[AUTOGRAPHS]. Emilie Vandermeersch (1834-1910s). Six Autograph Books Compiled by ?Bird Enchantress" Emilie Vandermeersch 1850s?1910s. Autograph books contain original music compositions, watercolors, signed cartes de visite, drawings, and over seven hundred autographs, generally with page long dedicatory or congratulatory messages, as well as poems and letters. Very few, if any, are signatures only. Ms. Vandeermersch's six expansive and intact autograph books span roughly 60 years of her life as a performer, and contains handwritten music of ?Britannia Grand Processional March" (1893) by composer L. Del Bono, musical director of the Royal Aquarium, Westminster; inscribed music from composer Jacopo Carli; pencil drawing of Vandermeersch by Australian artist George James Coates; watercolor by J. Compton; watercolor portrait of Vandermeersch by Emily Cremer (1880); handwritten sheet music by composer and pianist Louis Diemer; three-line poem by Alexandre Dumas; original photo of Virginia Dejazet (1861); full page drawing of Vandermeersch and her birds by G. Gonin; full page watercolor by Hadoz; large watercolor by Marie Huet; pen and ink drawing by Gaston Marquet; 14-page handwritten Musical Libretto for ?La Chanteuse Volee" (1856) by composer Victor Masse; poems by Xavier Privas and his wife Francine Loree; watercolor by Frederic Regamey; original dedicatory music by Giacomo Rossini; quatrain en Proven?al by Joseph Roumanille; original music by Camille Sivori, violin virtuoso who collaborated with Verdi; poem by George Smythe, 7th Viscount Strangford; unsigned watercolor of Vandermeersch as a bird; The Bird and Canary fable and poem watercolor, and others.A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE OF AUTOGRAPHS, LETTERS, TESTIMONIALS, AND CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES INCLUDE EDMOND ABOUT (NOVELIST); ETIENNE ARAGO (CO-FOUNDER OF LE FIGARO); PAUL BAZOUGE; ANNA BLACKWELL (POET AND SPIRITUALIST); LADY EVELYN BLANTYRE; MATHILDE BONAPARTE (FRENCH WATERCOLORIST AND NAPOLEON'S NIECE); NAPOLEON BONAPARTE (DESCENDENT OF, LIKELY PRINCE ROLAND NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, GRANDSON OF EMPEROR NAPOLEON'S BROTHER); MARIE JEAN BAPTISTE DOMINIQUE BONNAUD (FRENCH SINGER AND POET); JACK CHURCHILL (WINSTON CHURCHILL'S BROTHER); ALPHONSE DAUDET (FRENCH NOVELIST); CHARLES DESLYS (AUTHOR); CLEON GALOPPE D'ONQUAIRE (WRITER/COMPOSER); A. DREYFUS (FRENCH ARMY OFFICER OF GREAT NOTORIETY); Edouard Fournier (poet/playwright); W. Galignani (Parisian bookstore owner and publisher); Paul Gavarni (illustrator/publisher); J.J. Grandville (prolific illustrator and caricaturist); Julia Grisi (actress); Lady Constance Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster; George Harley (famous Scottish toxicologist and researcher); Prince Ibrahim Helmy Pacha; Victor Hugo (famed French author); Jules Janin (writer and publisher); Alphonse Karr (critic and novelist); Duc La Rochefoucauld; Marechal de Castellane (French Commander in Chief at Lyon); Giacomo Mayerbeer (German opera composer); Joseph Mery (writer); Henry-Bonaventure Monnier (French playwright, caricaturist, and actor ? signed on a card for his character Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme); Napoleon III (President of France from 1848 to 1852); Prince Imperial Louis-Napoleon (son of Napoleon III); Alexander Pasteur; Ana?s Segala (poetess and novelist); Emma de Roschild; the Russian Ambassador to London; Eugene Salverte (writer); Shah of Iran and his Aide de Camp (Hana Ali Khan); F.H. Stanhope; Count Schowaroff (on behalf of the Tsar of Russia); Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, the Duchess of Sutherland; Edward Adolphus?St. Maur,?12th Duke of Somerset; Caroline Ashurst Stansfeld?(activist); Pierre Vernon; Christine von Linden (socialite); C.B. Phipps on behalf of Queen Victoria; and a large quantity of others. Good to very good condition. Emilie Vandermeersch (born ca. 1834, Toulouse, France), known as the ?Bird Enchantress" or ?Bird Fairy" was a Frenchwoman who put together an act titled ?Les Oiseaux Merveilleux" (?The Marvelous Birds"). Enamored with birds since childhood, Vandermeersch trained them to recognize letters and numbers. During her act, an array of cards was displayed, and the birds would select the correct cards to spell out a specific word. An excerpt from Illustrated London News describes: ??she exercises over them an extraordinary power, inducing them to perform feats of a wholly different kind from those which have been done by trained animals before" (in Marylebone Literary & Scientific Institution, 29 December 1852). Vandermeersch first publicly exhibited her birds in Paris, taking her act to London's Egyptian Hall in the early 1850s. A testimonial in one of the autograph books reads: ?Mdlle. Vandermeersch exhibited her trained birds at Buckingham Palace before her Majesty the Queen (Victoria) and the royal children. Her Majesty expressed her great satisfaction at the exhibition." ? C.B. Phipps, Privy Purse (Buckingham Palace, July 14th, 1851).Measurements: 20"L x 12"W x 6"H.