University of Virginia Library

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Description of the MS in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge

The Trinity MS of the Ode appears in a notebook bound in marbled boards with black imitation calf spine and fore corners, measuring 7⅜” x 9⅛” (press mark O. 15. 25). There are gilt double rules near the top and bottom of the spine. Pasted at the top, below the middle, and at the bottom of the spine are a large capital 'O' under a design (both printed) and the printed numerals '15' and '25'. In approximately the middle of the spine on a white cloth gummed label, is written in ink, vertically with the spine: 'XXXVII. The Duke. Rise Britons | Boadicea. Will.'. The outside front cover has a pasted label, cut from white laid paper, showing scissor marks and measuring approximately 1⅞” x 25/16”, which bears in Hallam Tennyson's hand-writing, 'The Duke [in pencil] | XXXVII [in ink] | Rise Britons | Boadicea | Will [all three in pencil]'. The inside front cover has on the upper left-hand corner in pencil, '2/-' and a blue circular seal pasted in the center, carrying the printed information 'Medical | and other Students' NOTE | and | MANUSCRIPT | Book | Warehouse', ringed by the printed address, 'John Mabley, 9 Wellington Street North, Strand'.

Of the sixty-nine leaves of light greyish blue wove unwatermarked paper that the notebook originally contained, sixteen remain, which, varying slightly in size, average in measurement 7¼” x 9” and are numbered in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of each recto 1 through 16. The MS of the Ode appears on fols. 6-16.

A description of the complete contents of the notebook is as follows:

The Trinity MS presents the opening strophes of the poem (though at no point are strophes actually numbered) in substantially the form that they were to take on publication, with the exception of strophe II, which does not appear within the MS. The recto of the initial leaf (fol. 6) contains strophes I, III, and IV; IV then runs over on to fol. 6v, where V follows. (A section [67-79] from this draft of V is later re-drafted on fol. 10). Folio 7 has VI, here concluding with six lines [151-191] which are germane to and possibly the germ of VII—six lines which Tennyson later dropped. (VI is re-drafted on fols. 10, 10v, 11, and 12.) Folio 8 begins VIII (of which there is an alternative draft of some lines [192-231] on the verso opposite, fol. 7v); fol. 8v continues, making a new start from fol. 8, with a revised conclusion to VIII, thus ending the first draft of VIII. (Later drafts of VIII occur on fols. 12v, 13, 13v, 14, and 15). Folio 9 carries a first and second version of some lines [151-191] from VII, a third version of them being at the foot of fol. 8v opposite. Folio 9v has some first jottings [232-281] for IX (which is fully drafted on fols. 14v, 15, 15v and 16). Folio 10 has a second version of the end of V [67-79], followed by a second version of VI [80-150], which continues, first, on fol. 11 (of which some lines are themselves revised on fol. 10v opposite), and then on fol. 12. Folio 12 has a second version of VII [151-191] (the opening lines of which are deleted and re-drafted, 151, 153, 156-158, on fol. 11v opposite); this version continues on fol. 13. Folio 13 has, at its foot, the beginning of a second version of VIII [192-231] (of which the opening four lines plus two on the top of fol. 14 are deleted and re-drafted, 192-197, on fol. 12v); this version of VIII continues on fol. 14 (with a line deleted and two lines [218/219] to be interpolated for it from fol. 13v opposite); and continues on fol. 15. Folio 15 then has the first extended draft of IX (of which there were jottings on fol. 9v [232-281]), which concludes with the poem's last two lines on fol. 16; additional and revised lines [232-281] for the conclusion of IX are on fol. 15v opposite. For the final draft of IX, Tennyson returned to fol. 14v.

Description of the Galley Proof in the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincoln

The Lincoln galley proof with the author's autograph corrections (Item No. 4164, Tennyson in Lincoln: A Catalogue of the Collection in the Research Centre, comp. by Nancie Campbell, 2 vols., 1971-1973, II, 40) is a proof for the first edition of the Ode. Printed in four parallel columns (numbered in type at the right below each column '1', '2', '3', '4' respectively) on a single sheet of white wove unwatermarked paper, 177/16;” x 22½”, this proof now exists in three separate sheets, with columns 1 and 2 appearing on the first, column 3 on the second, and column 4 on the third. The first

sheet bears in the upper right hand corner of the recto the pencilled number '94' and in the centre of the verso in ink, 'G.S. Venables Esq', apparently not in the poet's hand, though possibly in his wife's. The right edge of sheet one, both edges of sheet two, and the left edge of sheet three are slightly jagged, showing where they were torn apart. White cloth gummed tape is still clinging to the right and left edges of sheet three; and discolored cellophane tape remains attached to the top, right, and left edges of sheet four, indicating that the separate sheets, now loose leaves, at one time were mounted in an album. Collation shows that the text of the Lincoln proof is identical with that of the uncorrected proof for the first edition at Harvard, previously described by Shannon (pp. 169-170). Pulled from the same type, the two proofs appear to have been printed on the same stock, though the dimensions of the sheets vary slightly.