WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON

Sonnets to the Queen on Her Accession.

Manuscript, 1849. 8 pages, 360 x 260 mm. The sonnet is written out in manuscript on one page with the author's initials bottom right. The first page has the decorative initials L.G.S. for Letitia Sarah Georgina Sadleir [1813 - 67], of Castleton, Ireland. She has also written a note opposite the poem identifying its author. "These verses are in the handwriting of the celebrated Sir William Rowan Hamilton, the distinguished astronomer, by whom they were composed." William Rowan Hamilton [1805 - 65] was an Irish mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, as well as a poet. He made important reformulations of Newtonian physics, now known as Hamiltonian physics. He met William Wordsworth a number of times and sent him numerous poems, becoming a "poetic disciple." He also visited Samuel Taylor Coleridge at Highgate in 1832. Although his biographies mention his poetry, apart from a single leaf entitled The Rydal Hours [1832] I can find no record of any having been published. Wordsworth obviously believed that his talents would be better employed in the pursuit of science writing to him "You send me showers of verses which I receive with much pleasure... yet have we fears that this employment may seduce you from the path of science.... Again I do venture to submit to your consideration, whether the poetical parts of your nature would not find a field more favourable to their nature in the regions of prose, not because those regions are humbler, but because they may be gracefully and profitably trod, with footsteps less careful and in measures less elaborate."

Michael S. Kemp - BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 44562

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript

JOSEPHSON, Ernst

Till Emelie Josephsons d. 12. Sept 1899.

1899. 20 line manuscript poem. Ernst Josephson [1851 - 1906] was a Swedish painter and poet. This poem may be in memory of one of his elder sisters with who he was raised by his mother following their abandonment by their father.

Michael S. Kemp - BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 45074

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript

SAMUEL MOATES

Canvas Warehouse and Tarpaulin Manufacturer. Valuation of Stock and Fixtures at Shadwell at Decease of Samuel Moates.

Shadwell, Manuscript, 1857. Narrow folio, 395 x 160 mm. 32 pages [of which 3 blank], folded, plain wrappers. Samuel Moates, listed as Moate in Robson's 1832 London Directory, was a ship owner and chandler of Lower Shadwell, London. "Copy. The Inventory of the Stock in Trade, Furniture, Fixtures, Horse, Chaise and Harness, the property of Mr. Samuel Moates Decease'd, taken at his late Premises at Lower Shadwell and valued December 13, 14 & 17th 1833 by order of the Executors for the purpose of Administrating to the Effects." An earlier valuation used for the purpose of assessing loss "All these fixtures & all we had [?] up - the warehouse & greater parts of the house, the stock in trade the whole consumed by fire on the 15th January 1857." The original valuation in ink, with what we assume to be amendments made in 1857 in pencil. The original valuation placed the furniture, fixtures, horse, chaise etc. at £266 8s. and the extensive stock in trade [15 pages] at £2,533.

Michael S. Kemp - BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 46610

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript

TOSTI, Paolo

Signed note and card.

1908. 2 items. Signed note of thanks on Claridge's Hotel Notepaper, dated 14 December 1908. With menu, presumably from Claridges, also inscribed in pencil. Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti [1846 - 1916] was an Italian composer and music teacher who became singing master to the English Royal Family and a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. He became a British citizen in 1906 and was knighted by his friend King Edward VII in 1908.

Michael S. Kemp - BooksellerProfessional seller

Book number: 45073

Catalogue: Manuscript

Keywords: Manuscript