Hanbury (Sir Thomas, merchant and gardener, creator of the gardens at La Mortola, Italy, and purchasor of the Wisley Estate for the Royal Horticultural Society, 1832-1907) 33 Autograph Letters signed & 3 Autograph Postcards signed to Rev George Edwards Comerford Casey and his daughters Olive and Alvina Bertram "Bertie", c. 80pp., with some address panels & 3 sides, La Mortola, Ventimiglia, Italy, Sevenoaks & elsewhere, 25th July 1898 - 1st January 1907, on a variety of subjects, including: a visit with Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, "On the 21st I went a long excursion up the Royal valley with the Empress Frederick, we visited Auriol and Olivetta walking about a third of the distance. The Empress is a remarkably clever woman, simple, and unassuming withal", commenting on Casey's book, Riviera Nature Notes, "Anything more quaint, more learned in the way of all kinds of knowledge, - yet less mannered & less egotistic so to speak, or more pleasantly written I never came across" and its republication by "Mr Quaritch", and on a book being prepared for the press, "I have told Mr Fisher Unwin that in my opinion the translation [in 1906, at Sir Thomas Hanbury's suggestion, Olive and Bertie translated Eduard Strasburger's Rambles on the Riviera, from the German] would not have a chance of competing with 'Riviera Nature Notes' except at half price", commenting on the wedding of Isabella in 1901 in which Olive and Bertie Casey and others wore silk kimonos, "all those on offer in London quite too gaudy... . Instead of these kimonos I am now asking your acceptance of two pieces of Chinese Hanbury Pongees...", commenting on the Boxer rebellion in China, "The Chinese trouble does not affect me much as Shanghai is well guarded but it is unfortunate for my son's first experience as a China merchant...", on the purchase of the Wisley estate for the R.H.S., "Sir Wm Thiselton Dyer F.R.S. Director of Kew Gardens came to visit us two or three days. He is a very strong opponent of the R.H.S. having the Wisley Garden, the first I have met. 'Expensive, locality inconvenient, no need when Kew supplies every want' and so on. I showed him the trust deed where it is stipulated that the estate comes to Kew if the R.H.S. fail to keep it up whereupon he remarked 'let us pray they will not keep it up!' I was a good deal amused", mentioning his near neighbour and fellow gardener, Ellen Willmott (1858-1934), "she has begun gardening on a grand scale two miles east... of Ventimiglia, - some 20,000 plants have been put in by the aid of a small army of labourers under her daily supervision. She scorned the aid of any horticulturist or head gardener", and the Hanbury gardens at La Mortola, "Slight frost touched this garden one night lately but the damage was very trifling. On Christmas day there were about 400 species of plants in blossom, but I did not have any complete list made"; and a quantity of others, including 2 letters from Katherine Hanbury, photographs etc., folds, v.s., v.d. (qty).