Bound collection of autographs, mostly in German, by composers, other musicians, poets, writers, politicians and other luminaries, some of them active in the abortive German 1848 revolution and living in exile after. Full leather with gilt ornaments and gilt inscription "Autographen-Album. Alfred Bonn." to center of upper board. 38 stiff leaves. Entries mounted to leaves in such a way that versos (if not blank) remain legible. Some of the mounted items are folded to accommodate the format. 10.4 x 8.3 inches (26.3x21.0 cm). Boards worn; lower half of spine lacking. Some of the mounted items detached. Autographs generally in in fine condition.

Fifty entries, almost all signed. Entrants identified (in alphabetical order):

Ludwig Bamberger (1823–1899), German banker and politician

Eduard von Bauernfeld (1802–1890), Austrian writer

Friedrich Bodenstedt (1819–1892), German writer and theater director

Albert Emil Brachvogel (1824–1878), German writer

Felix Dahn (1834–1912), German professor of law, writer and historian

Peter Dettweiler (1837–1904), German physician (pulmonologist) (with photographic portrait)

Adam Diehl (1810–1880), German actor

Ernst Eckstein (1845–1900), German writer

Emanuel Geibel (1815–1884), German poet

Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer (1816–1877), German writer

Samuel Friedrich Hassel (1798–1876), German singer (bass) and actor

Paul Heyse (1830–1914), German poet, winner of Nobel Prize of literature (1910)

Johann Jacoby (1805–1877), German physician and politician. His letter, dated 1870, is addressed to Otto von Bismarck—a petition after being arrested for agitating against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine.

Wilhelm Jensen (1837–1911), German writer

Gottfried Kinkel (1815–1882), German theologian, writer and politician, husband of composer Johanna Kinkel

Heinrich Laube (1806–1884), German writer

Paul Lindau (1839–1919), German writer, journalist and theater director

Heinrich Neeb (1805–1878), German choral conductor

Emil Palleske (1823–1880), German writer and actor

Elise Polko (1823–1899), German poet and singer, author of books on musicians

Julius Rodenberg (1831–1914), German writer and journalist

Friedrich Wilhelm Rühl (1817–1874), German conductor and composer

Johannes Scherr (1817–1886), German writer

A member of the Sen[c]kenberg family (probably Carl Christian Heinrich von Sen[c]kenberg, 1760–1842)

Friedrich Spielhagen (1829–1911), German writer

Alfred Stern (1846–1936), German historian

Julius Stettenheim (1831–1916), German writer

Albert Traeger (1830–1912), German writer

Anton von Werner (1843–1915), German painter (autograph envelope addressed to playwright Viktor von Scheffel; unsigned)

Adolf Wilbrandt (1837–1911), German writer and theater director

Ernst Willkomm (1810–1886), German writer and journalist

Friedrich Graf von Wrangel (1784–1877), Prussian Field Marshal (carte de visite)

Next to nothing is known about Alfred Bonn. The majority of the entries are letters personally addressed to Bonn in response to a request for an autograph and dated between April 1877 and 1878. These letters show that Bonn lived in Frankfurt at the time. Items dated earlier and addressed to others or not addressed at all were probably purchased on the market. The earliest item is the Senckenberg letter, dated "Würzburg 1800." A single entry, the latest (dated 12/5/1887), by Dettweiler, is written directly into the album. It reveals that by then, Bonn was a patient in Dettweiler's sanatorium in Königstein, not far from Frankfurt, which suggests that Bonn was ill with tuberculosis. Bonn's name does not appear in the Kalliope union catalog of German archives or in any known dictionary. A person of the same name published a book Ein Jahrhundert Rheinische Mission [A century of the Rhenish Mission] in Barmen (now Wuppertal) in 1928, but there is no evidence that these persons were identical or otherwise related.