Beschreibung:

Broadley, Alexander Meyrick, and Bartelot, R.G THE THREE DORSET CAPTAINS AT TRAFALGAR. THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY, CHARLES BULLEN, HENRY DIGBY. JOHN MURRAY 1906 8vo, first edition, the author's copy extended to four volumes, folio (490 x 330mm) each with additional title page, lavishly extra-illustrated with nearly 900 items including c.200 letters and documents (described in more detail below), mostly by British naval figures from the age of Nelson, including three letters by Nelson, but also including earlier letters and also letters written to Broadley relating to his research and publication of the book and a series of letters and press cuttings relating to the 1906 sale of Nelson's draft Trafalgar Memorandum; an original ink and wash drawing of the death of Nelson, attributed on the verso to Isaac Cruickshank; c.80 contemporary caricatures, late 18th-early 19th, most hand-coloured, including six by Gillray, four by Rowlandson, two by H. Humphrey, eight by Woodward, three by I. Cruickshank, and two by G. Cruickshank, predominantly concerned with naval affairs, and more than 460 other prints, including mezzotint portraits of Nelson, Collingwood, Alexander Davison and others, many other portraits, naval scenes, harbour views (including an aquatint view of St George's, Bermuda, engraved by I.C. Stadler), illustrations of Dorsetshire interest, and others, also two early printed maps, John Speed Britain as it was … in the tyme of the Englishe-Saxons [The Heptarchy], ?1627, and Christopher Saxton, Dorcestriae, 1579, contemporary colour, with c.140 other items including a copy of Blake, Robert, and Monke, George, A True Relation of the late Great Sea Fight [the Battle of the Gabbard]. Henry Hills, 1653 [Wing B3138], three different chapbooks each entitled A Garland of New Songs, Newcastle: J. Marshall, n.d. with songs on the Battle of the Nile, and other contemporary ephemera, pamphlets, broadsheets, press cuttings, photographs, and other printed matter, half blue morocco gilt, Volume 2 with four loose plates, Volume 3 with one loose leaf, Volume 4 with five leaves loose and 19 items loose at the end, bindings rubbed at joints The more significant letters and documents include: Horatio, Lord Nelson, three autograph letters signed: (1) with his right hand, to his Excellency Francis Drake, minister at Genoa, explaining that he has been unable to land and sending an officer, 2 pages, 4to, HMS Agamemnon, off Genoa, 1 December 1795; (2) with his right hand, to Thomas Pollard, on the movements of the French (“…I am now protecting you from an intended embarkation of French Troops…”), HMS Agamemnon, off Genoa, 1 April 1796; (3) with his left hand (signed “Bronte Nelson of the Nile”), to Edmund Noble, 2 pages, 4to, Palermo, 2 June 1800; also Frances Nelson, autograph letter signed to her husband, a poignant letter written after Nelson had begun his affair with Emma Hamilton and had stopped writing to his wife, hoping for news of him, and with family news (“…Our good father received a letter yesterday from your Brother William tizing [sic] about no dignitaries for the Nelson family…”), 3 pages, 4to, St James’ Street, 10 December 1799, docketed by Davison Autograph letters by Admirals and other naval figures from the age of Nelson, including: Thomas Masterman Hardy, 9 letters; Viscount Hood, 3 letters, 1785-1807, including one on affairs in Corsica during Paoli’s rebellion describing the Corsicans as a “strange wild race of people”, 4 pages, 4to, HMS Victory, Leghorn Road, 9 September 1794, fold tears; Sir Robert Calder, to William Wood returning with a convoy from the West Indies, 3 pages, 4to, HMS Theseus in the Downs, 20 July 1795; Edward Berry, autograph letter signed, reassuring his family of his safety and reporting that “Lord Nelson is quite well”, 1 page, 4to, HMS Foudroyant, Port Mahon, 18 October 1799; Richard Keats, to Admiral Berkeley, on naval victories and the Peninsular Campaign, 5 pages, 4to, Cadiz, 25 May 1811; T. Hand, on