Rare Books

[Collection of metal clasps and hardware from medieval bindings]

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Description: Collection of 17 metal clasps and other small pieces of hardware detached from bindings in the Huntingon Library's collections. The hardware probably date from bindings made between 1400 and 1525. It is not recorded which items in the collection the hardware belonged to. The materials appear to have been collected by library staff sometime from the 1920s to the 1960s. It is not clear if the hardware detached in the normal course of handling, or if they were removed as part of conservation work on the items. Includes a tortoise shell book cover (front and back boards), decorated with abstract floral designs. The text to which the shell book cover belonged has not been identified.
Type: Rare Books(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1400-1525
Call number: 195362
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Collection of lantern slides of T. J. Cobden-Sanderson bindings

Visual Materials

Group of 68 color lantern slides of book bindings, photographed approximately in the 1930s or 1940s. It is unclear if the photographs were taken at the Huntington Library. No other information available.

photCL 732

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Finish hardware

Manuscripts

Approx. 30 items: letters, forms, legal documents related to construction of fourth Times building in 1933 and 1934. West and Company supplied finish hardware for the project.

mssLAT

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Financial: Whitchurch: Charles Townshend's Bound Account Book, with Metal Clasps

Manuscripts

The collection consists of personal letters among the Townshend family members, business correspondence, land papers and deeds, financial accounts, bonds, receipts, Government and political material, legal briefs and court opinions, literary material including epitaphs, poems, prayers and travel accounts, military material, wills, marriage settlements, family account books and diaries. Significant correspondents include George III, George IV, William IV and Victoria, as well as many members of the Royal family. Political correspondents include 1st Earl of Chatham, W.E. Gladstone, George Grenville, Lord Palmerston, Sir Robert Peel, Spencer Perceval, William Pitt, the Duke of Wellington, and John Wilkes. Important note: although this material includes the years 1769-1865 there is only one letter which refers slightly to the American Revolutionary War and no letters or other material deal with the American Civil War.

mssTD

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Medieval

Manuscripts

This collection contains the papers of English art historian Katharine Ada Esdaile (1881-1950), with the bulk of the materials relating to her research and writings on British monumental sculpture, sculptors, and church monuments from the medieval period to 19th century. Material types include personal writings, diaries, correspondence, business papers, family papers and photographs, research files and research notebooks, and miscellaneous published and unpublished materials. Notably the collection includes more than 600 chiefly pre-World War II visitor booklets and pamphlets produced locally by British churches and approximately 3500 photographs taken or collected by Esdaile of sculpture, often funerary monuments in English churches, ranging from large churches like Westminster Abbey to small rural parishes. This collection provides a resource for viewpoints on monumental sculpture in the early 20th century (for instance as represented in book reviews by Esdaile) and for information about Esdaile's experience as a woman art historian in the early 20th century. Given the broadness of Esdaile's scope, from medieval to 19th century British monumental sculpture, the collection is less useful for specific information about monuments or sculptors. In addition, many of Esdaile's attributions in her notes appear to have been based primarily on her own instincts and do not have citations. Many of Esdaile's notes are handwritten on small scraps of paper or are fragments, sometimes making the information difficult to parse. The collection is chiefly Esdaile's files, but the dates on some items (such as post-1950 booklets) indicate the collection was added to and used after her death, presumably by her son Edmund Esdaile, who also made notes on items in the collection and appears to have done the preliminary organization of the papers after Esdaile's death.

mssEsdaile

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Trade card for Norton Clasp Shoe Co., Lynn, Mass

Manuscripts

The collection includes some 17th and 18th century items regarding Norton's ancestors in Massachusetts; correspondence by Norton regarding his voyage to California and his time in the gold mines; several items pertaining to Norton's membership in the Society of California Pioneers of New England; a painting and sketch of the ship "Argonaut," both by Clark Oliver; and military records of Charles Walton of the 6th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment and Simon M. Nudd of the 24th Maine Infantry Regiment. Also included is a pocket compass and lock that belonged to William Norton.

mssNorton

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Correspondence, documents, and original bindings

Manuscripts

The material consists of letters, reports, and documents related to the rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro in Peru in the years 1544 to 1548, and is mainly related to Pizarro and Pedro de la Gasca. The material is in Spanish and was created between 1537 and 1580. The material was originally bound into two volumes and was disbound after it was acquired by the Huntington Library; the original vellum bindings were retained and are housed in box 21.

mssPL

[Collection of metal clasps and hardware from medieval bindings]

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Collection of lantern slides of T. J. Cobden-Sanderson bindings

Finish hardware

Financial: Whitchurch: Charles Townshend's Bound Account Book, with Metal Clasps

Medieval

Trade card for Norton Clasp Shoe Co., Lynn, Mass

Correspondence, documents, and original bindings