanly detached. Message in ink pen to endpaper “With love to Henry from the Staff 29/5/46”. Covers slightly warped.

Hobley, C.W.

Bantu Beliefs and Magic. With a Particular Reference to the Kikuyu and Kamba Tribes of Kenya Colony; Together with some Reflections on East Africa After the War.

London, H. F. G. Witherby, 1922. 15.5 cm x 22.5 cm. Frontispiece with guard, 312 pages. 11 plates. Hardcover [publisher’s original green cloth] with gilt lettering and blind stamp on spine. Blind ruling to front board. Deckled fore and tail-edges. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Interior bright and clean. This being the copy of Charles Marsh Beadnell, with his name on the front endpaper.

Gillon, Captain Stair.

The Story of the 29th Division – A Record of Gallant Deeds. Compliled from Narratives supplied by the Three Divisonal Commanders and Others.

London, Edinburgh, and New York, Thomas Nelson and Sons, no year (c.1925) 15.5 cm x 23 cm. Frontispiece, XV, 276 pages. 3 portrait plates and 12 colour maps. Hardcover [publisher’s original brown cloth] with lettering on spine and front board. Red Design (Divisional insignia) to both spine and board also. Deckled fore- and tail edges. In protective Collector’s Mylar. Excellent condition with only minor signs of external wear. Top edge dust-toned with age. Occasional foxing to and otherwise clean and bright interior.

Cloete, Henry / [Cloete, William Brodrick / Montrose Cloete].

The History of the Great Boer Trek – And the Origin of the South African Republics. Edited by his Grandson William Brodrick-Cloete.

London, John Murray, 1899. 13cm x 19 cm. XVI, 196 pages. Hardcover [publisher’s original red cloth] with lettering on title label on spine. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. This being the copy of Montrose Cloete, with his name on front pastedown (together with the mentioning of one H.J.Asquith).