Manuscripts
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# 49803
EMBLING, Sabina Howitt [&] SINGLETON, Violet Etta
Commonplace book compiled by a young Melbourne woman (1867-78) with later entries by her daughter (1889-1890).
An astonishing artefact of Melbourne social history, in which the intimate voices of two young women – a mother and daughter from one of the city’s most elite families of the second half of the nineteenth century – cry, whisper and sing from the pages, after having been lost to history for over 130 years. …
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# 50544
[MAKER UNKNOWN]
“A Lady’s Dressing Case”
[English, 1820-1840]. Handmade amusement. Single card sheet representing a lady’s vanity case, 190 x 230 mm, the recto covered in green paper, with manuscript title at head “A Lady’s Dressing Case”, the nine “drawers” below in the form of paper flaps with manuscript labels describing items associated with a lady’s toilet – in other words, …
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![[CRIMEAN WAR] Free frank front signed by Lord FitzRoy Somerset, later Field Marshal and 1st Baron Raglan, one of the main protagonists in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854.](https://douglasstewart.com.au/app/uploads/2026/06/2026_DSFB_4093-300x224.jpg)
# 50591
SOMERSET, FitzRoy James Henry
[CRIMEAN WAR] Free frank front signed by Lord FitzRoy Somerset, later Field Marshal and 1st Baron Raglan, one of the main protagonists in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854.
Free frank front, 85 x 125 mm, dated at London, 8 December 1828, addressed to ‘Mrs. Cuffe, St. Wolston’s, Celbridge, Ireland’, and signed lower left ‘FitzRoy Somerset’; laid down on a section cut from a leaf removed from a nineteenth-century autograph album (see note on provenance below), with an annotation by the album’s compiler identifying the …
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# 50248
LOUIS XV, King of France
Lettres patentes concernant les Missions Étrangères.
[France, c.1773]. Manuscript in ink, [5] pp., folio; extremely well preserved; bound in modern papered boards with gilt-lettered red leather title label to the front; ex libris label of H. P. Kraus to front pastedown. One of the most important institutions in the history of evangelisation in Asia, the Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP), or …
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# 50338
THORNE (WATKINS), Rosalie Ann (1850-1927)
Rosalie Ann Thorne (later Watkins), of Rose Bay and Parramatta : a substantial archive of unique manuscript ephemera, 1850s-1890s, including family correspondence and material relating to the homeschooling of the Thorne and Watkins children.
Provenance: Rosalie Ann Thorne (1850-1927); Elizabeth Cecilia McNally, aka “The Duchess of Spring Hill” (1909-1996), legendary Brisbane antiques dealer and collector; private collection, Queensland. As the archive is so large, we have arranged it into four main sections catalogued under alphabetical headings, A – D (see below). ROSALIE ANN THORNE AND HER FAMILY Rosalie (“Rose”) Ann …
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# 34554
LEE, Sydney Williams (1841-1917)
Manuscript letter from architect Sydney Williams Lee to artist John Seymour Lucas, March 1879, with an offer to purchase “The Gordon Riots”, the painting which was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales at the Melbourne Exhibition in 1881.
Manuscript in ink on wove writing paper, octavo bifolium (179 x 112 mm), [4] pp, written on the first side only; headed ‘4 Burston Road, Putney. March 5th 1879’; signed at the foot ‘Sydney W. Lee’; the note is addressed ‘My dear Lucas’ (John Seymour Lucas, English historical genre painter, 1849-1923); Lee offers to buy …
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# 39210
B. SMITH & SON
Manuscript commercial letter addressed to John Fairfax & Sons, Sydney, New South Wales, from B. Smith & Son, London, 27 July 1863.
Manuscript in ink, 2 pp., quarto, on blue laid paper watermarked ‘A. C. & S.’; duplicate commercial letter headed ‘7 Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, London, July 27th 1863’, addressed to the publishing firm of Messrs J. Fairfax & Sons, Sydney; written and signed by Henry Durrant on behalf of B. Smith & Son, ink …
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# 40313
[GREAT BRITAIN. ROYAL NAVY]
A List of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. Navy Office, 1st October 1794.
Large octavo (230 x 150 mm), in the original Admiralty-style binding of straight-grain red morocco with elaborate gilt border incorporating stars, wreaths and cornerpieces, spine gilt in six compartments; inner dentelles; all edges gilt; original marbled endpapers; engraved title-page with date in manuscript 1st October 1794 (although the list has additions to 1801); 200 pp., …
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![[OTTOMAN EMPIRE] Passport of safe conduct for travel to Malta issued to Captain Benjamin Adams (17th Light Dragoons) by the British consul at Alexandria, 17 May 1823.](https://douglasstewart.com.au/app/uploads/2025/11/2025_DSFB_7153-300x300.jpg)
# 49083
Peter LEE (BRITISH CONSUL, ALEXANDRIA)
[OTTOMAN EMPIRE] Passport of safe conduct for travel to Malta issued to Captain Benjamin Adams (17th Light Dragoons) by the British consul at Alexandria, 17 May 1823.
[Alexandria in Egypt : British Consulate, 1823]. Lithographed pro-forma document with manuscript entries, 270 x 385 mm, on wove paper watermarked with an Eagle and FAG in roman (cf. Edward Heawood, Watermarks, Mainly of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Hilversum, 1950, p. 24); embossed paper seal of the British Consulate, Alexandria in Egypt intact at lower left; signed …
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![[Anzac] Australians! ... From a South African girl's point of view.](https://douglasstewart.com.au/app/uploads/2025/01/2025_DSFB_0208-300x300.jpg)
# 45894
[CAMPBELL, Ethel Margaret, aka "The Durban Signaller"]
[Anzac] Australians! … From a South African girl’s point of view.
[Durban : s.n., 1916-17]. Postcard, 90 x 135 mm; recto with lithographed patriotic poem titled Australians!, penned by a young Durban woman, mentioning HMAT Demosthenes, and with lines such as ‘the deathless name of “Anzac”, that thrills from Pole to Pole‘, ‘I’d rather a drunk Australian, than a wealthy Durban funk‘, and ‘We stand on the …
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![[POLYNESIA] Original letter containing vivid descriptions of Tahiti and Rarotonga. August, 1934.](https://dsfb-wp.s3.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/app/uploads/2018/01/11115220/2017_DSFB_5360-300x300.jpg)
# 17253
[Author unidentified]
[POLYNESIA] Original letter containing vivid descriptions of Tahiti and Rarotonga. August, 1934.
Typed letter, [7] pages, on onion-skin paper, 280 x 215 mm, headed ‘At Sea, about 500 miles from N.Z. Sunday, August 19th, 1934’; with pencil map of the ship’s journey through the islands of Tahiti and three lines of handwritten text; addressed to ‘Dear Pauline’ (internal references indicate she was a close personal friend of the …
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# 49939
GLADSTONES, G. E.
Manuscript letters from a South Australian colonist to his two brothers in London. Adelaide, 17 April 1854.
I. Entire letter, [4] pp., octavo bifolium, manuscript in ink on watermarked wove paper; headed ‘Adelaide, South Australia, April 17th 1854’, addressed to ‘My dear Bob’, and signed ‘your affectionately attached Bro., G. E. Gladstones’; the letter is written in a very legible hand, and is complete and in fine condition; it is accompanied by …
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![[MANUSCRIPT] A Journal or Narrative of the Proceedings betweene the Commissioners appointed by His Majestie, and the Commissioners Deputed by the States Generall, pursuant to the Treaty of Peace made at Westminster 9/19 Ffebruary 1673/4 Concerning a Treaty Marine to be observed throughout all the World. And also an Article particularly relateing to the English and Dutch East India Companyes Concluded in the yeare 1674.](https://dsfb-wp.s3.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/app/uploads/2017/05/09135912/2017_DSFB_1491-300x300.jpg)
# 38366
[MANUSCRIPT] A Journal or Narrative of the Proceedings betweene the Commissioners appointed by His Majestie, and the Commissioners Deputed by the States Generall, pursuant to the Treaty of Peace made at Westminster 9/19 Ffebruary 1673/4 Concerning a Treaty Marine to be observed throughout all the World. And also an Article particularly relateing to the English and Dutch East India Companyes Concluded in the yeare 1674.
[London, 1674-75]. Folio (300 x 200 mm), old mottled calf gilt, spine with raised bands, gilt ornament, and contrasting title labels lettered in gilt; all edges gilt; manuscript written in English, Latin, Dutch and French in several contemporary secretarial hands; ff 269; clean and fresh throughout. An important contemporary manuscript record of the Mixed Commission established to draw up …
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# 19425
PRÉMARE, Joseph Henri-Marie de (1666-1736); JULIEN, Stanilas Aignan (1797-1873)
Premari Notitia Linguae sinicae. Ex Apographo, Ipsius Premari manu emendato, quod In Bibliotheca Regia Parisiensi servatuo, Accurate descripsit Stanislaus Julien.
[circa 1825]. Folio, modern full vellum binding by Aquarius; p. 466, [3 blank]; manuscript in ink entirely in the hand of Stanislas Julien; in Latin and Chinese, the Chinese characters written from left to right; title-page with wet-stamped monogram of sinologist Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys (1822-1892), his manuscript collection label preserved on rear endpaper; tear …
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# 48892
Lieutenant Commander Charles Richard Cole Hamilton (1842-1911)
Logbook of HMS Zephyr, July 1873 – August 1876, recording visits to ports on the eastern Canadian seaboard (Halifax, Charlottetown, Picton and St John’s) as well as Bermuda and various ports in the West Indies.
Foolscap folio (330 x 210 mm), original leather-backed marbled papered boards (somewhat rubbed and worn) with manuscript title label to each board, worded ‘HMS Zephyr, Letters &c. June 1873’ and ‘HMS Zephyr, Orders &c, June 1873’, respectively; [79] pp., manuscript in ink, with copies of letters (entered at the front) and orders (entered at the …
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# 49088
[BRAGGE FAMILY]
English Georgian manuscript account ledger recording the sale of timber (Devon, 1767), bound in parchment cut from an indenture from the reign of Queen Anne (1707).
Duodecimo (168 x 107 mm), stitched “binder’s waste” parchment wrappers with manuscript in ink to front ‘Acct. of A Lot of Timber sold to Messrs. Haviland, Ayles, & Newel – 125 Trees – measured May 29th 1767‘, the verso of the parchment (i.e. the insides of the wrappers) showing part of the manuscript of an …