46
married Lady Charlotte Bruce, daughter of Thomas, 7th Earl of Elgin in 1850, and this enabled him to give up his employment and brought him into leading social and literary circles — his friends included Thackeray, Trollope, Lord Lytton, George Eliot, Dickens, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Cruikshank, de Lamartine, Liszt, and Tennyson, whose son Lionel married Locker’s daughter Eleanor in 1878. In 1857 Locker published the first edition of London Lyrics, which was, as his friend the poet Austin Dobson wrote in the DNB, ‘the germ of all his subsequent work. Extended or rearranged in successive editions, the last of which is dated 1893, this constitutes his poetical legacy’. This edition, under the title Poems, follows the text of the fourth edition of London Lyrics (which also appeared under John Wilson’s imprint in 1868), and — despite the statement ‘Only one hundred copies printed, including twenty copies on large paper’ — was, according to a note by Locker transcribed by Cohn, issued in an edition of circa 270 copies, comprising 100 copies on Whatman paper with a frontispiece by Cruikshank (as here); 20 copies on large, unwatermarked paper with the frontispiece (apparently, as the note here states, six of these large-paper copies had the frontispiece coloured by the author’s daughter); and ‘about’ 150 copies on ordinary paper, without the frontispiece. (The note tipped on to the verso of the frontispiece may have been taken from another copy and retained as an aide mémoire, rather than added as a comment upon this particular copy.)
Following the death of Charlotte in 1872, Locker married the children’s writer Hannah Jane Lampson, the only daughter of the American merchant and telegraph-cable promoter Sir Curtis Lampson, Bt; following the latter’s death in 1885, Locker added his wife’s maiden name to his own, in order to succeed to her family estate at Rowfant, Sussex, where he spent his last years, surrounded by the library that he had formed, known as the ‘Rowfant
Library’. The house and the library, in turn, gave their name to the Rowfant Club of Cleveland, Ohio, which was founded in 1892: ‘Some book-lovers of Cleveland, U.S.A., having, perhaps in their minds the model of the Philobiblon Society of London, so long presided over by the Duc d’Aumale, met together on the evening of the 23rd of February 1892, at a Tavern, and spent the time so well that when they parted they had agreed upon the fundamental principles of a Book Club, and had set up a small Committee to advise as to an appropriate name. Six days later, and at the same cheerful rendez-vous, the Committee submitted “The Rowfant Club” as a title happily adapted for the purpose, and this choice was unanimously adopted. Club Rooms, on the recommendation of another Committee, were at once acquired, and dedicated to the use of “The Rowfant Club” on the 23rd of March 1892’ (A. Birrell Frederick Locker-Lampson. A Character Study (London: 1920), p. 201). From the first the Rowfant Club published books on bibliophile subjects by its members, and one of the earliest publications was a selection of his poems made by Locker-Lampson shortly before his death, which was issued by the Club in 1895 under the title Rowfant Rhymes, with a portrait by George du Maurier and an introduction by Austin Dobson. It is therefore natural that a dedicated member and sometime President of the Club such as Percy Whiting Brown would wish to have an edition of one of Locker-Lampson’s best-known collections in his library. The limited edition of Poems is rare, and we can only trace one copy in COPAC (King’s College, London, one of 100 copies) and it is similarly uncommon on the market.
Cohn 497; Colbeck, A Bookman’s Catalogue, ‘Locker-Lampson’, 11; Reilly, Mid-Victorian Poetry, 1860-1879, p. 280 (locating a copy at the University of California, Davis).
171. LUGAR, Robert. Architectural Sketches For Cottages, Rural Dwellings And Villas, in the Grecian, Gothic and Fancy Styles, with Plans, suitable to Persons of Genteel Life and Modest Fortune. Preceded by some Observations on Scenery and Character proper for Picturesque Building. A New Edition. [with] Plans and Views of Buildings executed in England and Scotland in the Castellated and other Styles. A New Edition. [with] THOMSON, J[ames]. Retreats: A Series of Designs consisting of plans for elevations for Cottages, Villas, and Ornamental Buildings. J. Taylor, 1824; 1823; 1827.
£6,500
4to. (290 x 220 mm). Three works in one. Handsomely bound in contemporary full straight-grained morocco, elaborately gilt panelled boards and spine, all edges gilt, preserved in a cloth-bound slipcase; pp. 31, [1], 23 fine hand-coloured plates, 6 of which include a ground-plan, and 15 plates of ground- plans; pp. 28, 32 plates, of which 16 are sepia aquatints depicting buildings, the remainder being engraved ground-plans; half-title, pp. viii, 32, 41 plates, 31 of which are hand-coloured aquatints and 10 ground-plans for Corinthian, Doric, Gothic and Rustic villas, aquatic temples, rustic lodges, water- gates and various Gothic and Grecian cottages.
Abbey Life 30, citing the first edition of 1805 with uncoloured plates; Abbey Life 31; Abbey Life 76; Prideaux, p. 353.
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