Tennyson, Alfred, 1st Barron Tennyson | The most important surviving trial copy of "Maud"

Tennyson, Alfred, 1^st Baron Tennyson

Maud and Other Poems. London: Edward Moxon, 1855

8vo (168 x 102 mm). Half-title, trial title-page omitting "D.C.L., Poet Laureate," edits and annotations in Tennyson's hand throughout, including one leaf inserted after pg. 36, and another inserted after pg. 38, each written recto only; scattered spotting and soiling. Red morocco gilt by Rivière, covers with multiple gilt rules, spine with raised bands in six compartment, second and third gilt-lettered, others elaborately gilt, top edge gilt, others uncut, inner dentelles gilt, marbled endpapers.

[With:] "Charge of the Light Brigade" ca. 1854. Autograph manuscript (125 x 113 mm). Nine lines accomplished in sepia ink in Tennyson's hand; minor toning, paper remnants where previously mounted. Housed with the above in folding chemise and brown morocco pull-off case.

One of two surviving trial copies—and the more important of the two, as this is the copy from which the first edition was primarily set.

Extensively annotated by Tennyson, and his first collection to be published after being made poet laureate.

“poetry looks better, more convincing, in print" (Alfred Lord Tennyson).

The present lot offers two of Tennyson’s most important poems, “Maud” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” in stages of significant revision, demonstrating the poet laureate’s creative and critical processes. (The other poems in the volume include “The Brook,” “The Letters,” “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington,” “The Daisy,” and “To the Rev. F.D. Maurice.”) Tennyson’s son, Hallam, once remarked that his father “always liked to see his poems in print some months and sometimes some years before publication” (Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, 1897, I, p. 190). Three sets of proofs are known: P1, the first proofs; P2, proofs later than P1; P3, proofs later than P2, used to set the trial issue (Shatto, p. 246). The first edition, as published, differs in the make-up of its pages by having a fly-title to “Maud,” and a leaf of advertisements. As a result of Tennyson's alterations, it ends on p. 154 whereas this trial printing ends on p. 155.

The present trial copy was unknown to Susan Shatto, who had described the trial copy that forms a part of the collection at the Tennyson Research Centre (Lincoln Central Library) as “the only one known to survive.” In that copy, Tennyson’s emendations are limited to “corrections of punctuation in three places” of “Maud,” and “many corrections in miscellaneous poems.” Here, there are corrections to all the poems, with the most substantial to “Maud” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” In the case of “Maud,” entire stanzas are struck through, and then rewritten on leaves of paper inserted between the printed sheets. With “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” stanzas are again marked for deletion, with other lines added and then altered again. Between both “Maud” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” the additional lines in Tennyson's hand total 38, and the suppressed lines 85. There are numerous corrections to other poems as well, and instruction to include an extra poem: “Here comes the new poem last but one in Vol — "Will".”

The only corrections not substantively followed in the first edition are as follows:

• Pg. 46: “on his breast” instead of “on his heart” in the new line of the stanza
• Pg: 52: “I” not italicized in five instances, as directed
• Pg. 118: correction not executed
• Pg. 153: emendations to the final four lines of the stanza not faithfully executed

Conversely, two changes to the first edition are not reflected in Tennyson’s edits to this trial copy:

• The opening line of the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” here begins “Let us bury the great Duke,” whereas the first edition begins “Bury the great Duke.”
• In the first edition of “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” there is a new final stanza (this addition forms a part of the collection at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas).

Tennyson stated that trial copies should be destroyed following the publication of the first edition, making this a remarkable survival.

The manuscript that now accompanies this work offers stirring lines from "The Charge of the Light Brigade," reading:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Fiercely the line they broke

Cossack & Russian

Reeled from the sabre stroke

Shatter'd & sundered

Then they rode back as

Before they rode onwards

Half a league back but not

Not the six hundred

Notably, this version does not faithfully mirror that in the present trial copy, nor the final published version. A true rarity.

REFERENCES:

Shatto (ed.), Maud: A Definitive Edition (1986); Wise, Tennyson I:58

PROVENANCE:

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (annotations and inscription) — Sotheby's London, 4 March 1891, lot 966 (a part of a Tennyson collection, designated as the property of a "well-known private collector"; evidently withdrawn and sold privately) — G.L. Craik (inscription to front free endpaper signed by Hallam Tennyson: "Mr. Craik of Macmillans bought this— (They got it at Sotheby's sale March 1891 privately for my Father (with In Memoriam proofs))") — Lionel Tennyson (facing blank with additional inscription in Hallam Tennyson's hand: "Lionels birthday | March 16-1891" and "Presentation from Messrs. Macmillan") — Frank Capra (his sale, Parke-Bernet, 27 April 1949, lot 353, price realized: $1,000) — Halsted B. Vander Poel (his sale, Christie's London, 3 March 2004, lot 213, price realized: £58,555). [With:] Howard J. Sachs (his sale, Parke-Bernet, 1 February 1944, lot 114)