Provis Thomas (4 results)

21cm. [ii], 31[1]pp, portrait plate. Good modern navy cloth gilt. Very light text age-browning.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. PROVIS W. A. (William Alexander) 1792-1870] (illustrator). 1st Edition. Uncommon, containing: The Report; Minutes of Evidence; Mr Telford's Report & Estimate; Plan and Section of the Road. In plain modern paper wraps, no title. Internally, [2], 3-20 pp, 4 maps (large folding), to be Printed 28 June 1815. (HC 463). (327*192 mm). (Hansard Catalogue & Breviate 1696-1834 p133).

(iv), (64)pp. Full-length portrait of 'Richard Smyth' with printed signature. BOUND WITH: The Heath House and Ashton Cause. Report of the Most Extraordinary Trial of Smyth versus Smyth and Others; tried at the Gloucester Asizes, commencing August 8, 1853. With portrait and autograph of the Claimant, his examination and committal for forgery. (1853) Bristol: J. Hewitt. (iv), (32)pp. WITH: SMITH, Mary Elizabeth. A Statement of Facts Respecting the Cause of Smith v. The Earl of Ferrers. 1846. 2nd edn. John Ollivier. 66pp. Three items bound into 19thC half purple cloth, marbled boards. Small label 'Ex Libris Harold E. Matthews'. Thomas Provis, a horse thief, claimed to be Sir Richard Smyth, heir to Ashton Court which had been in the Smyth family since 1545 when it had been purchased by the Bristol merchant and slave trader, John Smyth. Provis was convicted of forgery, but still wrote his life story, with pedigrees, to justify his claim while in prison. Provis's imagination runs riot and includes a meeting with Byron at Harrow School: 'His imaginative eye was all on fire, The dew-drops of the rising morn of his enlarged genius bedecked his eyelids. He so far sympathised with me that he has noticed me in his "Childe Harold".' Smyth v. Smyth took place in the year of publication of Bleak House and Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. The last item in this volume relates to a different case: Proceedings upon the trial of the action brought by Mary Elizabeth Smith against the Right Hon. Washington Sewallis Shirley, Earl Ferrers, for breach of promise of marriage: damages laid at £20,000.

Half Cloth. Condition: Very Good. Published in 1828, half title, title page, dedication page, 105pp, 14 original plates of which 4 are triple-sized folding, 3 more plates present are in photographic facsimile, 27" x 20", half title creased and repaired, a little light spotting in text and to plates,sl darkening of title page with sm stain on 1 corner, sm repairs to 2 plates [barey visible], bound in modern half brown cloth/brown boards, leather spine label, .new endpapers. Very scarce book; Elephant Folio.