Francis Thompson | A collection of autograph draft manuscripts of poems and translations, 1890s

Francis Thompson.

A collection of autograph draft literary manuscripts, comprising:

i) Partial translation of Victor Hugo’s Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné, c.54 pages, in two school exercise books (labelled "Dernier Jour" II and III), with a preface to the work (in French), and, written from the reverse of the second notebook, notes on Hugo's prose and earlier abandoned pencil drafts in prose and verse (chiefly overwritten with the Hugo translation), also with additional notes and passages relating to the translation on five additional leaves of paper, altogether 82 pages, plus blanks, chiefly 4to, [1890s]

ii) Draft poems, including an early draft of 'From the Night of Forebeing' here with the working title 'Song to Spring' (approx. 4 pages), and also part of 'Carmen Genesis', as well as unpublished poems and fragments, in pencil, 16 pages, folio, [1890s]

edge mounted in an album, in brown morocco backed marbled boards, neat repairs at some edges and folds, light staining

A HITHERTO UNKNOWN MANUSCRIPT BY FRANCIS THOMPSON, POET AND CATHOLIC MYSTIC.

Thompson (1859-1907) was one of the most unusual and distinctive poetic talents of the late Victorian period. Described by G.K. Chesterton as “the greatest poetic energy since Browning”, he remained outside the literary mainstream both because of his personal life – he struggled with opium addiction for many years and spent three years homeless on the streets of London – and the Catholic mysticism that was his chief subject. Thompson is best remembered for his much-anthologised poem "The Hound of Heaven" (1893), but he was the author of a considerable body of verse and prose. He was discovered by the publishers and editors Wilfrid and Alice Meynell in 1887, and the Meynells both nurtured his talent and provided personal support to Thompson for the rest of his life. Wilfrid Meynell published extensive further works posthumously, but the extent to which he revised Thompson’s work only became clear when the poems were freshly edited from the surviving manuscripts by B. Boardman for The Poems of Francis Thompson (2001). 

The draft manuscript poems found here date from the mid-1890s and were written when Thompson was living at the Franciscan friary at Pantasa, Flintshire. They form part of a group of twelve mystical poems that were given the title ‘Sight and Insight’ when published in Thompson’s New Poems (1897). The most important of these poems is the Paschal ode ‘From the Night of Forebeing’. These are poems that draw on Thompson’s deep study of ancient symbolism and mysticism that ranged far beyond the Roman Catholic mainstream, as noted by Boardman in her entry on Thompson for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: “Most of the more notable poems are concerned with one or another aspect of the incarnation of supernatural life within the human and natural order. In 'From the Night of Forebeing' he reinterprets the Easter liturgy of the resurrection in terms of renewal in the natural world and within his own soul. 'Assumpta Maria' celebrates the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven as the ultimate effect of incarnation as he understands it. Furthermore he identifies the role of the Blessed Virgin as queen of heaven with the pagan goddesses who were her precursors.”  

Also found here is a partial draft of a translation of Victor Hugo’s haunting novella Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné (1829). The story’s depiction of mental anguish and a harsh uncaring society connect it closely to Thompson’s concerns, but his translation is believed to be unpublished.

Thompson owned nothing but his literary manuscripts at the time of his death in 1907 and these passed to Wilfrid Meynell (1852-1948). The bulk of Thompson's surviving papers are now preserved at Boston College. A smaller collection is at the Harris Library in Thompson’s native Preston, and some other papers are at Ushaw College, Cambridge University Library and a few university libraries in the USA.

PROVENANCE:

Francis Thompson; Wilfrid Meynell; given by the Meynell family to a scholar who was working on Francis Thompson in the years after World War II; thence by descent