The Bibliography of Tennyson (1896)/Bibliography
THE
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TENNYSON.
1827.
Poems, by Two Brothers. "Haec nos novimus esse nihil."—Martial. London: Printed for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, Stationers'-hall-court; and J. J. Jackson, Louth. MDCCCXXVII.
Published in two sizes, 12mo., at 5s., and 8vo., at 7s. The Large-Paper copies, of which there were, of course, fewer printed, (though not always preferred by collectors) generally command the higher price in the market. Of late years the book has become increasingly scarce, and is much sought after; and it fetches a considerable sum in either form, especially in the original boards, with the paper label.
The two brothers were Charles and Alfred Tennyson, then at the Louth Grammar-School together. The Messrs. Jackson purchased the copyright of their joint volume for ten pounds, and retained the original manuscript, which, in later years, was exhibited as a curiosity. And an attempt was made, unsuccessfully, by the late Mr. B. M. Pickering, in the middle sixties (after the publishers had discovered and reported a small remainder stock of the original issue), to induce the proprietors of the copyright to dispose of it to him. The small bundle of copies left, in both sizes, was purchased by Mr. Pickering, and the book gradually rose in price, as the number of copies dwindled, and at last disappeared; but the negotiations for the purchase of the copyright fell through, owing to the influence of the Poet's family in the county, to the prestige of his own great fame, and to the fact that the transfer of copyright had taken place in his minority, when he was entirely unknown and still a school-boy and, in the eyes of the law, an infant. Whether any pecuniary compensation or indemnification was made to the Jacksons by the Poet or his friends, is uncertain. But Mr. Pickering held the original bargain to be morally if not legally valid, unless cancelled by subsequent redemption on the part of the authors by mutual consent with the original publishers; and, had he succeeded in effecting and completing the purchase, which he travelled down to Lincolnshire to negotiate, he would have published a new edition of the volume without any hesitation, The best (or perhaps the only) descriptions of "Poems by Two Brothers" are in a paper contributed by the Hon. Leicester Warren to the Fortnightly Review, in October, 1865; and in a paper "On the Early Poems of Alfred and Charles Tennyson," published in Notes and Queries early in 1866, and which afterwards formed substantially the two opening chapters of "Tennysoniana."
A diminutive volume of "Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces," by Charles Tennyson (the elder of the two brothers), was issued at Cambridge, with his name, in 1830,[1] and will enable a careful student to distinguish his work to some extent, in the earlier anonymous volume, from that of his more famous younger brother. Charles Tennyson afterwards assumed the name of Turner on inheriting some property, entered the Church, and became Vicar of Grasby in Lincolnshire. With the exception of some original lines which appeared in The Tribute in 1837, he published no more verse apparently for thirty-four years. His next volume appeared in 1864; and during the last fifteen years of his life he published several small volumes—chiefly of sonnets, his favourite form of composition. After his death in 1879 his poetical writings were collected, prefaced by a short memoir written by his nephew, Mr. Hallam Tennyson, with some introductory memorial stanzas by the Poet Laureate.
The volume "Poems, by Two Brothers" was reprinted after the Poet's death in 1893, with the initials of the authors attached to each poem. It appears that four were by Frederick Tennyson.
1829.
Timbuctoo: A Poem (in blank verse) which obtained the Chancellor's Gold Medal at the Cambridge Commencement, by A. Tennyson, Trinity College. Printed in the Prolusiones Academicæ of 1829. Cantabrigiæ (Cambridge): Joannes Smith. 8vo., thin pamphlet. pp. 13.
This poem was reprinted several times, in smaller size, in succeeding years in the collection of "Cambridge Prize Poems." In all these successive reprints "ravish'd sense"[2] is misprinted "lavish'd sense"; the correct reading is only to be found in the first edition, as it appeared in the Prolusiones. The poem was never reprinted by the author; but three or four scattered lines of it appear in the "Ode to Memory" (1830) and in "The Lover's Tale" (1833).
Arthur Hallam was one of the unsuccessful competitors for this prize. His poem, written in the terza rima of Dante, was privately printed, both as a separate pamphlet and in his "Remains in Verse and Prose" (1834).
Thackeray, then also at Trinity, ridiculed the choice of subject, and produced a short mock or burlesque "Timbuctoo," in his college jeu d'esprit, entitled "The Snob" (Cambridge, 1829).
The Athenæum journal (at that early period of a long and distinguished career edited by its two joint proprietors, John Sterling and Frederick Denison Maurice) had the courage and the foresight to sound a trumpet-note of praise, heralding the advent of a new poet, and prophesying, with no uncertain voice, the future greatness of the author of the successful poem.
In the previous year (1828), Frederick Tennyson, the eldest of the seven brothers, had gained the prize for a Greek poem on Egypt, printed in the collection of Greek and Latin Prize Poems. There is a sonnet by Frederick Tennyson in one of the volumes of Friendship's Offering containing a similar contribution from his younger and more famous brother; but he published (whatever he may have printed privately) no collection of English Poems until 1854, when the volume of "Days and Hours," bearing his name on the title, was issued by J. W. Parker and Son. He had, at that time, attained his forty-eighth year.
1830.
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. By Alfred Tennyson. London: Effingham Wilson, 1830. (pp. 154, leaf of Errata, no Table of Contents.)
It had originally been intended to publish these poems conjointly with those of Arthur Hallam; but by the advice of Hallam's father the contributions of the latter were withdrawn, and issued, separately and anonymously, for private circulation only. I never saw but one copy of Arthur Hallam's collected Poems. Tennyson's maiden volume attracted considerable attention from the leading Reviews of the period; it was noticed at unusual length by the Westminster Review, and in Blackwood's Magazine by Christopher North,—whose criticism called forth an epigram from the young poet in his ensuing volume of 1832, 1833. It was also reviewed by Arthur Henry Hallam in the brief-lived Englishman's Magazine, published by Edward Moxon in 1831: of this interesting notice only a small portion is reprinted in Arthur Hallam's Remains.
Copies of "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical," in the original boards and in good condition, are now increasingly rare, and command a high price. Two exceptionally interesting copies have come under my observation. The first was an uncut copy bearing on the title-page the neat and minute autograph of Robert Southey. On a fly-leaf belonging to, or attached, to the volume, was written in the author's autograph the draught of an original unpublished sonnet on Cambridge, which has since seen the light in the second edition of "Tennysoniana," in Notes and Queries, and elsewhere. This copy was preserved in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington, The other copy, accompanied by the later volume of 1832-1833, and the privately-printed "Lover's Tale," was not an uncut or specially wellbound copy, but contained, like its companion volumes, autograph notes and corrections in the Poet's handwriting, made in the year 1835, on the visit to Cambridge recorded in "In Memoriam," when the poet was the guest of the owner of these volumes, the Rev. W. H. Thompson, afterwards Master of Trinity College, at the sale of whose Library in 1857 these three volumes were disposed of in separate lots, and brought extremely advanced prices. An ordinary copy, perfect in the original boards, or artistically bound from an uncut copy, is now worth from ten to fifteen pounds, according to condition
Many of the poems in this volume were rejected and omitted from subsequent editions of Tennyson's Minor Poems. Some of these, however, were restored or reinstated in the later collected editions of his Complete Works, Very few of the poems retained were materially, or otherwise than verbally, altered.
Mr. Thompson's copy contained, in addition, an autograph note of his own, giving some account of an eccentric fellow-collegian, Thomas Sunderland, from whom the poem entitled "A Character" was supposed to be drawn.
1830-1831.
The Gem, for 1831 (London), an illustrated Annual, contains three original unpublished poems by Alfred Tennyson, never included by the author in any of his subsequent volumes, viz., "No More," "Anacreontics," and "A Fragment," the last-named in blank verse, somewhat in the style of "Timbuctoo." These are reprinted in a small volume entitled "The Lover's Tale and other Poems, now first collected," of which an edition, limited to fifty copies, was issued for private circulation in 1875, with a monograph by the author of "Tennysoniana."
This little volume was suppressed at the Poet's instigation by a decree of the Court of Chancery and is now very difficult to find. It contained twelve pages of preliminary matter (with title, contents, indicating the sources of the minor poems, and "a Monograph on 'The Lover's Tale,' a Supplementary Chapter to 'Tennysoniana'" (of which the second edition had not then been published), and sixty-four pages of text, of which forty-eight were occupied by the principal poem, and sixteen by the minor poems, not accessible elsewhere, except in the publications to which they were originally contributed. Some of the copies were done up in blue and white boards, entirely uncut; others were bound in vellum or half roan, with edges uncut and tops gilt; others remained loose or stitched, in the original sheets. But a large proportion of the copies were confiscated; and probably not more than twenty or two dozen were put into actual circulation.
A previous attempt, in the same direction, was made in the later months of 1870, but without title, table of contents, or monograph, and it lacked completeness in regard to the collection of Minor Poems, while including some others afterwards acknowledged and restored. This also was suppressed, at the instigation of the late Mr. B. M. Pickering.
1831.
The Englishman's Magazine, for August, 1831 (Edward Moxon), contains an original unpublished Sonnet by Alfred Tennyson, commencing:
"Check every outflash, every ruder sally."
(After the premature collapse of The Englishman's Magazine this Sonnet was reprinted in Friendship's Offering for 1833 (an illustrated annual), but disfigured by the error of "move" for "wove" in the antipenultimate or twelfth line.)
1831-1832.
The Yorkshire Literary Annual for 1832 contains an original unpublished Sonnet by Alfred Tennyson, commencing:
"There are three things which fill my heart with sighs,"
and also a Sonnet by Edward Tennyson, one of the Poet's younger brothers: apparently the sole published specimen of his poetical work.
Friendship's Offering for 1832 contains an original unpublished Sonnet by Alfred Tennyson, commencing:
"Me my own Fate to lasting sorrow doometh:"
These three sonnets were not included in the volume of 1832-1833, nor in any of the later volumes, or collected editions of Tennyson. They are reprinted in the small brochure of sixty-four pages already alluded to, "The Lover's Tale and other Poems, now first collected," issued for private circulation in 1875.
1832.
Poems, by Alfred Tennyson, London: Edward Moxon, 1833 (published in the winter of 1832).
Both in quantity and quality this volume surpasses its predecessor of 1830, is of much rarer occurrence, especially in the original boards, and commands a still higher price. Many of the poems were omitted altogether in later editions and never restored or reinstated, and of those retained, some of the longer and more important, e.g., "The Lady of Shalott," "The Palace of Art," "A Dream of Fair Women," "Ænone," and "The Miller's Daughter," were either re-written or considerably altered on their reappearance in 1842. The "Hesperides," the "Poems to Kate and Rosalind," the "Darling Room," the lines "To Christopher North," and other pieces, were omitted altogether, and have never been restored. This second volume was severely attacked in the Quarterly Review of July, 1833 (No. 97), in a strain of ironical praise, in an article attributed to John Gibson Lockhart, the Editor of the Quarterly.
1833.
The Lover's Tale. A Fragment. By Alfred Tennyson. London: Edward Moxon. 1833. pp. 60.
A few copies were struck off separately and distributed to college friends and others; but the poem was suppressed before publication, Probably it was originally intended to form a part, perhaps the opening part, of the volume described in the previous entry, dated also 1833, though actually published in the winter of 1832.
This poem seems to have been written in 1828, in the author's nineteenth year, and was apparently printed mainly at the instigation or by the request of Arthur Hallam, for distribution among the author's college intimates. Richard Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton) possessed a copy, quoted in his own first volume of poems published in 1834 ("Memorials of a Tour in Greece"); and (as already mentioned) a copy was in the possession of W. H. Thompson, afterwards (1835) enriched with marginal autograph corrections by the author, This, and the copy, the early history of which is not apparent, sold at Sotheby's in June, 1870, and eventually acquired by Mr. Pickering (bound up together with the published volumes of 1830 and 1833, and not separately, like Mr. Thompson's copy), are the only two copies I ever saw of the original edition. I never saw an uncut copy. At the sale of the late Mr. Pickering's Tennyson Collection, at Puttick and Simpson's, in 1879, this copy of his brought £40; and at a later date Mr. Thompson's copy, with autograph corrections, fetched £60, at Sotheby and Wilkinson's, In 1869 "The Lover's Tale," with considerable alterations, and with the addition of a hitherto unprinted section, was sent to the press by the author, to accompany or precede the poem of "The Golden Supper," {published in the volume of "The Holy Grail," etc.,) which forms a sequel to it. But it was again suppressed before publication; and "The Golden Supper" (founded on a prose story in the Decameron of Boccaccio) was published alone, on its own merits. Some half-dozen copies of this authorized reprint of 1869 were apparently saved from destruction. One of these was given by Tennyson's publisher of that time, Alexander Strahan, to Mr. George Macdonald, the poet and novelist: another was in the collection, and appears in the privately-printed Catalogue, of Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson. I never saw a copy of it, and it seems to be almost as rare as the original edition.
In the summer of 1870, and again in 1875, under the auspices of the Editor of "Tennysoniana," the Fragment of "The Lover's Tale" was reprinted, for private circulation, from the original edition, as it appeared in 1833. These two unauthorized reprints were rigorously suppressed and called in, and only a few copies of each were actually circulated.
At last, in 1879, the poem was fully published, in a small green cloth volume, by the author, but considerably altered, and in many parts re-written, with the addition of a new third part and a reprint of "The Golden Supper," to form a fourth and final part, in accordance with the scheme abandoned in 1869 (ten years previously), accompanied by an apologetic prose preface, substituted for the original one which was prefixed to the poem as issued in 1833.
1836-1837.
The Keepsake, for 1837 (an Illustrated Annual) contains an original verse contribution by Alfred Tennyson, the poem of "St. Agnes' Eve," republished in the second volume of the Poems of 1842, as "St. Agnes."
1837.
The Tribute: a Collection of Unpublished Poems, by various authors, edited by Lord Northampton. Lond.: John Murray. 8vo. 1837. Contains an original verse contribution by Alfred Tennyson entitled "Stanzas," not reprinted elsewhere, but incorporated eighteen years later (1855), with some modifications and omissions, into the poem of "Maud," being the substance of the stanzas forming a section of the second part of that poem and commencing:
"O that 'twere possible."
The Tribute also contains some verses by Charles Tennyson Turner.
1842.
Poems. In Two Volumes. By Alfred Tennyson. London: Edward Moxon, Dover-street. 1842. pp. 464.
The first volume contains, with a few additions of early date, including the Third Part of "The May Queen," a small selection (afterwards considerably extended) from the Poems of 1830 and 1832, many of the latter being considerably altered or re-written, and "The Sleeping Beauty" (from the volume of 1830), being relegated to the second volume to form a section of the longer poem of "The Day-Dream."
The second volume (with the exception just named, and that of "St. Agnes") consisted of poems previously unpublished.
It seems probable that before the actual publication of these two long-delayed and eagerly - expected volumes, early copies of the proof-sheets were handed about among the author's literary friends with the view of eliciting their suggestions and that some alterations and omissions were made, either by their advice, or by an afterthought of the Poet himself, while the volumes were passing through the press. In 1843 the late Mrs. Procter (the wife of "Barry Cornwall") sent to Samuel Rogers {in a note seen and copied by me several years ago) two stanzas originally printed with "Locksley Hall,"[3] which do not appear in the published edition of 1842, or in any subsequent one, but which did appear in 1887, forty-five years subsequently, after they had been known to me for some time, in the sequel entitled "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After."
From whence could these two stanzas be derived if not from an early set of proofs or small privately-printed issue communicated to the Procters before publication? In the Catalogue of Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson's collection is an autograph copy of the poem of "The Talking Oak," containing two stanzas, quoted in the Catalogue in extenso, not appearing in any of the published editions, but which it is quite possible were also printed in the early proofs, or in some small private issue of the first edition of 1842, and afterwards struck out. There is indeed no evidence, as in the former case, that these two stanzas were actually printed by the author, and not scored through before sending the "copy" to the printer; but there is some considerable prima facie presumption that they were set up in type, like the rest, in the first instance. Early proof-sheets of "In Memoriam" and "Maud" exist, which show that numerous alterations, omissions and additions were made in these poems after they were in type.
1843-1846.
A second, third and fourth edition of the Poems in two volumes, with some alterations and additions, and with the omission of a note to the second volume and of the date (1833) originally appended to the poem of "The Two Voices," appeared in 1843, 1845 and 1846 respectively. These are of considerably less rarity than the first issue: the edition of 1843, like the first edition, was issued in boards; that of 1845 in cloth boards; and that of 1846 in green cloth, gilt-lettered, like most of the succeeding volumes.
Punch of Feb. 28 and March 7, 1846 (vol. x., pp. 103, 106), contains two original poems by Alfred Tennyson, signed "Alcibiades"—"The New Timon and the Poets," and "Afterthought." The first has never been republished by the author; the second, under the title of "Literary Squabbles," reappeared, many years afterwards (1872), in the third volume of the Library Edition of his Collected Works.
1847.
The Princess: a Medley. By Alfred Tennyson, London: Edward Moxon 1847, pp. 164, green cloth, The Second Edition (published in 1848, with the exception of a few slight verbal alterations, and the addition of a brief Dedication to Henry Lushington,) is a reprint of the first. (Moxon, 1848, green cloth, pp. 164.)
1848.
Poems. Fifth Edition. In one volume: Lond.: Edward Moxon, 1848, green cloth, pp. 372.
1849.
To ———, after reading a Life and Letters. Originally published in The Examiner, 1849. Reprinted in the Sixth Edition of Tennyson's Poems, Moxon, 1850.
1850.
In Memoriam. London: Edward Moxon, Dover-street, 1850, dark cloth, pp. 210.
The second and third editions were published in the same year, and contain like the first, in addition to the introductory and concluding poems, 130 numbered sections only. The numbered sections of "In Memoriam" (which eventually increased to 132) were apparently written between the autumn of 1833, after the death of Arthur Hallam in September of that year, and the spring or summer of 1836. The concluding poem, or Epithalamium, was written in 1842, and the Introductory lines bear the date of 1849, in which year the work was presumably printed. I had the opportunity, in 1884, of inspecting a set of early proof-sheets of "In Memoriam" (without the title), which contained only 118 numbered sections, with readings frequently differing considerably from those of the published edition. A detailed account of this set of proof-sheets appeared in a paper of mine, entitled "The Genesis of 'In Memoriam,'" contributed to Walford's Antiquarian Magazine, in 1887.
The Princess: a Medley. By Alfred Tennyson. Third Edition. London: Edward Moxon, 1850, green cloth, pp. 177.
In this Edition the poem was considerably altered from beginning to end, and in some parts re-written. A considerable number of lines, especially in a long speech of the Princess, were omitted. The six intercalary songs, and the lines of blank verse, forming a sequel to the Prologue, which follow Lilia's Song, were added for the first time.
Poems by Alfred Tennyson. Sixth Edition. In one volume, green cloth. London: Edward Moxon, 1850. With the addition of the Examiner poem of 1849, "After reading a Life and Letters."
This is the last edition including the poem of "The Skipping-Rope," omitted in all subsequent editions of the Minor Poems, and in all Collected Editions of the Poet's Works.
Original unpublished poem, of eight lines, by Alfred Tennyson, not reprinted in any of his volumes, contributed to the Manchester Athenæum Album, small quarto, 1850.
"Here often, when a child, I lay reclined"—
My attention was first directed to this poem in 1875, by a notice written by Mr. W. E. Axon, where it was quoted in extenso, which appeared in Cope's Tobacco Plant, a pleasant monthly folio journal of literary and other gossip, published at Liverpool, It is included in the little volume of sixty-four pages, "The Lover's Tale and other Poems," issued for private circulation in that year.
1850-1851.
The Keepsake for 1851 (an illustrated annual) contains two original unpublished poems contributed by Alfred Tennyson:
1. "What time I wasted youthful hours,"
three stanzas of three lines each, in the metre of "The Two Voices," never reprinted by the author.
2. "Come not, when I am dead"
(disfigured by a misprint, or transposition of words, in the last line of the first stanza). Included, for the first time, in the Seventh Edition of Tennyson's Poems (the first Laureate Edition), in one volume, published in 1851.
Sonnet to Macready.
The text of this Sonnet, addressed to Macready on the occasion of his last farewell performance, and read by Mr. John Forster, with the poet's sanction, shortly afterwards, at the Public Banquet given to that actor on his retirement, must be sought and collated from the best newspapers of the time, It appears in the privately-printed booklet of sixty-four pages, issued in 1875, already alluded to, and in the last collected edition.
1851.
Poems, by Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate, Seventh Edition. London: Edward Moxon, 1851, one volume, green cloth, pp. 375:
The first Laureate Edition, with the stanzas "To the Queen" prefixed, as originally written, including the "Crystal-Palace" stanza, omitted in all subsequent editions. In this edition were also first printed, in a correct form, the lines recently contributed to The Keepsake,
"Come not, when I am dead."
The poem of "The Skipping Rope" (included for the last time in the Edition of 1850) finally disappeared from the collection.
In Memoriam. Fourth Edition. London: Edward Moxon, 1851, dark cloth, pp. 211.
This edition (like all the subsequent editions for the next twenty years) contained 131 numbered sections: a section being added or restored, standing as the fifty-eighth, commencing:
"O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me?"
Index to "In Memoriam" (uniform in size with the volume itself, and available to bind with the fourth edition, or with any succeeding edition containing 131 numbered sections). Lond.: Edward Moxon and Co., 1862, pp. 40.
The compiler's name is not given; but this valuable little index was, not improbably, the work of Mr. Barron Brightwell, who, seven years later, published a large Concordance to Tennyson complete up to date (1869).
In the first Collected Edition of Tennyson's Poetical Works, printed at the Chiswick Press, and issued in small cabinet volumes, a new section, standing as the thirty-third, was added for the first time, or restored, to "In Memoriam," which thus, in all the later editions, contained 132 numbered Sections, in addition to the introductory poem and the concluding Epithalamium.
The Princess: A Medley. By Alfred Tennyson, Fourth Edition, London: Edward Moxon, 1851, green cloth, pp. 182.
In this edition the passages relating to the Prince's weird or cataleptic seizures were first added.
1852.
The Examiner newspaper of January and February, 1852 (at that time edited by John Forster), contains four original unpublished poems by Alfred Tennyson (one or two of them signed "Merlin"): viz,
1. "Britons, guard your own."
2. "Hands all Round."
3. "The Third of February, 1852."
4. "How much I love this writer's manly style."
After the final collapse of the Second French Empire, the poem entitled "The Third of February, 1852," was acknowledged and republished in the third volume of the Library Edition of Tennyson's Collected Works, issued in 1872; and, at a later period, the poem of "Hands all Round," remodelled and adapted to the circumstances of a new time, was arranged for Mr. Santley's singing at St. James's Hall, and reprinted in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885). The first and the last-named of these four poems have never been republished by the author; nor has the last-named ever been republished at all, even in the privately-printed collection, issued in 1875, the authorship of this piece not having then made itself apparent to the compiler.
Mr. Leicester Warren first drew attention to the three earlier of these Examiner patriotic poems (from which he printed copious extracts) in the paper contributed by him to the Fortnightly Review, in October, 1865. They were afterwards reprinted, if not in extenso, with the omission of a few stanzas only, in the first edition of "Tennysoniana," as originally printed; but these extracts had to be curtailed or rescinded in the published edition.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. By Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate, 8vo., pp. 16, with half-title and title, in purple wrapper, repeating title. London: Edward Moxon, 1852.
The First Edition contains a passage of five lines omitted in all subsequent issues of the poem.
1853.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. A New Edition, 8vo., in wrapper, pp. 16. London: Edward Moxon, 1853.
This edition contains, in the second stanza, a line not contained in the first edition, and omitted in all subsequent issues of the poem. Considerable alterations and additions were made throughout, adopted in the later and current text of the poem, as it reappeared in the "Maud" volume, and in collected editions of the poet's works. It is of much greater rarity than the first edition. The only copy I ever possessed was purchased at Cambridge, in 1874 or 1875, at the original price of one shilling, of Messrs. Macmillan and Co., who then apparently held a small remainder of it (which, however, they kept carefully in the background, declining to part with a second copy), long before they became Tennyson's publishers; and the late Mr. B. M. Pickering, if I remember rightly, gave me ten shillings for this copy on my return to London. I never, before or since, saw another, except the bound copy in the British Museum.
Poems by Alfred Tennyson. Eighth Edition, in one volume, pp. 379, green cloth. London: Edward Moxon, 1853.
This edition contains alterations in the stanzas "To the Queen," to which a new stanza is added, and the "Crystal Palace" stanza of 1851 is omitted. It also contains, for the first time, an important additional alteration in the early poem of "A Dream of Fair Women," more than twenty years after its original appearance. With one exception (mentioned infra) no further addition or alteration was made in any subsequent edition; so that the edition of 1853 may be accepted as the final text, in its first form, of the poems it includes.
The Princess: A Medley. By Alfred Tennyson. Fifth Edition, green cloth, pp. 183. London: Edward Moxon, 1853.
The passage quoted from "the gallant glorious chronicle," in the Prologue, is first added in this edition, which presents the final text of the poem, as it afterwards appeared. A set of the first five editions of "The Princess" is indispensable to a collector or student curious respecting the genesis and history of the poem.
1854.
The Charge of the Light Brigade.
The first version or draught of this famous and popular ballad appeared in the Examiner of December 9, 1854. It differs materially in text from all the later versions.
1855.
The Charge of the Light Brigade (with prose note, signed by the author, dated "August, 1855"). Four pages, 4to., 1855.
A thousand copies were privately printed, for distribution among the soldiers before Sebastopol, who had a liking for the ballad: a copy of this privately-printed quarto sheet, in good preservation, is now of extreme rarity. I never saw any other copy than that preserved in the British Museum, in a folio volume containing miscellaneous ballads and broadsides.
Maud, and Other Poems, By Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. London: Edward Moxon, 1855, green cloth, pp. 154.
Besides the principal poem, of which a portion had appeared as far back as 1837, in a miscellany entitled The Tribute, this volume contains: "The Brook," an Idyll; "The Letters"; "The Daisy" (written at Edinburgh); "Will"; "Lines to the Rev. F.D. Maurice" (all published for the first time); and, with some alterations, the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" already published twice (1852, 1853) in a separate pamphlet form, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade," reprinted from the E.xaminer.
1856.
Maud, and Other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson. A New Edition. London: Edward Moxon, 1856, green cloth, pp. 164.
Considerable additions, extending to some ten pages, were made to the principal poem, in this edition. The ballad of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" underwent some important alterations, especially in the final stanza.
In later editions the poem of "Maud" was divided into two and ultimately into three parts; and the second title of "A Monodrama" was added. Some years ago I had the opportunity of inspecting a set of early proof-sheets of the "Maud" volume, containing a satirical passage of several lines descriptive of the "babe-faced lord," scored out and omitted entirely from all the published editions. This passage was quoted in extenso in a paper of mine on "The Genesis of Tennyson's 'Maud,'" contributed to the North American Reviews in 1884. In these early proofs the poem was entitled, and the head-lines ran, "Maud; or the Madness."
1857.
Enid and Nimuë; or, The True and the False. London: privately printed, 1857, pp. 131.
The original and earliest form of the first two of the four "Idylls of the King," published in 1859, I never saw a copy, and describe it only on the authority of the paper contributed by Mr. Leicester Warren to the Fortnightly Review in October, 1865, which may, however, be considered as conclusive; since, although he does not state expressly that he had seen a copy himself, nor intimate how many copies were printed, or escaped destruction, he records the exact number of pages circumstantially, as given here; which he could hardly have done except after inspection of the book or on the information of some trustworthy friend who had seen and noted, if he did not possess a copy. Perhaps, however, it was only a single set of proof-sheets that had been preserved, and shown or described to Mr. Warren; and the book may have been withdrawn before any copies were actually printed off in their final form. It is hardly likely, even if a small number of such copies were extant, that a copy should not appear in the market during a period of thirty-eight years, especially as such a copy, offered to public competition, would doubtless have realized an almost fabulous sum. At present "Enid and Nimuë" may be considered to be what the French bibliographers term introuvable.
[The only known copy (1895) is now in the British Museum, supposed to be one of six original copies.—Editor.]
Poems, By Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. With Engraving of Bust by Woolner, and illustrations by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and others. London: Edward Moxon, 1857, pp. 375, royal 8vo., red cloth, uncut.
This edition has no special or peculiar textual value, corresponding, apparently, in all respects, to the unadorned Eighth Edition, of 1853; but the illustrations, some of them executed by hands since so eminent and distinguished, give it considerable importance and significance. A copy of the earliest issue, dated as above, in the original cloth, entirely uncut, must be secured. Shortly after its appearance, Edward Moxon, long known as the poet's publisher, died, and the remainder of this edition was transferred to Messrs, Routledge and ruined by deteriorated impressions of the plates, and by a tawdry cloth binding, with gilt edges. Edward Moxon's original issue was published at a guinea and a half, Routledge's at a guinea. Mr. Ruskin bestows a high eulogium on these illustrations in the Appendix to his "Elements of Drawing" (London, 1857).
1858.
The daily newspapers of January 28, 1858, contain two original stanzas added, by the Poet Laureate, to the National Anthem, to be sung with it on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess-Royal of England with Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia.
1859.
The Times of May 4, 1859, contains an original poem by Alfred Tennyson, entitled "The War" (better known as "Riflemen, form"), signed T., and beginning:—
"There is a sound of thunder afar,"
The Emperor of the French (then in the zenith of his power and prestige) was not spared in one of the stanzas; apparent and temporary success had not made him respectable in the eyes of the poet who had gibbeted him seven years before in the Examiner when the imperial charlatan first assumed the purple.
These stanzas were not reprinted till 1892, in "The Death of Œnone"; but I had no doubt of their authorship from the day when I first saw them in the Times newspaper, at Teignmouth, in Devonshire. They were very popular, and a composer, or perhaps several composers, "set them to music."
The Grandmother's Apology. (With an illustration by J. E. Millais.) Once-a-Week, July 16, 1859.
Reprinted, under the abridged title of "The Grandmother," in the "Enoch-Arden" volume (1864). This is the poem which Tennyson, many years later, is supposed to have read, by special request, before the company of crowned heads and royal personages, who met in 1888 at Copenhagen, when Tennyson arrived there on a yachting voyage with Mr. Gladstone.
The illustration by Millais is much more careful than most of his similar drawings on wood at that period, and, being of such exceptional excellence, it seems a pity it should be entombed in an old volume of a forgotten periodical.
Idylls of the King. "Flos regum Arthurus,"—Joseph of Exeter. By Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. London: Edward Moxon and Co., 1859, green cloth, pp. 261.
Contains the four Idylls of Enid, Vivien, Elaine and Guinevere, the first two of which had been privately printed, in 1857, under the title of "Enid and Nimuë." Nimuë was the name given in the old legends and chronicles (changed by the Poet for the sake of euphony to Vivien, as he afterwards changed "Shalott" into "Astolat") of the "false" heroine of the second Idyll. For the story of "Enid" Tennyson was largely indebted to Lady Charlotte Guest's translation of the Welsh "Mabinogion," the details, names, and even words, being closely followed and reproduced.
1859-1860.
Sea-Dreams: An Idyll. By Alfred Tennyson. Macmillan's Magazine, January, 1860.
Reprinted in the "Enoch-Arden" volume (1864).
1860.
Tithonus. Cornhill Magazine, February, 1860.
Reprinted, with an alteration in the first line, in the "Enoch-Arden" volume (1864).
1861.
The Sailor Boy.—Victoria Regia, a Christmas miscellany, in verse and prose, by various authors. London: Emily Faithfull, Victoria Press, large 8vo., cloth, gilt.
Reprinted, with some slight alteration, in the "Enoch-Arden" volume (1864).
Helen's Tower. Clandeboye. Privately printed. "To my dear son on his 21st birthday" (stanzas by Lady Gifford); twelve lines on the next to the last page (by Alfred Tennyson).
The privately printed pamphlet has a steel engraving of the tower on the title-page, and no names are attached to the poems. The poems were reprinted with signatures in Good Words for 1884, p. 25, with a description of the tower by Charles Blatherwick.
1862.
Idylls of the King. A New Edition. London: Edward Moxon and Co., 1862, green cloth.
With a Dedication, in blank verse, to the memory of the Prince Consort, and a few slight alterations or corrections in the text. This dedication was printed in separate form before issue, and a few copies remain.
Ode sung at the opening of the International Exhibition. With Music by Sterndale Bennett (May 1, 1862).
Reprinted in the "Enoch-Arden" volume (1864).
Suppressed Poems of Tennyson, A pamphlet privately printed under the supervision of J. D, Campbell, 1862.
There is in the British Museum a curious legal document, "Tennyson v. Hotten" (1862), containing an order of the Court of Chancery for the suppression of an unauthorized reprint of poems by Tennyson. I never saw a copy of the book, and do not know its contents.
1863.
A Welcome. By Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate, four pages with full title, uniform in size with Moxon's editions of Tennyson's volumes. London: Edward Moxon and Co., 1863.
These lines were addressed to the Princess Alexandra of Denmark, on her arrival in England and her marriage with the Prince of Wales. The poem was reprinted, with considerable alterations and additions, in the "Enoch-Arden" volume (1864). This separate edition is now a great rarity, though it could be bought at the time of its publication for a few pence.
Experiments of Classic Metres in Quantity (Hexameters and Pentameters). Translations of Homer; Catullian Hendecasyllabics; Milton (Alcaics): with Specimen of a Translation in blank verse from the Iliad. Cornhill Magazine, December, 1863.
Reprinted, without the "Hexameters and Pentameters," in the "Enoch-Arden" volume (1864).
1864.
Idylls of the Hearth. By Alfred Tennyson, P.L. D.C.L. London: Edward Moxon and Co., Dover Street, 1864, pp. 178.
This is the same as the regular (following) edition of "Enoch Arden," but with a different title-page.
Enoch Arden, etc. By Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. London: Edward Moxon and Co., 1864, pp. 178.
Contents: "Enoch Arden"; "Aylmer's Field"; "The Flower"; "In the Valley of Cauteretz"; "Requiescat"; "Flower in the Crannied Wall"; "Boadicea"; and "A Dedication" {all previously unpublished); and "The Grandmother;" "Sea-Dreams," an "Idyll"; "Tithonus"; "The Sailor Boy"; "Exhibition Ode"; "A Welcome to Alexandra"; and "Experiments of Classic Metres in Quantity," with Specimen of a Blank Verse Translation from the Iliad of Homer (but minus the "Hexameters and Pentameters"), which had appeared, between 1859 and 1863, either in a separate form or in the magazines and publications already indicated.
Inscription of four lines of verse for the Mausoleum of the Duchess of Kent. Court Journal, and other newspapers, 1864.
1865.
A Selection from the Works of Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate (Moxon's Miniature Poets). London: Edward Moxon and Co., 1865, cloth gilt, square 12mo., with red border lines enclosing text, and portrait of the author, pp. 256.
Contains some original poems previously unpublished, viz.: "The Captain, a Legend of the Navy;" "On a Mourner;" "Three Sonnets to a Coquette;" besides variations of two of the Songs in "The Princess." In this volume two new lines were inserted or added towards the end of the poem entitled "The Vision of Sin," which do not appear in any of the earlier, or reappear in any of the later editions of the volume containing that poem. The couplet or reading in question seems to be peculiar to this volume, as if the afterthought by which it was introduced was subsequently abandoned. The two fines are as follows:
Give him new nerves with old experience'"
—a recipe that many (were it possible) would fain adopt.
1865.
On a Spiteful Letter. Once-a-Week, December, 1865.
Reprinted, with considerable alterations, in the Library Edition of Tennyson's Works, 1872.
1866-1867.
Tennysoniana. With a set of the cancelled leaves, as first printed. London: B. M. Pickering, dark cloth boards, uncut. 1866-1867.
(Very few copies with the cancelled leaves were preserved.)
A Second Edition, much enlarged, was issued in 1879, and contained a Sonnet of the Poet on Cambridge University, found in MS. in a volume of "Poems" in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington Museum.
1867.
The Window: or, The Loves of the Wrens. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate. Woodcut of Canford Manor, 4to, Canford Manor, =, φ, ××, 7, 1867.
Collation: Quarto. pp. 19 (unnumbered).
(1) Title as above (verso blank); (2) 1 page containing monogram of Sir lvor Bertie Guest (verso blank); (3) Half-title: "The Window; or, The Loves of the Wrens" (verso blank); (4) Dedication: "These little songs, whose almost sole merit, at least till they are wedded to music, is that they are so excellently printed, I dedicate to the printer" (verso blank). pp. 5 to 19 printed on recto only.
Size: 1078 × 8.
A series of twelve songs, connected by the slender thread of a pretty love-story successful in its issue. Printed at the private press of Sir Ivor Bertie Guest: a very small edition was struck off, and a copy appearing in the market commands a high price. The text differs considerably from that of the edition published three or four years later, with Mr. Arthur Sullivan's music.
The Victim. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate. Woodcut of Canford Manor, 4to. Canford Manor, =, φ, ××, 7, 1867. Printed at the Private Press of Sir Ivor Bertie Guest.
Collation: Quarto. pp. 9 (unnumbered). (1) Title as above (verso blank); (2) 1 page containing monogram of Sir Ivor Bertie Guest (verso blank); (3) Half-title: "The Victim" (verso blank). pp. 4 to 9 printed on recto only.
Size: 1078 × 8.
This poem appeared shortly afterwards in Good Words, and was reprinted among the minor poems in the volume of "The Holy Grail," etc. (1870). The separate privately-printed edition is a rarity; but, of course, is of less interest, as it is also of less bulk, than "The Window."
It is stated on good authority that the signs on this and "The Window," =, φ., xx, 7, are the private marks of the amateur compositors—viz., Lord Wimborne, Lady Layard, Lady C. Schreiber, Mrs. E. Ponsonby.
1868.
Wages. Ten lines. Macmillan's Magazine, February, 1868 (Vol. XVII., p. 271).
Reprinted in The Holy Grail," 1870.
1865-1866 (Old and New Year). Good Words, March, 1868.
This short poem was never re-published by the author in any volume or collected edition of his works.
Lucretius. Macmillan's Magazine, May, 1868, 280 lines.
Reprinted, with an alteration in the last line, in the volume of "The Holy Grail and other Poems" (1870).
1869.
Sermons by the Late William Henry Brookfield. With a Memoir by Lord Lyttelton, containing a Memorial Sonnet to Brookfield by Alfred Tennyson. London: 1869, 8vo.
Reprinted in "Ballads and other Poems," 1880.
1869-1870.
The Holy Grail, and Other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson. Lond.: Alexander Strahan, 1870, pp. 222 (published in December, 1869).
Contents: "The Coming of Arthur;" "The Holy Grail" "Pelleas and Ettarre;" and, "The Passing of Arthur" (with which is incorporated the poem of "Morte d'Arthur," originally published in 1842). These four poems formed a second series or instalment of "Idylls of the King," which afterwards received still further additions.
Other new poems are: "The Northern Farmer (New style);" "The Higher Pantheism;" and a versified story from Boccaccio, "The Golden Supper," originally intended to have been preceded, as it afterwards was, by a revised reprint of the early poem of "The Lover's Tale," to which it forms a sequel; all these appear for the first time; and the three poems of "Lucretius," "Wages" and "The Victim," already published in Macmillan's Magazine and elsewhere, were reprinted among the miscellaneous poems. that closed this volume.
1870-1871.
The Window; or the Songs of the Wrens. With music by Arthur Sullivan and a prose preface signed by the author. London: Strahan, 1871 (December, 1870), folio, bound in ornamental cloth, with design.
The text varies considerably from that of the privately-printed edition; and in the actual volume described above the printed text and that engraved with the score of the Song frequently differ. These songs were not included for some years afterwards in the collected editions of the Poet's Works.
In a Concordance to the Works of Alfred Tennyson, compiled by Mr. Barron Brightwell (large 8vo., green cloth), issued by the firm of Moxon and Co., in 1869, just as Tennyson was leaving the house he had been connected with for seven-and-thirty years and transferring his books to that of Alexander Strahan, alphabetical references were made to the privately-printed poem of "The Window," not then published. These I was able, with some labour and effort, to piece together, and with the compiler's aid, who supplied the lacunæ {though he had promised not to give any one a copy), I was enabled to secure what was substantially the complete text of the twelve songs, as privately printed at Canford Manor, more than a year before the appearance of the published edition. I printed a few copies privately, as a little pamphlet of sixteen pages, uniform in size with Moxon's editions of the poet's other works, and in December, 1870, I wrote two anticipatory notices which appeared in the Echo, some days or weeks before the publication of the volume containing Mr. Arthur Sullivan's music, much to the indignation of the publisher, the printers, and I suppose of the author.
A rival concordance to Mr. Barron Brightwell's guinea book, of much smaller size, was issued by Tennyson's new publishers, Strahan and Co. The price was six shillings, or seven shillings and sixpence.
1871.
Miniature or Cabinet Edition of the Complete Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson, printed by Whittingham, at the Chiswick Press, and issued in ten small half-crown volumes, in blue paper wrappers. London: Strahan and Co., 1871.
This was the first collected Edition of Tennyson's works published in England. A new thirty-third section was added or restored to "In Memoriam" in this edition, raising the latest number of sections to 132.
The Last Tournament. By Alfred Tennyson. Contemporary Review, December, 1871, lines 22.
Forming the first of a third series of "Idylls of the King." The text of a passage towards the end of the poem was materially altered when it reappeared, in book form, in the following year: this is one of the few important or considerable alterations made in the text of "Idylls of the King," after publication.
1872.
Lines for the opening of the International Exhibition.
Printed in the newspapers; and included in the Red Cloth Edition of Tennyson's Works.
Gareth and Lynette (and the Last Tournament). By Alfred Tennyson. London: Strahan and Co., 1872, small 8vo., green cloth, pp. 136.
The third series of "Idylls of the King."
The Library Edition of the Works of Alfred Tennyson. In Seven Volumes, published at half-a-guinea each, London: Strahan and Co., 1872, large 8vo., cloth.
The first volume contained two additional early sonnets,—"The Bridesmaid," and "Alexander," published, apparently, for the first time. In this edition a further selection was made from the "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical" of 1830, and some rejected pieces were reinstated. In the third volume were included and acknowledged for the first time, one of the Examiner poems, "The Third of February, 1852," and the second of the two Punch poems of 1846, under the new title of "Literary Squabbles." The latter was accompanied by a reprint, considerably altered, of the lines originally contributed to Once-a-Week, "On a Spiteful Letter."
The sixth and seventh volumes contained the complete "Idylls of the King" (the three series arranged in their proper sequence), with some concluding lines, in blank verse, "To the Queen," published for the first time.
1873-1874.
Small Red-cloth Popular Edition of the Works of Alfred Tennyson. In volumes. London: H. S. King and Co., 1873-1874.
Three original unpublished poems appeared for the first time in this edition, viz., "England and America in 1772" (contributed to an American newspaper in 1872); "The Voice and the Peak"; and the Stanzas on the death of Sir John Simeon, entitled "In the Garden at Swainston." Some considerable additions were made to the text of two of the "Idylls of the King,"—"The Coming of Arthur" and "Vivien."
A Welcome (to Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh), 4to., 4 pp., 1874. London: H. S. King and Co. (rare in this separate form).
The verses were printed in the Times newspaper on the morning of the royal marriage.
1875.
The Lover's Tale, and Other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson. Now First Collected. With a Monograph on the Lover's Tale, forming a supplementary Chapter to "Tennysoniana." pp. xii., 64. 1875.
Collation:—Title; Table of Contents; Monograph, pp. xii.
"The Lovers Tale"; "No More"; "Anacreontics"; "A Fragment"; Sonnet, "Check every outflash, every ruder sally"; Sonnet, "There are three things that fill my heart with sighs"; Sonnet, "Me my own Fate to lasting sorrow doometh"; "The New Timon and the Poets"; "Here often, when a child, I lay reclined"; "Sonnet to Macready"; "What time I wasted youthful hours"; "Hands all Round"; "Britons, guard your own"; Stanzas added to the National Anthem; "The War" (May, 1859); Inscription for the Mausoleum of the Duchess of Kent; "Old and New Year" (1865-1866).
"The Lover's Tale" was originally printed (1870) by Strangeways and Walden, and again (1875) with the Minor Poems, by Ogden, The latter reprint is disfigured by two clerical errors unobserved in the final proof-sheets and which had to be corrected by errata, The former reprint is therefore preferable (where procurable) as regards the principal poem: as the pagination is the same either will fit into the volume. The contents and monograph were printed in 1875 by Messrs. Brawn; and the copies bound in boards and otherwise were bound by De Coverly.
Queen Mary. By Alfred Tennyson. London: H. S. King and Co., 1875, green cloth, pp. 278.
This historical play, partly in prose, was produced on the stage, at the Lyceum Theatre, in 1876, with Mr. Henry Irving as Philip of Spain, and Miss Bateman (Mrs. Crowe) as Queen Mary. A patriotic utterance of a line or two, not contained in the published editions, was interpolated, in the acting version, in one of the speeches of the Queen; and, being quite Shakesperian in its ring, like certain utterances attributed to Cymbeline and to King John, it brought down the house. Probably these lines appeared in one or other of the numerous newspaper notices of the performance; but they do not seem to have been added permanently, in later editions, to the text of the published play.
1877.
Harold. A Drama. By Alfred Tennyson, (With a Prefatory Sonnet, "Show-Day at Battle Abbey.") Dedicated to the Earl of Lytton, Governor-General of India. London: H. S. King and Co., 1877, green cloth, pp. 161.
1877.
Prefatory Sonnet to The Nineteenth Century, edited by James Knowles, and published by Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., No. I., March, 1877.
Montenegro: a Sonnet. Ditto, May, 1897 (No. III.).
To Victor Hugo (Sonnet), Ditto, June, 1877 (No. IV.).
Achilles over the Trench. (A translation in blank verse from the "Iliad" of Homer.) Thirty-three lines, Ditto, August, 1877 (No. VI).
All reprinted in "Ballads and Other Poems" (1880).
1878.
'The Revenge': A Ballad of the Fleet. Nineteenth Century, March, 1878 (No. XIII.). Fourteen stanzas of varying length.
Reprinted in "Ballads and Other Poems" (1880).
[In 1878 two stanzas appeared in Punch (preceded by a quotation from a leading article in that ne plus ultra of political tergiversation, the Daily Telegraph). The quotation and the stanzas, as nearly as I can recollect, ran as follows:
"Of Mr. Gladstone we may say, with Imogen, 'My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain';[4] and History will add, as Jachimo does, 'And himself,'"[5]
A Britain generous Britons would disown;
A mock-Britannia, whose stage-ermine drapes
A sham, of selfish frothiness upblown,
The truest lover of his land is not
The tap-room patriot of the pipe and pot.
Than sordid self-regard can understand.
What, brave the loud reproach, the foul report,
The taunt of treason to his native land!
Say, what can base Jachimo do less
Than scoff at such fine self-forgetfulness?"
I have always been inclined, since first seeing them, on the day of publication, to attribute these lines to the Poet Laureate; and to exclaim, "Aut Tennyson, aut diabolus"; nor have I ever wavered for one day in my opinion, that the writer of the political poems in the Examiner of 1852, the poet who contributed twice to the columns of Punch in 1846, and the writer of the above stanzas, were one and the same person.]
1879.
The Lover's Tale [including a Third Part, previously inedited, and a Fourth Part, originally published in 1870 (1869), under the title of "The Golden Supper," with a Prose Preface]. London: Kegan Paul, 1879, green cloth, pp. 95.
The Defence of Lucknow, with a Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice. Nineteenth Century, April, 1879 (No. XXVI.). The Dedicatory Poem twenty-one lines; the "Defence" consists of seven pages, in seven sections.
Reprinted in "Ballads and Other Poems" (1880).
1880
Collected Sonnets and other Poems. By the late Charles Tennyson Turner, Vicar of Grasby, Lincolnshire, with a short notice of his Life by Hallam Tennyson, and Memorial Stanzas by the Poet Laureate, Lond: 1880.
Stanzas reprinted in "Tiresias, and Other Poems"
(1885), with the words "Midnight, June 30."
(The stanzas were written in the summer of 1879, shortly after his elder brother's death.)
De Profundis: "Two Greetings" (four pages); "The Human Cry" (two stanzas). Nineteenth Century, May, 1880 (No. XXXIX.).
Reprinted in "Ballads and Other Poems" (1880).
Ballads and Other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson. London: Kegan Paul, 1880, green cloth, pp. 184.
Contents: "To my grandson," Alfred Tennyson; "Rizpah"; "The Children's Hospital"; "The Northern Cobbler"; "De Profundis"; 'The Human Cry"; "The Battle of Brunanburg"; "The Sisters"; "The Defence of Lucknow"; "'The Revenge': a Ballad of the Fleet"; "The Charge of the Heavy Brigade," etc., with dedicatory lines to Sir Edward Hamley; "Sonnet to W. H. Brookfield"; "Sir John Franklin"; "To the Princess Frederica on her Marriage"; "Dante" (written at the request of the Florentines), etc.
Child Songs, by Alfred Tennyson: "The City Child"; "Minnie and Winnie." St. Nicholas, New York, February, 1880 (Vol. VII., p. 281). Set to music by Mrs. Alfred Tennyson, ditto, p. 349 and (March, 1880) pp. 428-430 of the same volume.
Reprinted in the Poet's Collected Works (1886), Vol. V.
1881.
Despair: a Dramatic Monologue. Nineteenth Century, November, 1881 (No. LVII.). Twenty-one stanzas of varying length,
Reprinted in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885).
1882.
The Promise of May. [A Play partly in prose, partly in blank verse, with Songs interposed.] Produced at the Globe Theatre, Nov. 11, 1882, with Mr. Hermann Vezin as Edgar, and Mrs. Bernard-Beere as Dora Steer.
This play, though it had some weeks' run, as a succès d'estime, was practically and deservedly damned by the pit on the first night. The Poet hesitated even to publish it for some years afterwards, or to weight or swell the small volume of "The Falcon and the Cup" with it. When it did at last appear in 1887, it appeared under cover of a long lyrical poem, the name of which had been a popular one for forty-five years; and crept into the volume without any announcement or notice on the title-page.
The Song of "The Promise of May" was printed on the programme sold or distributed at the theatre at the representation; and it seems probable that a small edition of the entire piece was privately printed at the time for the use of the actors and actresses and of others concerned in its production, This, however, is mere conjecture on my part. I never saw or heard of a copy of such an edition.
Charge of the Heavy Brigade, with a Note. Macmillan's Magazine, March, 1882 (Vol. XLV., pp. 337-339).
Reprinted in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885).
To Virgil: Written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth century of Virgil's death. Nineteenth Century, September, 1882 (No. LXVII.). Ten stanzas,
Reprinted in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885).
A new version of "Hands all Round," containing only three stanzas, was set to music by Mrs. Tennyson, and sung by Santley.
Included in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885).
1883.
Frater ave atque vale (Sirmio), Nineteenth Century, March, 1883 (No. LXXIII.). Nine lines.
Reprinted in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885).
1884.
Becket. By Alfred Tennyson. Lond.: Macmillan and Co., 1884, green cloth, pp. 213.
Produced at the Lyceum Theatre by Henry Irving, in 1893.
The Falcon and the Cup. London: Macmillan and Co., 1884. Thin volume, green cloth, pp. 146.
"The Falcon"—a short dramatic sketch founded, like the "Golden Supper," on a story in Boccaccio's "Decameron," was produced at the St. James's Theatre, under the management of the Kendals, with Mr. Kendal as Federigo, and Mrs. Kendal (Madge Robertson) as his lady-love. "The Cup"—a classical drama—was produced at the Lyceum, in 1881, with Miss Ellen Terry as Camma. Neither of these plays had been published at the time; and it therefore seems probable that a small edition of both was privately printed, for the use of the actors, and of other persons connected with the production of these pieces. I merely hazard this as a conjecture, but do not possess special information on the subject; still less did I ever see or hear of a copy of either. The lengthy quotations given from "The Cup," however, in some of the newspaper notices of the dramatic critics, could hardly proceed from skill in the art of shorthand reporting, or from phenomenal faculties of memory, exercised while their attention was supposed to be concentrated on the technique and details of the acting.
Early Spring. Youth's Companion, Boston, 1884.
Reprinted in two English newspapers, one of them the Pall Mall Gazette.
Also contained in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885).
1885.
Tiresias, and Other Poems. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. London: Macmillan and Co., green cloth, 1885, pp. 204.
Contents: Dedication to Edward Fitzgerald; "Tiresias"; "Balin and Balan," a new Idyll of the King; "The Voyage of Macldune"; "Early Spring":
"Despair"; "To Virgil," etc., etc.
Helen's Tower.
"Helen's Tower, here I stand."
Short inscription, in verse, written at the request of the Marquis of Dufferin, for a tower built in memory of his mother, Helen, Lady Dufferin, Countess of Gifford. Printed in Good Words, 1884, p. 25, with the verses of Lady Gifford, and a description of the tower by Charles Blatherwick. See 1861.
The Fleet. Stanzas, signed "Tennyson," printed in the Times newspaper, of April 23, 1885.
Vastness. Macmillan's Magazine, November, 1885 (Vol. LIII., pp. 1-4). Fifteen two-line stanzas.
Reprinted in "Demeter, and Other Poems" (1889).
To H.R.H. Princess Beatrice. Twenty-two lines. Privately printed.
This poem was written by the Poet for her marriage, and did not appear till some months after; but a copy of this private print, bearing the date 1885, is in the British Museum, bearing the words, in Tennyson's handwriting: "T. F. Palgrave, from A. Tennyson."
Reprinted in "Tiresias, and Other Poems" (1885).
The Poetical Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Complete Edition, from the author's text. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., 1885, large 8vo., brown cloth, pp. 896.
Contains all the suppressed poems then known, "The Ringlet," and original versions of two songs from "The Princess," "Lady, let the rolling drums," and "Home they brought him, slain with spears," scarcely identifiable with the published versions.
1886.
The Poetical Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In ten volumes, green cloth. Final Edition, revised by the Author, and including his latest Additions and Corrections. With portraits, etc. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886.
1887.
Carmen Sæculare. An ode in honour of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Macmillan's Magazine, April, 1887 (Vol. LV., pp. 401-406).
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. London: Macmillan and Co., 1887, green cloth, pp. 201.
Contents: "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After"; "The Fleet" (from the Times); "Jubilee Ode" (from Macmillan's Magazine); "The Promise of May; a Drama."
POEMS AND FRAGMENTS OF LATER DATE, NOT REPRINTED.
Compromise. Printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, 188 .
"Statesman, be not precipitate in thine act."
A short rhymed poem of eight or ten, or at most twelve, lines.
Fragment, of four lines, contributed, as an Experiment in Metre, to Jebb's "Primer of Greek Literature," Macmillan and Co., 1877, p. 60.
Fragment, of a few unpublished lines, contributed to "Ros Rosarum": an Anthology, published by Elliot Stock, London, 1885, p. 230.
Unpublished Lines contributed to two Fancy Fair Albums, 188 .
1889.
To Edward Lear, and other poems, illustrated by Edward Lear. London: Boussod, Valadon, and Co., 1889, pp. 51. One hundred numbered copies only, signed by the Poet, with a special dedication from his pen.
The Throstle. New Review, October, 1889 (Vol. I., p. 409). Four stanzas.
This poem was purchased by Mr. S. S. McClure for £150, who printed it in a syndicate of American newspapers, and sold it to the New Review and the Scotsman. In order to protect the copyright Messrs. Macmillan and Co., at the time of the sale, May 16, 1889, published it privately, and it is said that of this edition. only two copies are known to exist.
Reprinted in "Demeter, and Other Poems" (1889).
Demeter, and Other Poems. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. London: Macmillan and Co., 1889, green cloth, pp. 175. (Published in December, 1889.)
Contents: "To the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava"; "Demeter"; "To W. G. Palgrave"; "To Mary Boyle"; "On the Death of W. G. Ward"; a number of short minor poems; and "Crossing the Bar."
1891.
A Song. "To Sleep." New Review, March, 1891 (vol. iv., p. 193). Nine lines, a lyric from "The Foresters," published in 1892.
Four Lines, signed "Tennyson," introducing "Pearl, an English Poem of the Fourteenth Century." edited by Israel Gollancz. London: David Nutt, 1891.
1892.
On the Death of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale. To the Mourners. Seventeen lines, signed "Tennyson." Nineteenth Century, February, 1892 (vol. xxxi., pp. 181, 182). Dated Jan. 14, 1892.
The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian. A play presented at Daly's Theatre, New York, March 17, 1892, and rehearsed for copyright purposes by members of Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum, London, at ten o'clock in the morning of the same day. It was called "A Woodland Masque."
A contract was signed for production by Mary Anderson in 1891, but her marriage prevented it. One song was inserted for Ada Rehan, who played the part of Maid Marian when the play was produced in New York, March, 1892.
Published in book form by Macmillan and Co., London, March 29, 1892, green cloth, pp. 155.
Died, October 6, 1892.
Silent Voices. Ten lines, published privately for copyright purposes by Macmillan and Co., London, Oct. 12 (day of funeral), on a single sheet of letterpress. Taken from "The Death of Œnone," then on the point of publication, and sung at the Abbey (the music by Lady Tennyson). "Crossing the Bar" was also sung—setting by Dr. Bridge.
The Death of Œnone, Akbar's Dream, and Other Poems. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, London: Macmillan and Co., green cloth, pp. 111. Also large paper edition "with five steel portraits of the author."
Published the latter part of October, 1892. The proof was all revised by the Poet a fortnight before his death.
Contents: "June Bracken and Heather. To ———"; "To the Master of Balliol"; "St. Telemachus"; "The Bandit's Death"; "The Churchwarden and the Curate"; "Charity"; "Kapiolani"; "The Dawn"; "The Making of Man"; "The Dreamer"; "Riflemen, form"; "Silent Voices"; "The Death of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale," the title poems, and a few others.
A note says "Riflemen, form" was republished by request from the Times, May 9, 1859. Some of the verses were altered slightly.
In Memoriam. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, born August 5, 1809, died October 6, 1892. An entirely unauthorized folio sheet, bearing a portrait of the Poet, and reprints of the poems "Crossing the Bar" and "A Poem" ("Come not when I am dead"), sold on the streets the day of the funeral (October 12, 1892) for twopence.
Westminster Abbey. Funeral of the Right Honourable Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 1892, at 12.30 p.m. Order of service, with reprints of "Crossing the Bar" and "Silent Voices" (the latter not then known to the public).
1893.
Becket, a tragedy in a prologue and four acts, was presented by Henry Irving, at the Lyceum Theatre, London, February 6, 1893. An edition of the play "as arranged for the stage by Henry Irving," published by Macmillan and Co., in paper covers, pp. 62. Much abridged.
Poems, by Two Brothers. London: Macmillan and Co., 1893, green cloth, pp. 251. Also large paper edition with facsimiles of ten pages of original MS. Second edition.
The first edition was printed in 1827 and never reprinted in the poet's life-time. The Cambridge branch of the publishing house of Macmillan and Co., having purchased the original MS., a reprint of the original copy was made by Macmillan and Co., of London, with four additional poems found only in the MS., and "Timbuctoo," reprinted from "Prolusiones," There is a preface signed "Tennyson" by Hallam Tennyson, and initials are appended to the poems according to the handwriting as judged by Frederick, Alfred Tennyson's brother. Beside the new poems, all signed "A. T.," forty-nine of the original poems have the initials "A. T.," some with alternative or question. It is requested that these poems be not reprinted in the Poet Laureate's collected works, as Mr. Frederick Tennyson cannot be certain of the authorship indicated, except of the four which bear his own initials.
1894.
The Works of Alfred Tennyson. London: Macmillan and Co., 1894.
Contains all the Poet's acknowledged work, including the "Demeter" volume and the "Death of Œnone."
LETTERS AND OTHER PROSE WRITING.
Very few private letters of Tennyson have seen the light. A very short one to Lady Ashburton (1855), of small significance, is facsimiled in the Autographic Mirror; and a curious and discursive letter (presumably genuine) to some unknown correspondent, on an abstruse metaphysical question, crept into some of the newspapers a few years ago. There are two or three brief letters to the Times; corrections of misprints in his Exhibition Ode of 1862, a protest against a new line of railway in the Isle of Wight, etc., and a letter to Mr. Hamilton Hume, in defence of Governor Eyre, who had in his youth been an alumnus of the Louth Grammar School, shortly after Tennyson's departure for Cambridge; and a letter to a Society recommending for their choice a Welsh motto, displayed in his own hall, at Farringford or Blackdown, "The truth against the world." Two interesting and comparatively lengthy letters, of early date, are printed in the first volume of Mr. Wemyss Reid's "Memoir (published in 1890) of Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton," a fellow-collegian of Tennyson at Trinity College, Cambridge; the second, confirming a statement of Alford's, that he had seen an unpublished poem of Tennyson's entitled "Anacaona," of which Milnes apparently possessed a transcript; as he had playfully threatened Tennyson to publish the poem in The Tribute (1837) if no other original contribution were forthcoming. In later years, partly through failing powers of vision, the Poet's letters, except to very intimate friends, were generally dictated to his wife or eldest son, or written by them in the third person, in accordance with his instructions. Autograph letters of his, especially those of later date, are of the utmost rarity. The Prefaces, Notes, and prose Dedications to his published or privately-printed poems are also very few and scanty, so that scarcely any specimen of sustained prose from his pen has appeared, if any such exist.
- ↑ A copy of this little volume, sent to Coleridge, elicited from the older and more famous poet a series of autograph marginalia, which were deciphered and published in 1880 in the collection of Charles Tennyson's Poems issued by his family, and in Mr. David M. Main's "Treasury of English Sonnets," in which valuable anthology some of Charles Tennyson's finest Sonnets are included.
- ↑ Line 9 of p. 12 (original edition).
- ↑ Following upon the line:The two stanzas are as follows:"And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips."It is quite clear from Mrs. Procter's note that these two stanzas (though not actually published until 1887) were written, and printed, at the same time as the rest of the original peem."In the Hall there hangs a painting: Amy's arms are round my neck,—
Happy children in the sunlight, playing on the ribs of wreck.
In my life there dwells a picture: she that clasp'd my neck is flown:
I am left within the shadow, sitting on the wreck alone." - ↑ [Cymbeline, Act I, sc. 7.]
- ↑ Daily Telegraph.