$750
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500
P.G. Wodehouse Collection of William Toplis
Auction: May 7, 2020 11:00:00 AM EDT
1906-11. 4to. 52 pp. Scrapbook belonging to P.G. Wodehouse's mother, Eleanor Deane Wodehouse. Contains dozens of original illustrations, watercolors, and doodles, as well as cut signatures, and excerpts and quotations from a variety of literary sources. Original leather-covered boards, moderately worn and rubbed, stamped in gilt; all edges gilt; patterned endpapers; numerous gatherings sprung or weak, several mounted illustrations separated or starting; in black cloth-covered fall-down-back box.
Eleanor Deane Wodehouse's (1851-1941) personal scrapbook dating to the years 1906-1911, with her initials decoratively signed on the verso of the front free endpaper. Contains 32 original illustrations and sketches from numerous individuals, presumably friends and colleagues of Eleanor and her husband Ernest. Some show great skill, especially those signed "M.H.W.", illustrating various fashion and period dress in a highly detailed manner. Other illustrations are of a more humorous bent, including one of a man and a hot air balloon, and signed "Plum" from September 27, 1908. Cut signatures include explorer Robert Peary and British Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell. Excerpts and quotations include "The Homecoming of the Eurydice" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Wendigo: Winter Death" by Ernest Thompson Seton, and others, as well as inscriptions and short notes, inscribed by many hands. A nautical theme is present throughout the entirety of the scrapbook with numerous drawings of ships, reference to the sinking of the HMS Eurydice, a drawing signed from an individual on the RMS Virginian, and a mounted card of Rear Admiral William Sheffield Cowles of the U.S. Navy.
Provenance:
From the collection of Charles A. Gould.