1917.]. Oblong 8vo, 174 x 276mm; ff. [8] leaves of postcards in lithograph, four per page, separated by perforations, thus 32 in all, of which 16 are printed in full colour, and 16 are duplicates in outline ready to be coloured in; central leaf detached; very minor rusting to central gutter from staple, aside from some occasional light soiling, and minor offsetting from colour, quite fresh and bright; stapled as issued in the original decorative card wrappers, staple rusted, covers somewhat soiled and lightly scuffed, with some minor staining, a couple of small marginal tears, corners a little bumped and furled; still a very good copy of a scarce ephemeral item. A scarce and unusual W.W.I ephemeral survivor - a rare postcard colouring book showing the street trades and inhabitants of the port of Salonika (now Thessaloniki). Unused and seemingly complete, the booklet is a fine example of the mass market for postcards which developed as a direct consequence of the war, booksellers quickly responding to the demand from soldiers far from home, for cheap and lightweight souvenir cards. Extraordinary efforts were made to keep the flow of mail to the troops at the front, and, in return, to Britain, France, Italy and further afield. Postcards were to become a vital form of communication, an easy way to show and tell families about where they were and what life was like. Popular with the military authorities as well, being easy to censor, a mass market soon developed, booksellers and publishers printing and selling hundreds of thousands of cards, with a vast array of subject matters depicted, frequently scenic, sometimes capturing camp and military life or, as here, more light-hearted.
Of the 32 cards, 16 are vibrantly coloured, with the remaining 16 reproduced in outline ready for colouring - a gentle distraction no doubt. One can only imagine that crayons and paints would be in short supply in the field, but a note on the verso of the current booklet helpful notes ‘'For colouring use the non-poisonous colours of Bourgeois Ainé’. Very much of the time, and thus somewhat stereotyped, amongst the street trades depicted we find crossing-sweepers, musicians, money-changers, grinders, confectioners, ‘schoemakers’ (sic), a photographer, a tailor, a milkman, a lemonade vendor, a barber and a fishmonger. They brightly convey to those back home the sense of ‘other worldliness’ of life in Salonika, and would in all probability amaze, amuse, hopefully reassure, and no doubt be treasured, by the recipient, something to be held dear until their return.
Included amongst the Allied Forces, as is well known, were several authors, poets, artists and cartoonists, and some of these artists went on to contribute series of cartoons for postcards. Whilst some of these serving, military, artists remain anonymous, the present series, according to Diana Wardle in her chapter ‘Write Home Salonika’, is the work of the lithographer Jacques Touchet (1887-1949), the series also being published in French as ‘Les petits metiers a Salonique’. Wardle suggests that, as here, the series was made up of 16 ‘trades’, and notes further that ‘a double spread of his work was published in L’Illustration in February 1917. After the war, Touchet provided a series of his caricatures of Salonica ‘types’ for the benefit of l’Union de Femmes de France’ (p. 244 in Archaeology Behind the Battle Lines. The Macedonian Campaign (1915-19) and its Legacy edited by Andrew Shapland and Evangelia Stefani).

1880s?. Oblong small 8vo, ff. 40 leaves of chromolithograph plates; some very light marginal browning and foxing; in contemporary navy and light blue cloth backed boards, upper cover lettered in gilt, spine lightly sunned, covers a little stained and soiled. A scarce and beautifully illustrated late Victorian trade catalogue, issued by the Kent based coach building company W. P. Love, with forty chromolithograph illustrations of horse-drawn coaches and carts, and showing a variety of commercial, utility and multi-passenger vehicles, some of which include oil-lamps. A wonderful catalogue, the images ‘transport’ us back to a bygone era of horse-drawn travel - the ultimate green form of transportation.
Despite living only 15 miles from Paddock Wood, we have sadly been unable to find out any further information about W. P. Love, though believe that they remained in operation on Commercial Road until the late 20th century.

1852. Small 8vo, pp. [ii] blank, 64, [2] blank; with title-page vignette, frontispiece portrait of Wellington and three full-page engravings; printed on ‘enamel’ gloss paper entirely in gilt within double ruled gilt border; some occasional minor foxing and soiling, but otherwise clean and bright; with faint pencil inscription on front free endpaper, but somewhat illegible; bound in dark red morocco, spine in compartments with raised bands tooled in gilt, covers elaborately tooled in gilt with ornate design within double gilt ruled border, with title in gilt on upper cover, with inner gilt dentelles, and all edges gilt, spine a little darkened, with small mark on upper cover, covers a little soiled with slight wear to extremities and corners; an appealing copy. First and only edition of this most attractively produced celebration of the life of Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), and printed entirely in gold. One of the leading military and political figures in Britain during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, this luxuriously produced work provides a brief summary of his life and military feats and victories, commencing in India, and ending with the Battle of Waterloo. Four illustrations, also in gold, accompany the text and include a frontispiece of Wellington astride his equally famous horse Copenhagen (after Sir Thomas Lawrence), and three depiction's of his famous battles of Assaye, Vittoria, and Waterloo, all signed by ‘Adeney’. The work concludes with a four page chronological record of the ‘Principle Events in the Life of the Duke of Wellington’. Wellington died suddenly at his residence at Walmer Castle on September 14th 1852, and according to a contemporary advertisement in Bent’s Literary Advertiser the present Memorial work was published on November 15th, three days before his State funeral on November 18th.

1855. Large 8vo, pp. [iv], ii, 400; with eight hand-coloured lithograph plates, each retaining tissue guard; plates all somewhat browned, with some foxing throughout as usual, more prominent in places; original publisher’s black pebble-grained cloth with ornate Rococo-style gilt design, spine in compartments with raised bands, all edges gilt with white moire paste-downs, covers a little rubbed and faded, but otherwise an appealing copy. An appealing later edition of this introduction to entomology designed for children, and particularly girls, written by the educationalist and popular scientific writer Sophia Ulliac-Trémadeure (1794-1862). Sophia Ulliac-Trémadeure wrote a large number of works and was a moving force in the Bibliothèque de la jeune Fille, for which the present publication was written, and is a most striking example.
Once again using the conversational format, Mrs Ulliac Tremadeure presents a series of 22 dialogues, covering entomology and natural history, and with a particular emphasis upon butterflies. The work is accompanied by eight beautifully hand-coloured plates, which depict nearly 50 insects and transformations.
We believe the work was previously published by Desforges under the variant title of ‘Quelques leçons d’histoire naturelle’, possibly in the previous year though Gumuchian suggested a possible date of 1845. The title page of that variant gives credit for the ‘belles ltihographies’ to Gabriel Montaut. Didier first issued the work under the present title in 1854.

1933. 8vo, pp. xviii, 164, [2] plate half-title, [iv] supplementary card series dividers; with 54 full page illustrations and a series of 12 ‘cinematographic’ films on 480 flicker cards; text a little browned due to paper quality, mainly marginal, with some further occasional light foxing and soiling; card dividers between flip cards a little soiled and have been deliberately torn to facilitate ‘flipping’; in the original blue publisher’s cloth, spine lettered in gilt, rear joint an inner hinges repaired. First edition of this striking and remarkable 1930s guidebook for women, featuring exercises for reproduction, childbirth and sexual pleasure. The book includes a ‘Cinematographic Supplement’ of twelve flicker-card films, each demonstrating the author’s exercise manoeuvres in the sequential photographic style first made famous by Muybridge.
‘It aims at providing a guide for women and those who help them (whether as doctors, midwives, nurses and gymnastic instructresses) in the full evolution and utilisation of the feminine sexual capacities and faculties. These capacities and faculties are generally quite inadequate in practice; they should include both appropriately active participation in the act of sexual congress and appropriate voluntary muscular action which assists the act of birth’ (Preface).
Theodor Hendrik van de Velde (1873-1937), was a Dutch gynaecologist and author of The Perfect Marriage (1926), a liberal treatise which was quickly put on the Catholic Index, a decision which no doubt contributed to the work’s success. It is not clear whether Sex Efficiency through Exercises was also censored, but it is hard to believe that such a work, which includes a series of naked images of women in the flicker cards, would have escaped unscathed in the 1930s. It certainly makes for somewhat uncomfortable reading today, despite being of interest for the innovative illustrative techniques used. A complex and challenging work.

1915-1919.]. Small photograph on satin, 140 x 85mm, retaining the original printed brown envelope, photograph a little browned with faint dampstain (more visible on verso), with some light fraying to edges; envelope a little creased with a few small marginal nicks and tears, but otherwise good. A scarce memorial item commemorating the death of the British nurse Edith Cavell (1865-1915).
The daughter of a rector, Cavell was born in the village of Swardeston, Norfolk, and worked as a governess in Belgium, before training to be a nurse in London. She worked in hospitals in Shoreditch, Kings Cross and Manchester and then accepted a position in Brussels as Matron in Belgium's first training hospital and school for nurses. There was no established nursing profession in Belgium at the time of Edith's appointment, and her pioneering work led her to be considered the founder of modern nursing education in that country. She was in Norfolk visiting her mother when the First World War broke out in 1914. On hearing of the threat to Belgium, she felt compelled to return. Working in German-occupied Belgium, she helped hundreds of British, French and Belgian soldiers escape the Germans before her arrest and trial. She was infamously executed by firing squad on the grounds of treason by the German authorities in October 1915, on the charge of harbouring Allied soldiers in Belgium. Her death aroused world-wide condemnation, and in the months and years following her death, countless newspaper articles, pamphlets, images, and books publicised her story, and she became an iconic propaganda figure in Britain, due partly to her sex, her nursing profession, and her apparently heroic approach to death.
In 1919 her remains were transferred back to Britain and she was honoured with a national service at Westminster Abbey, before her remains were carried in state back to her home county of Norfolk, where she was interred at Norwich Cathedral.
This photographic portrait of Cavell printed on Satin, was sold by the Daily Mirror in aid of the Edith Cavell Memorial Fund, which aimed to establish a home for nurses in London. A reproduction of the famous photograph taken in Brussels before the start of the war, the image shows her sitting in a garden together with two dogs, with her signature below and the quote '"I have seen death so often that it is not strange or painful to me. I am glad to die for my country." Brussels, October 12th, 1915'. It was one of the last photographs to be taken of Edith Cavell. Whilst in Belgium she had adopted a stray called Jack, who was rescued after her execution and adopted by the Countess de Croy. The photograph is housed within the original orange printed envelope, which gives further detail of the proposed Fund, and lists a number of distinguished people who have already contributed to the Fund. The Memorial Fund was begun, in collaboration with the Daily Telegraph, shortly after her death. The Edith Cavell Home for Nurses, attached to the London Hospital, was opened on April 11th 1919. The Cavell Trust remains to this day, offering benevolent support to UK nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants, both working and retired.

1920. 4to, pp. [64] including frontispiece; printed on china coated paper; title-page and 28 full-page photographic reproductions of chalk sketches on brown paper done by the author; some occasional light soiling, but otherwise clean and bright; in the original blue cloth backed pictorial boards, upper cover embossed and lettered in blue, with small mounted colour vignette of a saluting member of the WRAF, spine lettered in blue, head and tail slightly bumped and worn, covers slightly scuffed, extremities a little bumped and rubbed; a very good copy. First edition of this early and attractively produced account of life in the recently formed Women’s Royal Air Force, by Getrude A. George (1886-1971). Previously an art teacher before the war, what makes the work of particular appeal are the 28 delightful full-page illustrations by the author, reproductions of her original chalk sketches drawn on brown paper, and which evocatively capture day to day life. WRAF records show that she joined up on 29 October 1918 and that she was employed at the London Colney RAF airfield.
George dedicates the book to ‘the girls with whom I lived in happy comradeship during my period of service, and to one WRAF officer, whose steady work and high ideals helped to form a worthy tradition in the new Force’. Certainly what comes through in the accompanying text is the great feeling of pride, adventure and esprit de corps of these women, serving alongside men for the first time. Though predominantly performing auxiliary tasks, such as cleaning, repairing aircraft, and sign-writing, George was clearly very proud of her connection with the Force.
‘During the First World War, members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) worked on air stations belonging to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). When the decision was taken to merge the RFC and RNAS to form the Royal Air Force (RAF), concerns were raised about the loss of their specialised female workforce. This need for a separate women’s air service led to the formation of the WRAF on 1 April 1918. Personnel of the WAAC and WRNS were given the choice of transferring to the new service and over 9,000 decided to join. Civilian enrolment swelled WRAF numbers. They were dispatched to RAF bases, initially in Britain and then later in 1919 to France and Germany. In April 1920 the WRAF, a wartime force, was disbanded. In only two years, 32,000 WRAFs had proved a major asset to the RAF and paved the way for all future air service women’. (RAF Museum online).

1918. 8vo, pp. ix, [i], 239, [3]; some minor foxing throughout, with small stain affecting lower margins of final few leaves (more prominent along tail edge than on leaves themselves); small mounted image of young boy on half-title; in the original red publisher’s cloth, spine lettered in black, spine darkened and rubbed, title in blind on upper cover, extremities sunned and lightly soiled. First edition of this autobiographical account of life as a volunteer during W.W.I, by the Canadian novellist Marjorie Grant Cook (1882-1965). Born in Quebec City, Canada, her early career was spent as a schoolteacher, before travelling to Europe in 1916 hoping to help the war effort, spending time in London before arriving in Paris. This, her first published work, documents her time working as a volunteer at a canteen for war refuges and soldiers in the Latin Quarter, as well as spending time with the Alliances des Dames Françaises helping at a hospital. Written in a diary-entry format, the work describes her experiences during the Verdun battle, the longest and bloodiest of the war, though she uses fictitious names for the people she had encountered.
Initially publishing under the name Marorie Grant, she subsequently published under her full name of Grant Cook. After the war, she returned to London and soon published her successful novel, Latchkey Ladies (1921) drawn from her life in London as a single working woman. She was a prolific and influential reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, and went on to publish seven novels under a variety of pseudonyms.

1935-6.]. 8vo, pp. [ii] blank, 36, [2] blank, with a number of half tone illustrations and photographs; some spotting along central stapled gutter, with some rusting of staples and thus slight staining, otherwise generally clean and bright; stapled as issued in the original blue card wrappers, upper cover lettered in gilt, spine and outer margins somewhat sunned; otherwise good. First edition of this fascinating and powerful short autobiographical account by Alan Nichols (1889-1959), who lost both hands, the lower part of his arms and his sight during a training accident on September 4th 1916. Having previously been wounded in the legs whilst fighting on the Aisne in 1914, at the time Nichols was a Bombing Instructor at South Shields, an instantaneous fuse was accidentally inserted into a charge as opposed to a time fuse. His colleague Sergeant Sullivan was also severely injured and died of his wounds later that day. Nichols injuries were catastrophic, and surgeons at the time noted over 500 other wounds caused by the fragments of the charge and barricade. He also lost a lung, had two ribs removed, and lost his hearing in one ear. The short account, some seventeen years after his accident, was written by Nicols to pay particular tribute to the work of Sir Arthur Pearson (1866-1921) and his team staff and volunteers at St. Dunstan’s Hostel for Blinded Military Personnel and Sailors based in Regent’s Park during WWI. Pearson, the noted newspaper publisher, had founded the charity in 1915, as he himself had lost his sight due to glaucoma. There, the wounded were provided a varied programme of care and training to enable them to reconstruct their lives and learn to adapt to their new situation and disability. ‘Training consisted of Braille, typewriting, knitting, basket-making, mat-making, and boot repairing: carpentry, poultry-farming, shorthand and typewriting, telephone operating, and massage; and to-day men from St. Dunstan’s are scattered in all parts of the Empire, efficient in these trades and professions’ (p. 15). Nichols himself was trained as a typist and was fitted with aluminium hands, with articulated fingers, and successfully passed his examinations. He later moved to the West Country and became the representative for St Dunstan's covering Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, and then to Portslade, near Brighton. In 1934 he appeared in the 1934 film ‘Forgotten Men: The War as it was’ directed by Norman Lee.
Pearson was created a baronet in 1916 in recognition of his services to the blind, and the charity remains to this day, now known as Blind Veterans UK. In 1919 he published his own account ‘Victory over Blindness: How it was won by Men of St. Dunstan’s’.

1917. 8vo, pp. x, 325, [3] list of personnel; with frontispiece, one partially coloured folding map (with small tear at gutter), and 15 photographic plates (the majority with two images); some light soiling and foxing throughout, a few corners creased, pp. 31-33 fore-edges nicked due to rough opening; in the original decorative cloth, spine lettered in black, head and tail of spine bumped and slightly nicked, book block slightly shaken, covers darkened with some staining and soiling, extremities lightly rubbed and bumped; with the signature of ‘Winfrey’ on paste down and front free endpaper; a sound copy. Second edition (first 1916) of this first hand account of the work of the Women’s National Service League during WWI, under the courageous leadership of the feminist and medical relief work, Mabel Annie St Clair Stobart (nee Boulton 1862 - 1954). Stobart believed passionately in the value of women in wartime, hoping that once they’d proved as capable as men, that they would ultimately secure the right to vote, and had previously established the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps, and led a successful relief expedition helping the Bulgarian Red Cross during the First Balkan War of 1912. Members of the corps were provided thorough training based on methods used by the Royal Army Medical Corps. Despite offering the services of her all-female corps to the British Red Cross, the offer was rejected by its head, Sir Frederick Treves, who did not believe that women belonged near the battlefield. Undeterred, Stobart took direct action herself, and travelled independently with her team to Serbia, and later Bulgaria, where she set up a hospital in Thrace for the Bulgarian Red Cross. She penned an account of her experiences in 1913, published as ‘War and Women’.
Shortly after the beginning of WWI Stobart established the Women's National Service League. Again her offers of help were rejected by Treves, and so bypassing him for a second time, she set off with a team to the front. At one point she was arrested by the Germans as she was setting up a hospital in Belgium, but fortunately avoided the same fate that befell her contemporary Edith Cavell. She set up further field hospitals in France before turning her attention to war-torn Serbia, where an epidemic of typhus has broken out. Stobart fund-raised for ambulances, X-ray machines and medical supplies, and travelled to Serbia with her seven female doctors, eighteen nurses and a large general staff including her second husband, John Greenhalgh. ‘The tented military hospital she and her team created at Kragujevac and the network of civilian clinics they established in the area provided medical aid to thousands. Stobart, as the commander of First Serbian-English Field Hospital (Front), was given the rank of major. When the Serbian army was forced to retreat to Albania in 1915, Stobart led her mobile hospital over mountainous terrain for 81 days. Her unit was the only one to arrive in Albania without any losses or desertions. For her services, she was awarded the Serbian Orders of the White Eagle and of St. Sava. In 1916 she was appointed a Lady of Grace of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica online). The present work provides a detailed and graphic account of her experiences, and Stobart went on to conduct several lecture tours, donating the money made to the Serbian Red Cross.
‘Stobart continued speaking out for women’s rights. By the end of World War I, the United Kingdom had passed a law that gave some women the right to vote, and full suffrage came not long after. In later life she was active in various causes. She became involved in the spiritualist movement and in 1925 published the book Torchbearers of Spiritualism. In 1929 she became one of the founders of the SOS Society, an organization that provided housing for the unemployed. Her autobiography Miracles and Adventures appeared in 1935’ (ibid).

[n.d. but ca. 1858-60.]. Small folio, pp. [ii] additional chromolithograph title-page consisting of an oval-shaped decorative border with a small chromolithograph oval paper onlay illustrating a piece of silverware in the centre, [vi], [17]-48; with 17 chromolithograph plates (most retaining tissue guards), and with a number of wood engravings within text; some occasional light browning and soiling, but otherwise clean and bright; original morocco backed blue publisher’s cloth with bevelled edges, all edges gilt, rebacked, covers elaborately tooled and lettered in gilt, spine ruled and lettered in gilt; with book-plate on front paste-down, possibly Charles J Hart; ex-Birmingham Assay Office copy with their small stamp at tail of front free endpaper; a good copy. An attractive copy of this striking chromolithograph work illustrating examples of metal-work and jewellery which had been exhibited at the Art Treasures Exhibition held in Manchester in 1857. After contributing to the guidebooks for the Crystal Palace at Sydenham in 1854 (together with Matthew Digby Wyatt and others), the architect John Burley Waring (1823-1875) was appointed superintendent of ornamental art and sculpture for the Manchester exhibition, described by Elizabeth Pergam as ‘the first blockbuster’ exhibition. To celebrate the occasion, a large illustrated catalogue was issued under the title ‘Art treasures of the United Kingdom from the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester’, describing many sculptural and decorative art highlights arranged in categories, with introductory essays by noted commentators, and illustrated with large-scale chromolithographs by, amongst others, the noted photographer and chromolithographer Francis Bedford (1815-1894).
The present ‘Examples of Metal-Work’ originally formed part of that more extensive catalogue, but has been here reissued separately with a new ‘Introduction’ by Waring (not included in the the 1858 publication). The essay by the architect and art historian Wyatt (1820-1877) are apparently the same sheets as those used previously, and includes small wood engravings by the illustrator Robert Dudley (1826-1909). Wyatt had previously published a more extensive illustrated work on the subject in 1852, ‘Metal-Work and its artistic design’, once again illustrated with numerous chromolithographs.