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Notes
See the communications by Philip Brooks (New York Times Book Review [Jan. 27, 1935], p. 21); Louis F. Peck (Times Literary Supplement [March 7, 1935], p. 148); followed by W. Roberts (p. 164), E. G. Bayford (p. 216), Frederick Coykendall (p. 276); H. V. Marrot (Biblio Notes & Queries, I, no. 1 [January, 1935], p. 4) and Frederick Coykendall (I, no. 2, p. 4; no. 3, p. 1).
Although this term was utilized by Mr. Coykendall and others, it inappropriately designates two different type-settings. Nevertheless I allow it to stand in anticipation of later comment which reveals these to be, in fact, issues, but not in the relationship generally presumed.
This is, I believe, a misnomer, since it is inconceivable that the compositor looked at the word "some" and read "no mean", or at "occasionally" and read "frequently".
According to Mr. Coykendall's analysis these readings, among others, exemplify the order of variants:
| Vol. I | "1st issue" |
"2nd issue" |
2nd & 3rd eds |
4th & 5th eds |
| human failings | 31.19 | 31.2 | ||
| human feelings | 31.19 | 31.19 | ||
| Vol. II | ||||
| some skill | 73.19 | |||
| no mean skill | 73.19 | 73.19 | 73.19 | |
| occasionally composed | 73.22 | |||
| frequently composed | 73.22 | 73.22 | 73.23 |
Though Friday, March 11, would seem to be the date of publication, the Morning Herald for the 9th advertises the book as to be published "on Saturday next" [the 12th]; and as all the papers except one make no announcement until Saturday, the Sun entry for the day before is doubtless premature.
In the imprints and advertisements for all editions only the name of J. Bell is given as publisher. The Times entry for April 4 suggests, however, that there were, at least for the first edition, several promoters: "Printed for J. Bell, No. 148, Oxford-street; E. Booker, New Bond Street, and C. Law, Ave-Maria lane." It may be remarked that the principal agent, usually identified as John Bell, a celebrated editor and bookseller of the day, was an obscure individual by the name of Joseph. Cf. advertisement leaf in the eighth edition of Lewis's Castle Spectre.
Henry Somerville, "by the author of Hartlebourn Castle": Chronicle Chronicle, April 15, 1797 (preliminary announcement for the 18th); Monthly Magazine, III (April, 1797), 307; Monthly Epitome, I (April, 1797), 316; Analytical Review, XXVI (1797), 664. William Johnson's translation of Beckmann's The History of Inventions and Discoveries: Morning Chronicle, April 1, 1797; The Times, April 26, 1797; Monthly Magazine, III (March, 1797), 228; Edinburgh Magazine, XXV (May, 1797), 374; Analytical Review, XXVI (1797), 640. Also advertised in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions of The Monk.
For this as well as for several other issues of The Monk I judge the three title-leaves to be cancels if the first is not conjugate to A4, and if the disjunct second and third titles have readings identical with the first.
Mr. Coykendall erroneously asserts this issue to be a mixture of 1794 and 1796 w/m dates. 1796 belongs to the text; 1794 as his own and other copies show, is found, I believe, only in the title-leaves (in his it appears on the leaves to volumes I and III), and may be distinguished from the same date in the first issue by the "7" and "9" being approximately 1 cm. longer than the "1" and "4". The w/m for the editio princeps is a fleur-de-lis, dated throughout 1794, all figures of equal length, and with c/m initials "M&L".
Coykendall, op. cit., p. 88. The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis (London, 1839), I, 151.
Actually, the Life (loc. cit.) reads: "publication . . . which event took place in the summer of 1795." The phraseology of the bibliographies is not drawn verbatim from this passage and indeed is so dissimilar as to fail to indicate derivation from this source: as an example, neither Lowndes nor Allibone mentions summer as the time of publication. Cf. Lowndes, The Bibliographer's Manual (London, 1834), III, 1128; (1860), V, 1353; (1883), III, 1353; (1889), V, 1353. Allibone, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature (London, 1870), II, 1091-92; (Philadelphia), I, 1091-92 in the editions of 1871, 1877, 1882, 1891, 1899.
Monthly Magazine, XLVI (January, 1819), 565-66; Gentleman's Magazine, CXXIV (August, 1818), 183-84; Literary Gazette (July 25, 1818), 475-76; Literary Panorama, N. S., VIII (1818-19), 1731-32; Edinburgh Annual Register, XI, part 2 (1818), 257-58.
According to H. V. Marrot (Biblio Notes & Queries, I, no. 1 [January, 1935], p. 4) the catalogue of Archdeacon Wrangham's library lists a copy dated 1795. Perhaps this may be traced and the question settled.
What appears to be evidence against 1795 as the date is an entry in the Morning Herald for March 3, 1796, announcing The Monk as "in the press." I am persuaded that nothing can be made of this. In the first place, as will be amply demonstrated in this paper, Bell's advertisements are meaningless and at times deliberately misleading. Moreover, the phrase itself had no more significance for works to be issued than the conventional "Published Today" had for works issued months before. It may mean, for The Monk, that the new title-leaves were being struck off, or be nothing more than advice to the reader that publication is pending. As an instance of the latter connotation see Richard Savage's use of the expression in the Plain-Dealer (November 30, 1724) with reference to his Miscellaneous Poems, not published until 1726. In 1724 at least one of the poems had yet to be written, for the event which it celebrates, the Duke of Rutland's inoculation for the small pox, did not occur until April 5, 1725 (British Journal, April 10, 1725). Another example of its use is in Nichols' Anecdotes, III, 49, where Bowyer is said to have printed, in 1767, Lyttelton's History of the Life of King Henry the Second, a work "which had been at least ten years in the press." From these several illustrations it may be agreed that the term has no other implication than that the publisher had contracted for the work.
The entry in the Analytical Review, XXIV (October, 1796), 403-4, the only one I have been able to find for the second edition, gives a title-page citation corresponding with this, but not with the spurious "second" edition.
In July of that year Lewis was elected as the new member of Parliament for the Borough of Hindon. See The London Chronicle, July 7-9, 1796.
The poem is the one entitled "Inscription in an Hermitage." As the stanza omitted in the first edition appeared in the transcript Lewis sent his mother in 1794, I presume it was present but overlooked in the fair copy submitted to the printer.
From the only announcement discovered, the one in the Chronicle Chronicle for Saturday, April 15, 1797, that the third edition would be published "On Tuesday next," I presume the date for this to be April 18.
The part of interest to us, the fourth, was first published July 19, 1797 (Chronicle Chronicle), a second edition on September 11 (Chronicle Chronicle), a third apparently in the following month, a fifth on January 27, 1798 (London Chronicle), and many more thereafter. The fourth edition of this Part, though not so designated, is actually that which was included in the consecutively paged fifth edition of all parts issued in January, the earlier dialogues having by this time already passed through four editions.
Ibid., p. v. Had he known of it, Mathias would have been thunderstruck at Sir Walter Scott's report that Charles James Fox crossed the floor of the House to congratulate Lewis on his novel.
For several of the many accounts of the extended court proceedings against Williams see the Chronicle Chronicle, November 28, 1797, and the London Chronicle, February 3-6, 1798.
Life, I, 153. The extent to which the Life was adulterated and refined can only be conjectured from sly inferences at the time. In a letter to an unidentified lady, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, for one, confesses that the announcement of this work aroused "fearful apprehension" for his own and other reputations, but that having seen it he recognized the discreet hand of Sir Henry Lushington, Lewis's brother-in-law, in the choice of letters and Lady Charlotte Bury Campbell in the "cant as to religion." Sharpe then goes on to relate, presumably, the facts that had been suppressed, at which point his own editor cuts him off with an ellipsis! Perhaps what was divulged among other things, if we may believe the obituaries, was that Lewis, like his contemporary Wordsworth, fathered an illegitimate daughter. Not inconceivably this may have been the girl who, under the name of "Miss Mary G. Lewis," published a poem and two novels of her own: "Zelinda" (1823), Ambition (1825), and The Jewish Maiden (1830). Circumstances, initials, surname, and dates all support the conjecture. Letters from and to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., ed. Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh and London, 1888), II, 519.
The reference in the Life to "one of the societies for the suppression of vice" is misconstrued by Montague Summers (Gothic Quest, p. 219) and others to mean "The Society for the Suppression of Vice," an organization not founded until 1802. For information regarding this and the Proclamation Society I am indebted to Professor Maurice J. Quinlan. Further data on the organization and proceedings of these societies may be found in his Victorian Prelude (New York, 1941), p. 54 passim.
The Pursuits, 5th ed., p. 295. "Whatever I have said on the subject of this novel, called The Monk, I shall leave as a matter of record, whether the Novel is altered or not. The tenor of the whole is reprehensible. . . . It is hoped and expected that no similar work will ever again be given to this country."
I am indebted to Mr. Harry Sellers of the British Museum staff for identifying the paper, advertisements, readings, and printers' marks which substantiate this as the third edition.
Gathering A4 was probably imposed as the lower third of sheet L, cut off, and then folded like an accordion strip. A displacement of A4 would be unlikely, therefore, unless the book were subject to the treatment described. Of the ten copies I have examined in which A1 is cancellans, only one, that in the collection of Mr. Harold Greenhill, is in original condition—with blue boards and labels—and in this A4 is properly positioned.
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