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Autographs Maggs 1453 No. 120, Nathalie Krassovska No. 126, Serge Lifar No. 95, Peggy Ashcroft and John Gielgud No. 98, Martha Graham AUTOGRAPH LETTERS & HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS MAGGS 1453 Peter de Corbeil, no. 176 Catalogue compiled by Hinda Rose and Polly Beauwin Maggs Bros Ltd., 50 Berkeley Square, London W1J 5BA Open Monday – Friday, 9.30am – 5.00pm Tel: (00)44-(0)20-7493 7160 Fax: (00)44-(0)20-7499 2007 [email protected] [email protected] Bank Account: Allied Irish (GB), 10 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6AA Sort code: 23-83-97 Account Number: 47777070 IBAN: GB94AIBK23839747777070 BIC: AIBKGB2L VAT No.: GB239381347 Access/Mastercard and Visa: Please quote card number, expiry date, name, security code and invoice number by mail, fax or telephone. EU members: please quote your VAT/TVA number when ordering. Items may be subject to VAT within the EU; EU customers outside the UK may not be subject to VAT if they provide a VAT number at time of purchase. The goods shall legally remain the property of the seller until the price has been discharged in full. ©Maggs Bros Ltd. 2011 express to you personally my full admiration for all the truly wonderful energy, devotion and power of administration you have displayed during these long and critical years.” Slight splitting at the edges of the centre horizontal folds has been repaired under our direction. Together with a contemporary postcard photograph of ‘Alexandra, the Queen Mother’, an elegant oval head and shoulders image. “WE HAD A GOOD CAMPAIGN” 2. ALLENBY, Edmund, Viscount (1861-1936). Field-Mashal. Autograph Letter Signed (“Edmund H.H. Allenby”) to “My dear Yardley” [his friend Col. John Watkins Yardley, Deputy Director of remounts with the Cavalry Corps]. 2½ pages 8vo, Palestine, 3 February 1918. £795 A letter written less than three months after Allenby’s capture of Jerusalem, in December 1917. Though Allenby does not give his exact location, at the beginning “THESE 5 YEARS OF CRUEL WAR” of February he was at Bir Salem, near Ramleh, on the Jaffa Jerusalem road, making preparations for an 1. ALEXANDRA (1844-1925). Queen Consort of attack on Jericho, which was captured on 21 February. Edward VII. After some setbacks in March his decisive victory at Autograph Letter Signed (“Alexandra”), as Queen Megiddo in September was followed by his capture of Damascus and Aleppo, which effectively ended Mother, to Mrs. [Charlotte] Sclater, Honorary Ottoman power in Greater Syria. Secretary of Queen Alexandra’s Field Force Fund which sent gifts to the troops on all fronts, about the winding up of the Fund at the end of the First World War. 4 pages 8vo with the original autograph envelope, written on black-edged paper with Queen Alexandra’s embossed monogram of silver entwined A’s beneath a crown at the top left, Marlborough House, 20 March 1919. £325 Queen Alexandra’s fund, which sent parcels of ‘comforts’ to the troops such as board games, cigarettes, books and handkerchiefs, was opened in October 1914, with the public invited to contribute. Charlotte Sclater, who had organised a similar fund during the Boer War, was the very efficient Honorary Secretary. Her work was honoured when in 1917 she was appointed one of the first Companions of the newly established Order of the British Empire. “As the time of closing and winding up of our Field Force Fund is now approaching – I cannot refrain from expressing my most deep felt appreciation and thanks to all the members for their wonderful and splendid work during these 5 years of cruel War – Indeed all our brave Soldiers and Sailors, can never be grateful enough to its hard working members for all the splendid benefits they have received, at their hands – And now, dear Mrs Sclater may I Allenby’s correspondent, Col. Yardley, had been at have no fears for the future, if we keep our heads & Sandhurst with him and became his closest friend in our courage up. Owing to pressure of politics, I fear, the Inniskilling Dragoons. The two men had served I shall not be able to go to the Sudan this Spring, so together in the Boer War, in which Allenby had we shall not be able to run away for the unpleasant rescued Yardley when he was badly wounded. months of January & February . .” “Thanks for your welcome letter of 9 Jan[uar]y & for Early the previous year, elections in Egypt had your kind words of congratulation & good will. We had brought the nationalist Wafd Party to power. Anti- a good campaign; wh. went according to programme. royalist and striving for independence from British Now we are consolidating; N.[orth] of Jerusalem domination, this led to many tensions in the country, & Jaffa, & devolving by road & railways – wh. are which finally came to a head in November 1924 with backward – The rainy season is on – in 4 months the assassination of the sirdar [military commander] – December to March – as much rain falls as falls in Sir Lee Stack. Allenby, as High Commissioner for England in 12 months; & roads & rails sink into the Egypt and the Sudan, imposed some order on the earth . I’m afraid the old Regiment [the Inniskillings] situation, but in June 1925 finally returned to England had a poor time at Cambrai [a recent indecisive battle and retirement. on the Western Front, with very heavy casualties on both sides] but they earned new laurels.” 4. ALENCON, Francois, duc d’Alencon et d’Anjou (1554- 1584). Youngest son of Henri II and Catherine de Medici; suitor of Elizabeth I. D o c u m e n t S i g n e d (“francoys”), c o n f i r m i n g the grant of a pension of 2000 livres to the Sieur de Droux, his chamberlain and lieutenant in the government of Berry. 1 page oblong folio in French on vellum, with a calligraphic first line giving Alencon’s style 3. ALLENBY, Edmund, Viscount (1861-1936). and titles as “only [surviving] brother of the King Field-Marshal. [Henri III], Duke of Anjou Alencon Touraine and Autograph Letter Signed (“Allenby”), as High Berry”, Plesis les Tours, 13 June 1580. £595 Commissioner for Egypt, to “My dear Gary” [the In August of the previous year, 1579, the 24-year-old American diplomat Hampson Gary, appointed French Prince, puny and somewhat disreputable, Consul General at Cairo with responsibility for visited England to pay personal court to Elizabeth. For Palestine and Syria 1917-1919], thanking him for a time she appeared to consider marrying him, despite his New Year’s gift of a book on Washington, and the wide age difference. Her intentions are even now commenting on the situation in Egypt, “a troublous not clear, but it seems her apparent encouragement country”. of Alencon partly derived from her wish to punish 2 pages 4to on letterhead of the High Commissioner her favourite the Earl of Leicester, particularly after for Egypt, with autograph envelope [stamp she discovered he had secretly married. In any case, removed], Cairo, 20 January 1925. £275 marriage to a foreign Catholic would have been very unpopular in England, and the Queen realised that “I fear I have never thanked you & Mrs. Gary for “if I do [marry him] I shall not be able to govern the your kind thought in sending, at the New Year, the country with the freedom and security I have hitherto charming book descriptive of your Capital . Egypt enjoyed.” is much changed, since you left; but it remains a troublous country, and – as you know – we have had Alencon’s visit to England in 1579 was brief, but he tragic events. However, I am always hopeful; and I came for a longer period two years later, finally departing for the Netherlands in late 1581, escorted (one may imagine with great pleasure) by his rival for He was eventually made a peer, which meant that his Elizabeth’s affections the Earl of Leicester. son had to relinquish his parliamentary career at his Documents signed by Alencon are rather rare. A father’s death. However, his wife, Astor’s daughter-in- vertical fold crease, and text very slightly faded, but law Nancy Astor, thereby gained the opportunity to legible. The signature is strong and clear. become Britain’s first woman MP. 5. ADDINGTON, Henry (1757-1844). Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister 1801-1804. Autograph Letter in the third person to the Dowager Countess Poulett, giving her carriage free access through “either of the Gates of Richmond Park”. 1 page 8vo, Richmond Park, 8 July 1823. £65 “Lord Sidmouth presents his Compliments to Dowager Countess Poulett, and trusts that He has effectually prevented any Interruption, or Enquiries, in future, when Her Ladyship may be disposed to pass in her Carriage, thro’ either of the Gates of Richmond Park. the Misses Addington entirely concur in the Wish, which Lady Poulett has done them the Honor to express.” When Lord Sidmouth became Prime Minister, George III offered him the deputy rangership of Richmond Park, and the residence of White Lodge, within its 7. ASHTON, Sir Frederick (1904-1988). grounds. The gates of Richmond Park had been Choreographer. closed to the public for some years in the 1750s, whilst Princess Amelia lived at White Lodge. However, by Photograph Signed (“Frederick Ashton”), signed in the time of this letter, this was no longer the case. blue biro across his light-coloured shirt, a head and The Dowager Countess Poulett, to whom this letter is shoulders portrait of the choreographer standing in addressed, was the widow of the fourth Earl Poulett, profile in a garden with a statue of a nymph in the and the last Poulett to reside at Poulett Lodge in background.