AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION A substantial collection of autograph l...

AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION. A substantial collection of autograph letters and documents, comprising
AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION. A substantial collection of autograph letters and documents, comprising: William Makepeace THACKERAY. Autograph letter signed ‘William T’, n.d., an amusing letter to [Richard] Ford complaining about his cigarist, ‘will you please take him in hand for me and tell him I think he is a rogue’, one page, oblong 8vo, with another note and a small sketch of a carnivalesque figure; and other letters by writers including Robert BROWNING (autograph letter signed to Clare Ford, 11 June 1875, making reference to the latter’s autograph collection, ‘When I can rummage among my letters, I daresay one of Thackeray’s will turn up, and you shall have it with all my heart’), August von Kotzebue, Alexander von Humboldt, also letters and documents signed by artists including J.M.W. TURNER (to Richard Ford, 1845), Frederic, Lord Leighton (with a small watercolour), Sir Thomas Lawrence, David Wilkie, David Roberts, J.E. Millais and John Ruskin, by politicians including Abraham LINCOLN (signature only), U.S. Grant (signature only), Palmerston (2; one of 3 October 1822 on his relief that his local hunt will continue unmolested and offering to contribute to its expenses), Benjamin Disraeli, Lord John Russell, George Canning (2), Richard Cobden, and W.E. Gladstone, monarchs including Queen VICTORIA (2), William IV, Edward VII (photograph signed ‘Edward R’, 1904) and George V, and by miscellaneous others including Giacomo Meyerbeer, David Garrick and David Livingstone; altogether approximately 105 items, plus engraved portraits and other illustrative matter, tipped or pasted onto the leaves of an album, folio (380x290), mottled brown morocco. Provenance : Sir Francis Clare Ford (1828–1899, bookplate).