Lot 285
Eminent Victorians
Collection of autograph letters and signatures
Auction: Books & Manuscripts | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 253 to 285
Description
comprising approx. 40 complete autograph letters signed (of which approx. 25 loose, and 15 mounted in a 4to half morocco album), many apparently written in response to a request for an autograph from one John Brown (several addressed to a Mr or Reverend John Brown, of St John's College, Oxford and other addresses including 36 Royal Crescent, Notting Hill, these letters generally dated c.1861-2; the album with ownership inscription 'Jn. Brown'), and approx. 150 other signed pieces, mainly clipped signatures and sentiments (of which approx. 50 loose and 100 mounted in the foregoing album). Including complete autograph letters and notes from: William Makepeace Thackeray (on Cornhill Magazine stationery); Wilkie Collins; Elizabeth Gaskell; Michael Faraday; William Holman Hunt ('I am not particularly proud of my writing, but as my modesty on this head does not prevent me from seeing that autograph collectors refrain from throwing away even worse caligraphy [sic] than mine, I send you this'); Garnet Wolseley; Charles Mackay (author of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions); Thomas Hughes (author of Tom Brown's Schooldays); George Augustus Sala; Henry Campbell Bannerman (on 10 Downing Street stationery); Charles T. Beke (Abyssinian explorer); John Lawrence (viceroy of India); John Bright; and others including peers and politicians. The clipped signatures etc. include Queen Victoria, George III, William Gladstone, Edward Cardwell, Charles Kingsley, David Brewster (Scottish scientist), and numerous others