THE BONES AT ROTHWELL: A Lecture delivered by the late Captain Whyte Melville, being an account of the remarkable bone cavern beneath Rothwell Church. Price 1d. Rothwell, printed by Ed. Chamberlain, 3 Market Place. (Quotation from Gray's Elegy heads title-page and wrapper.) 1 vol. Cr. 8vo. 16 pp. White paper wrappers, printed in black. Outside back wrapper occupied by printer's advertisements.
Note—This is the text of a lecture delivered by Whyte-Melville on January 3, 1862, to the Moulton Religious and Useful Knowledge Society, and printed in the “Northampton Mercury” for January 11 of the same year. When first the pamphlet above described was issued I cannot be certain, but R. B. Wallis, in a booklet published in 1888, and entitled All About the Rothwell Bones, speaks of the lecture as obtainable in pamphlet form from Chamberlan of Rothwell. Certainly, therefore, the publication predates 1888, and I have ventured above on the date of the year following Whyte-Melville's death because it seems possible that the lecture was first issued in pamphlet form to combine the interest in the Rothwell Bones with that likely to be created in Whyte-Melville by his decease. The clumsiness with which Whyte-Melville is spoken of as “the late,” but at the same time given the rank of “Captain” instead of that of “Major,” implies a hasty reprint from the file of the “Northampton Mercury,” by someone aware of his death but careless of the military rank to which he finally attained.
The colour of the paper wrapper varies with different issues. In addition to a white copy, as above described, I have seen one in a pale yellow cover.
ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL
1810-1865
MRS. GASKELL
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICAL REMINISCENCE
MRS. GASKELL: Haunts, Homes and Stories. By Esther A. Chadwick. London. 1910.
MRS. GASKELL. By the same. London. 1913.
MRS. GASKELL. By A. E. Bayley. (Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign.) London. 1897.
MRS. GASKELL AND KNUTSFORD. By G. A. Payne. London. 1906.