Memoirs of Theodore Lane

description below

A bound album with “Biographical sketch of the life of Mr. Theodore Lane” (pages [33]-59 from Pierce Egan’s 1831 publication: The show folks! (London : Printed for M. Arnold, 1831)), extra-illustrated with portraits of actors, actors in performances, playwrights, and art patrons, followed by cropped impressions, mounted, of the twenty-seven hand-colored plates that accompanied with Pierce Egan’s 1825 The life of an actor and on the final four leaves the nine small, black and white vignettes, also of theatrical scenes also from Egan’s Life of an actor. Lane was an English painter and engraver, who excelled at comic illustration. Also bound in at the front is an autograph letter from Egan dated 15 June 1832 to Mr. Elliott.

 

  • Author: Egan, Pierce, 1772-1849.
  • Title: Memoirs of Theodore Lane : printed text and manuscript / by Pierce Egan.
  • Production: England, circa 1825?

Catalog Record

Quarto 56 Eg13 832m

Acquired June 2020

Tooke family album of unpublished correspondence

description below

Quarto album, with 29 autograph letters (three being fragments), c. 100 pages in total (some laid in loose); two commonplace manuscripts c. 35 and c. 62 pages; a large fragment of a play c. 90 pages (on rectos only), comprising most of(?) Act II, all of Acts III and IV and most of(?) Act V; and an unrecorded printed folio broadside advertising the sale by auction on 1 November 1820 of an ‘Estate in the Vale of Clwyd, Denbighshire’ (Elizabeth Tooke’s family property). The 29 letters are to and from various members of the family, with 14 being from the period the family spent in Russia.

 

  • Author: Tooke, William, 1744-1820.
  • Title: Tooke family album of unpublished correspondence and commonplace manuscripts : manuscript.
  • Production: St. Petersburg and London, bulk 1773-1811

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 254

Acquired March 2020

Letter from Caroline of Brunswick to Lady Abercorn

see description belowA letter from Caroline of Brunswick to Lady Abercorn, in a secretary’s hand, which conveys a sense of her isolation living in London after her separation from the Prince of Wales. The letter begins with her friendly thanks to Lady Abercorn for the “keepsake” or “talisman” which she sent onto Dr. Pimberton that she suspects would have decorated “the grand Mufti”. She continues with apologies for the need to decline her invitation to the seaside due to her mother’s (Princess Augusta) uncertain health and her “knowing so few people in England”. She talks of other mutual acquatiances who have visited her, the Aberdeens and Lady Maria Chaperone, and reports on Lady Maria’s recovery. Caroline writes of her pleasure in Walter Scott’s visits and a lively evening with Monk Lewis who told “ghost stories the whole evening” and how his embellishment of a story she told made it unrecognizable. She end with regards to her and her family “who have not yet forgotten me and my nonsense.”

  • Author: Caroline, Queen, consort of George IV, King of Great Britain, 1768-1821.
  • Title: Letter from Caroline of Brunswick to Lady Abercorn, 1810 May 3 : manuscript.
  • Production: London?, 1810 May 3.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss File 146

Acquired July 2019

England and Wales described

  • Author: Toldervy, William.
  • Title: England and Wales described : In a series of letters: exhibiting whatever is worthy the observation of the curious traveller, as well as all others, who wish to be made acquainted with the beauties of this happy country. Lately written from different parts of the kingdom, and principally to a gentleman in the isle of Wight. To which are added, historical, critical, and explanatory notes. By William Toldervy, editor of a collection of epitaphs, &c. Vol.
  • Publication: London : Printed for L. Davis and C. Reymers, and W. Flexney, in Holborn; W. Owen, near Temple-Bar; and J. Fletcher and Co. in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, MDCCLXII [1762]

Catalog Record 

63 762 T648

Acquired June 2019

 

George Townshend manuscript letter book

George Townshend manuscript. Detailed description below.

A manuscript letter book containing copies of incoming correspondence from George Beauchamp Proctor, Mr. Oldenshaw, Lancaster Framingham, the Duke of Richmond, Sir William Fordyce, Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, Mr. Lionel Smythe, Benjamin Stehelin, and others as well as Townshend’s outgoing letters to Mr. Stacpoole, the earliest dated 5 March 1785 and the last dated 22 June 1785. The subjects discussed with Thomas Beevan include a living in his posession that he did not confer on Beevan’s son, to Beevan’s great disappointment; issues regarding his regiment with Major Taylor; his appointment by the King to the Board of Land & Sea Offices to investigate the plans to secure the dock yards at Plymouth and Portsmouth; a court martial of 1785; the American loyalists (“I have given one fourth of my Lot to the unfortunate American Loyalists”; military patronage, concerns about his son Frederick, who was later declared insane for shooting his brother. Other matters include the difficulties in assembling an impartial jury and other parliamentary matters and references to the wishes of the King.

  • Author: Townshend, George Townshend, Marquis, 1724-1807.
  • Title: George Townshend manuscript letter book entitled ‘1. Copies of letters from the 5th March 1785-‘ : manuscript.
  • Production: Norfolk, England, approximately 1785.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss Vol. 245

Acquired March 2019

John Jackson ledgers relating to the naval administration

3 manuscript volumes

Three manuscript volumes comprising the correspondence and bills of John Jackson. His meticulously detailed correspondence and accounts reveal vast amounts about Maltese trade, the mechanics of privateering, and the opportunities for profiteering.

  • Author: Jackson, John.
  • Title: John Jackson ledgers relating to the naval administration, export, and privateering activities in Malta, 1807-1813.

Catalog Record 

LWL Mss Vol. 240

Acquired June 2018

Collection of letters from Thomas Dibdin…

Sixteen letters, all dating from 1819, that provide detailed view of the negotations over a very limited time period. The subjects of the letters include: Enquiring as to the terms for renting the theatre, suggesting that his figure of £10,000 per annum to include all the costumes and fixtures and fittings was quite sufficient; asking for a list of the present engagements and expenses; offering a further £3,000 to refurbish the theatre; vouching for the integrity of his backers (‘their sole motive is the placing me unconditionally and without controul as entire Manager & Conductor & principal Partner in the concern’); informing the committee sub rosa that Mr [Abraham] Walker of [Doyley’s Warehouse] the Strand would give security, expecting to take £200 for 200 nights [i.e. £40,000]; suggesting in July that he may be able to make a more advantageous offer; inviting Ward to lunch and dinner and to discuss business with Walker, and the following day putting forward the new proposal: (‘… I agree to pay the Taxes for the whole term in addition to a Rent of £9000 per An: for the first Two years and £10,000 per An: for the Remainder of the Term to be agreed on, which Term (considering the very discouraging and totally reduced state of the Theatre at present and that it will take a very long time to re-establish it) ought to be at the option of the Lessee, for seven, fourteen or twenty one years. …’). Dibdin continues the correspondence on 23 July by questioning why he has received no response to the proposition, and on the 31st putting forward to the committee a further offer of a loan from Walker (also included is Walker’s own proposition, dated 22 July); with two incompletely dated letters of 1919 to R. Peatre complaining that he (Peatre) should not have been given confidential information relating to the offer for the lease. Together with other Dibdin-relating material, including: Three Autograph Letters Signed from the dramatist Cecil Pitt to Winstone (?James Winston) and the Board of Management of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, (watermarked 1801 and postmarked 1804) concerning his own productions, and particularly Zingara, or the Heroine of China, for which he includes the printed playbill; also three letters of George Dibdin Pitt (1795-1855 – ‘I am the elder brother of Mr Pitt the Painter – and nephew of the Dibdins’), offering his services and those of Miss Pitt-Phillips (‘of the Worthing and Leicester Theatres’) to Elliston and Drury Lane, and elaborating on his theatrical achievements, 1826 and 1830 where dated.

  • TitleCollection of letters from Thomas Dibdin, Cecil Pitt and George Dibdin Pitt, relating to Drury Lane Theatre, 1804, 1819, 1826, and undated.

Catalog Record 

LWL Mss Group 6

Acquired July 2017

Letters : to his son Edward

lwlacq_000091

A group of thirteen signed letters from the botanist John Stackhouse to his eldest son Edward later (from 1815) Edward William Wynne Pendarves containing advice on the management of the family estate in Cornwall, Pendarves and related mining rights as well as family news and gossip from Bath where the father was living in retirement.

  • AuthorStackhouse, John, 1742-1819.
  • TitleLetters : to his son Edward, 1805-1819

Catalog Record

LWL Mss File 117

Acquired July 2013