writing-desk

writing-desk (plural writing-desks)

1. Dated form of writing desk.
   • 1789 May 27, [John Moore], “Unjust accusations seldom affect us much, but from some justice in them”, in Zeluco. Various Views of Human Nature, Taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic., volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 181:

     AS ſoon as he was alone, the huſband broke open her writing-deſk; […]

   • 1836, Heinrich Heine, translated by G. W. Haven, Letters Auxiliary to the History of Modern Polite Literature in Germany, Boston: James Munroe & Company, pages 145–146:

     Beneath this poplar Mademoiselle Sophia now reposes, and the remembrancer which she left me, the book in red morocco and gilt-edge, “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” by Novalis, now lies before me on my writing-desk, and serves me in the compilation of this notice.

   • 1855, Charles Dickens, “The Holly-tree. Third Branch—The Bill”, in Christmas Stories […] (The Works of Charles Dickens; XV), de luxe edition, London: Chapman and Hall, published 1881, →OCLC, page 63:

     It was eight o’clock to-morrow evening when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers.

   • 1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 283:

     The bombé writing-desk had brass inlay and a marble top, a Bartlett print of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold hung above the pristine twin beds.