The Ricky Jay Collection Part III

BLONDIN, Charles (Jean François Gravelet, 1824 – 97). Archive of Blondin Documents, Ephemera, and Publications. Including a full length sepia CDV of Blondin in evening dress, seated. Circa 1890. – Two letterpress receipts for tickets to Blondin’s performances with woodcut vignette portrait of the wire walker in the upper right – A handbill for Blondin at the Crystal Palace New Year Fetes with other performers and together with his daughter Adele (London, 1861) – An ALS from Blondin to Mr. E.H. Smith dated April 15, 1865, inked on Blondin’s letterhead and asking Smith to sell Blondin’s home while the performer is away from England (“for a sum not under one hundred and fifty pounds”), SIGNED by the wire walker. Stained, with mounting remnants to rear at top. – An illustrated clipping from The Sketch of March 3, 1897 regarding Blondin – A folded Italian program for a Blondin appearance in Rome, with a rhyming ode to the wire walker inside – Two editions of Niagara Falls & Blondin Guide & Souvenir. Buffalo: Sage Sons & Co., 1866. With paper slipcases and chromolithographed postcards, one showing Blondin over the falls. – And three copies of: BANKS, G. Linaeus. Blondin: His Life and Performances. London: Routledge, Warne & Routledge, 1862. Illustrated 8vos with portrait frontispieces of Blondin. Two in pebbled cloth library bindings lettered gilt (one of these ex-Magic Circle library), and the third in pictorial wraps, but disbound. A good group of scarce material related to the “Hero of Niagara.”