Jane Austen's England.- Sperling (Diana, married name Wollaston, of Dynes Hall, Little Maplestead, Essex, 1791-1862, married Frederick Luard Wollaston, barrister, 1803-75) Sketchbook, 10 watercolours (1 colour, 9 monochrome wash) and 9 pencil and pen and ink drawings (1 captioned by Sperling as being drawn by her brother "Happy Valley at Park Place done by John"), most illustrations with manuscript titles and 2pp. manuscript (1p. extract from Don Juan by Lord Byron and signed at tail Henry Byron), signed and dated "Diana Sperling - Dynes Hall - 1831" and by her sister Isabella, as "Isabella D.E. Silver" on front pastedown, several ff. loose, original half red morocco, rubbed, upper cover detached, g.e., sm. 4to, 1831.

⁂ Illustrations comprising: "The Druids Temple - Holyhead"; "Hedingham Castle - Essex (2)"; "View of Charmouth Church"; "The arm chair of which Mr. Snow wrote the autobiography"; "Entrance to the music room Tickford Park"; "Little Maplestead Church (St John the Baptist Round Church)"; "Morning Room window - Spring Gardens"; "View from the drawing room window of Highbury Hill. The seat of Joseph Wilson"; "Woodend Hants Mrs G E Davis in the Verandah"; "Happy Valley at Park Place done by John (Park Place Berkshire was bought by Henry Piper Sperling in 1816 and exchanged in 1824 for Norbury Park, Surrey)"; "Happy Valley Park Place"; "The Thames Park Place"; "Corner of Park Place"; "View from Tan-y-Bilch from the window of the Inn Merionethshire"; "Door of the Painting Gallery Tickford Park."

"Diana's birth - gentle but only of the minor gentry - did nothing but good to her art. In those less grand country houses, with fewer servants, where she and her friends lived, the family could take an active part in the life of the estate, cleaning, decorating, planting. And things that could go wrong, did go wrong, raising the laughs that cheer this sketchbook. The Sperling girls had to squash their own spiders on bedroom walls, carry a change of shoes in a bag when they walked out to dinner in single file behing 'The Lord of the Manor', and often lose a slipper in the park mud.'" - Elizabeth Longford. Foreword to Mrs Hurst Dancing and other scenes from Regency Life 1812-23, notes by Gordon Mingay, 1981.