Two letterbooks of Edward Rimbault, London, 1840-1855, including series of letters by Novello, John Payne Collier and other musicians and antiquarians

Vincent Novello (1781-1861) and others
Two letterbooks of Edward Rimbault, London, 1840-1855, including series of letters by Novello, John Payne Collier and other musicians and antiquarians
Altogether approx. 385 letters and other related printed matter, mounted on guards in two volumes, later buckram binding. Provenance: The Novello Collection; Sotheby's, 15 May 1996, lot 123.

Letterbooks recording the early years of the Musical Antiquarian Society and the Percy Society.

The correspondents include:
Vincent Novello. 42 autograph letters signed, 17 December 1840 - 7 August 1849, on the affairs of the Musical Antiquarian Society, in the earliest providing advice on Rimbault's edition of Byrd's mass for five voices (1841), frequently sending manuscripts, suggesting works for publication including by Purcell, Tomkins, Gibbons, Boyce and others, and providing information and recommendations for the society's publications;
John Payne Collier (1789-1883). 11 autograph letters signed (one lacking ending), 17 July 1840 - 22 June 1851, on the affairs of the Percy Society, mentioning in the first his his transcript of the ballad 'Too late Marryed', 'I find that some part of it is so indecent that I doubt whether we can print it ... This objection does not so much apply to "Too soon marryed"'; in later letters discussing ballads and music used by Shakespeare, and resigning from the society's council after one of his proposed publications was cancelled; also Ignaz Moscheles (1844, suggesting 'a little conversation on Handel's Work which I am going to edit'), Caroline Norton (3, discussing songs), James Orchard Halliwell (2, the first complaining that Rimbault has not returned a manuscript), John Murray (2), S.S. Wesley, William Chappell (4), Joseph Warren (2), Crofton Croker, Richard Clark at the Chapel Royal (5), John Gough Nichols, Edward Taylor (series), Philip Bliss (at Oxford, series), Thomas Bennett (at Chichester Cathedral, series), John Jebb (Hereford Cathedral, series), W.H. Havergal (series, also a few by Henry Havergal), David Laing at Signet Library, Edinburgh, series), and many other antiquarians and librarians.

Edward Rimbault (1816-1876) was organist of the Swiss Church, Soho, and a pioneering musicologist: he was a founding member of the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1840 (with Edward Taylor and William Chappell) and of the Percy Society, becoming secretary of both, The letter books also reflect his involvement in the Motett Society, the Handel Society, the Shakespeare Society and the Camden Society, all reflections of the growing interest in early English music and literature in the 1840s.