Autograph Poetry in the English Language : Facsimiles of Original Manuscripts from the Fourteenth to the Twentieth Century. [ 2 vols, complete set ]

Croft, P.J.

ISBN 10: 030429148X / ISBN 13: 9780304291489

Published by Cassell, London, first edition, 1973, 1973

Limited edition of 1500 copies. 2 vols, cloth, large 8vo, 35 cm, xxiii, 94 + vii, 94 - 197 pp, facs. From the blurb: "Compiled and edited with an introduction, commentary and transcripts by P. J. Croft. Autograph Poetry in the English Language is a unique work. Its two volumes cover the period from the fourteenth century to Dylan Thomas in the twentieth, and represent 146 poets on 197 chronologically-arranged plates reproducing complete pages of manuscript. Each facsimile shows the poet engaged in composing, revising, or establishing a final text of his work. The reader is thus brought into living contact with poetry in the making, while at the same time he is enabled to see the development of English handwriting over six centuries and thus to view the hands of the individual poets in historical perspective. Each facsimile is faced by a letterpress page containing a transcript of the original (recording the author's deletions and revisions) and a commentary providing information on sources, relevant biographical details, features of the handwriting, and points of literary significance. There is a consolidated Table of Manuscript Locations, listing the diverse sources from which the material has been drawn, and each volume is provided with an index to the whole work. Among the subjects discussed in Mr. Croft's Introduction are the history of English handwriting and its significance as a revelation of the individual. The work covers the whole range of poetry in English from the fourteenth century, embracing the important contribution made in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by American poets. In general, very few of the poets' own manuscripts survive from before the eighteenth century, and in preparing this book, Mr. Croft has undertaken the first thorough survey of the whole period before 1700: as a result, the ear1ier centuries are depicted in a depth which would have seemed impossible even a few years ago, when no poetry at all was believed to exist in the handwriting of such distinguished poets as Sidney, Donne, Herrick, and Dryden. It has now proved possible, however, to include almost all the greatest poets of the last 600 years - the only major exceptions are Chaucer and Spenser, none of whose poetry is known to survive in their own handwriting- and to give a genuinely representative picture of the English poetical tradition. The special contribution which the poets' own manuscripts can make to the understanding of that tradition is here adequately illustrated for the first time. The volumes contain much exciting material that has never been published before. The only known poem in Sir Philip Sidney's hand has escaped the notice of his editors and is reproduced here for the first time. Mr. Croft has identified a notebook containing an entirely new corpus of Elizabethan poetry in the hand of Sir Philip Sidney's brother Robert, a man eminent in his day as a soldier and statesman but not previously known as a poet. One sonnet from Robert Sidney's notebook is reproduced here, the first known publication of any of his poetry. The volumes also include hitherto unknown poems by Herrick, Gay, and Crabbe, a charming new Songe by the Cavalier general William Cavendish, and the original draft of Byron's most famous lyric 'She walks in Beauty', showing the poem in the process of composition and breaking off poignantly with an unfinished stanza which Byron was to suppress and which has not been published before. "From a contemporary review: " .these two strikingly handsome volumes with their ample proportions, excellent plates with facing transcriptions of great ingenuity and accuracy, and general introductory notes and individual commentaries which stimulate and inform the reader in just the right proportions. .The plates are of exceptionally high quality.The reproductions gain enormously from showing complete pages in actual size, and often complete poems.Each plate is accompanied by a facing transcription of remarkable faithf. Seller Inventory # ABE-50605

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Bibliographic Details

Title: Autograph Poetry in the English Language : ...
Publisher: Cassell, London, first edition, 1973
Publication Date: 1973
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Edition: 1st Edition