HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS, AUTOGRAPHS & EPHEMERA
Lot 315
314 [Jane Austen Family]. General Account Book of Rents &c in Bucks, Hants, Suffolk &c belonging to William Vigor, of Basingstoke, Hampshire, fl. 1830s, October 1835 to October 1844, and containing letterbook correspondence of William Edward Vigor, Rector of Botus Fleming, Cornwall, fl. 1851-90, March 1865 to March 1876, autograph manuscript, a total of 77 pp. excluding blanks, in two hands, including references to rent of a house in Basingstoke by ‘Mrs Lefroy’, paper watermarked ‘W. Bickford 1837’, Plymouth Bookseller’s invoice made out to Rev. W.E. Vigor loosely inserted (Michaelmas 1887), contemporary vellum, slightly soiled, folio The references to Anna Lefroy: ‘House = Basingstoke/Mrs Lefroy Tenant £80Pan; ‘1837 July 22 to cash of Mrs Lefroy for use of Fixtures [£]30’; ‘1837 Deer to... Mrs Lefroy/1/2 Years Rent [£]40’. Anna Lefroy was Jane Anna Elizabeth Austen, the niece of the novelist Jane Austen and daughter of her eldest brother Reverend James Austen. Anna married Benjamin Lefroy, vicar of Ashe, Hampshire, 1783-1872. When Anna was 2 her mother suddenly died and ‘Anna was taken from Deane to Steventon to be cared for by her grandmother and aunts... Anna became a dearly loved part of the Steventon family, and the nearest thing to a child of their own for Cassandra and Jane. Jane’s acute observation of children must have sprung first from this little niece; when the small Gardiners in Pride and Prejudice express joy in purely physical fashion, “over their whole bodies, in a variety of capers and frisks”, we are surely seeing Anna in a happy moment’ (Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life, 1997). In later years Anna was the chief source of information about Jane Austen’s personal life. (1) £200-300
315* Badge Designs. A group of approximately 400 watercolours of British badge designs, late 1970s and early 1980s, watercolour on paper, paper sizes mostly approximately 7 x 5.5cm, mounted on card with paper overlay and manuscript identification, includes designs for St Dunstan’s Amateur Radio Society, Somerset Vintage Farming Society, Oxford Cornish Association, Old Basing Archers, Dunlop Motor Club Birmingham, Dudsbury Car Club, Devon & Exmoor Sheepdog Society, Dorset Printing Industries Association, Jenson Owners’ Club, Melksham Twinning Association, Mid-Somerset Ladies’ Licensed Victuallers Auxiliary, Bristol Dockers Lifesaving Club, Oriental Tabby Cat Club, South Wales Canine Training Society, Southampton Motor Club, Shakespeare Motorcycle Club, ACCO Foot Care Assistant, Frome & District Goatkeepers’ Club, etc. (approx. 400)
316 Cookery Receipts. A manuscript cookery and medical receipts book compiled by several owners, late 18th and early 19th century, including receipts for curing nervous complaints ‘From Mrs Hill to Mrs John Clark’, dated 1796, ‘To repel a milk breast, composition for gout, Lucabella’s balsam, Mrs Cotton’s astringar cordial, syrup of saffron, ‘For a pearl in ye eye’, gascoigne powder, historick water, to make laudanum, Dr Lower’s receipt for dockdrink, damson brandy, palsie water, lemon biscuit, stain for mahogany, to pickle clove gillyflowers, lavender water, raisin wine, Christmas cakes, almond pudding, colouring for wine, currant jelly, cure for rheumatism, potato pudding, etc., various neat hands, a total of approximately 300 numbered pages, lacks pp. 83-94, a few leaves detached, partially indexed at front, contemporary reversed calf, some wear, 4to (20 x 16cm)
£100-150
(1)
83
£150-200