University of Virginia Library

George Crabbe: Murray's 1834 Edition of the Life and Poems
by
Thomas C. Faulkner

Given the obvious fact that George Crabbe's popularity was never comparable to that of Byron or Scott and that Murray had failed to recover half of the £3,000. which he had paid Crabbe in 1819 for the copyright of the Tales of the Hall and his previously published works, to launch after Crabbe's death an eight-volume complete edition of his poetry, which included a single-volume biography, was in Murray's own view a highly speculative venture.[1] It could and did succeed because of Murray's knowledge of the literary

market-place and his ability to design the edition to make it saleable in large numbers to middle-class readers for 5 shillings a volume. Murray explained his successful method of publication in a letter to George Crabbe, Jr. at the beginning of negotiations (in February 1833) for the biography and posthumous poems of his father, which of course were not included in Murray's copyright acquisition in 1819: "What makes me now think of republishing after this gloomy statement [of the sale of two collected editions published in the 1820's], is, that a great taste for purchasing favourite authors has been created by bringing them out, splendidly embellished, exceedingly cheap and in Monthly Volumes. If I could get a good life of Crabbe (and I know it would be an interesting one) with as much as possible of his unpublished poetry as may prove to be as good as those already printed I am disposed to venture an edition uniform with the edition of Lord Byron's Works now publishing in Monthly Volumes" (JM to GCJ [Yale, Hilles], 28 Feb. 1833).

Seven months later, when an agreement with Crabbe's sons still had not been reached, Murray declared his "firm belief that I possess the means, in myself, for no other person has it, of raising [Crabbe] to a popularity equal to that of Scott & Byron" and reveals that he has sold 19,000 copies of the last monthly volume of Byron's works. He offers to pay ½ of the profits of each and every edition of the first and last volumes—the Life and Posthumous Poems (A.L.S., JM to GCJ [Yale, Hilles], 4 Sept. 1833). When Crabbe's elder son inquired as to the extent of expenses before profit, Murray was initially guarded in his answer, explaining that "It is a speculation, the probable success of which can not be ascertained, until I see the effect occasioned by the advertisements, prospectus, travelling, and other means, which I must put in operation for exciting public attention to it" (A.L.S., JM to GCJ [Yale, Hilles], 13 Sept. 1833). Subsequently he became more specific and improved his offer, proposing an initial printing of 5,000 copies and estimating that because of the "great outlay on Drawing, Engraving, Stereotyping, and Advertising," the profit will be no more than 207£ per volume on the first printing. However, he now offered Crabbe's sons the entire profit of the first printing of the first and last volumes, estimated at 414£, and ⅔ of the profit of each subsequent printing of 5,000, which he estimated at 850£ in all (JM to GCJ [Murray, fol. 127], 13 Sept. 1833).

This offer was accepted and Murray replied that he has "no doubt of the success of the undertaking nor that it will render your Father's Name and Character so popular that it will almost force the Bishops or the Government to do something advantageous for both [sons]." And he adds, "You can form no conception of the vastness of our preparations" (JM to GCJ [Murray, fol. 128], 23 Sept. 1833).

The "preparations" began with the issue in October of a prospectus, consisting of a single quarto gathering in green printed wrappers announcing publication of the edition in eight monthly volumes at 5 shillings each, commencing in February 1834. The Prospectus included a specimen engraving by Finden which was not subsequently included in the set issued to embellish the edition.[2]

Next, Murray engaged John Gibson Lockhart to "rewrite" the Life and "superintend the Works generally" for the sum of 300£, to be paid on the day of publication of the Life, and an additional 200£ to be paid when the sale exceeded 10,000 copies. An additional 100£ was offered to Lockhart to write a review of the work for the Quarterly Review—which Lockhart edited and Murray published (JM to JGL [Murray, fol. 131], 16 Oct. 1833).

The nature and extent of Lockhart's revision cannot be fully determined because the manuscript has not survived, but sufficient information about the revision is available to allow a tentative assessment to be formed. Estimation of his contribution is important because the Life of Crabbe by His Son is generally recognized as a classic early biography, the best between Boswell's Johnson and Lockhart's Scott, and of course because it is the major primary source, apart from the poems, for all subsequent biographies of Crabbe and critical studies of his poetry. Further, Lockhart's work on the Life of Crabbe was apprentice work for his monumental biography of Scott, which he began to write as soon as his work on the Crabbe edition was completed (A.L.S., JW to GCJ [Yale, Hilles], 19 Dec. 1834).

The manuscript which was given to Lockhart to "rewrite" in September 1833 had already been thoroughly rewritten by George Crabbe, Jr. following receipt of criticism of the first draft from his brother, John; Thomas Moore; Samuel Rogers; Lord Holland; and Sarah Hoare. Crabbe's eldest son had actually nearly completed a brief biography of his father before his death and submitted his early draft to Thomas Moore for criticism within a few months of the funeral. He found the manuscript fascinating but advised that "irrelative matter" be omitted (A.L.S., GCJ to TM [Bodleian, fol. 135], 25 April 1832). Samuel Rogers asked Lord Holland for an opinion and replied to George Crabbe, Jr. that "It is indeed, as he [Lord Holland] says, very interesting; but much is [needed to make] it fit for publication" (A.L., SR to GCJ [Leeds], 24 Feb. 183[3]). Subsequently, the manuscript was carefully read by John Crabbe and Sarah Hoare, the daughter of the London Banker Samuel Hoare, with whose family Crabbe had been intimate for a dozen years (A.L.S., JC to GCJ [Leeds], 28 [April 1832]; [May 1832]; 5 May 1832). Further revisions were made as a result of their suggestions, most of which were aimed at suppressing unseemly detail or removing the potential for embarrassing living persons. But in addition to meeting specific criticisms of details, the poet's son successfully endeavoured to obtain more material to incorporate into the revised manuscript. In May of 1833 he wrote to Elizabeth

Leadbeater Cole, the daughter of the Irish Quaker authoress Mary Leadbeater, for permission to use portions of her mother's letters to his father and asking if any of Crabbe's letters to her mother were extant and if he might use them? (A.L.S., GCJ to [ELC] [B.L.], 3 May 1833) Mrs. Cole was happy to oblige and George Crabbe, Jr. euphorically wrote to Murray in July that he has "received the most valuable letters from Ballitore, exceeding all my hopes—letters addressed to the late Mrs. Leadbeater in which my Father describes himself & speaks of his writings" (A.L.S., GCJ to JM [Bodleian, fols. 116-17], 5 July 1833).

However, he was very disappointed in the content of letters which his father had written to an old friend, the Reverend Richard Turner of Great Yarmouth, and found them to be "of little or no use." His most bitter disappointment, though, was the refusal of Sarah Hoare, acting on the advice of William Wordsworth, to make available the letters Crabbe had written to her (Huchon, p. ix; A.L.S., JM to GCJ [Leeds], 4 May 1833). This correspondence is lost and was probably destroyed by Miss Hoare, herself.

Finally, after the revised manuscript was in Lockhart's hands, he and Rogers decided on still another expedient to enrich the materials—to ask eminent literary friends of Crabbe to contribute reminiscences in the form of letters to Crabbe's son which would be printed in the biography.[3] This was hastily done and such letters were printed from Moore, Bowles, Joanna Baillie, and Lockhart himself![4]

In addition to these materials, Lockhart was supplied with a biographical sketch of Crabbe written by Sarah Hoare and intended by her to be an anonymous introduction to a volume of Crabbe's posthumous poems which she assumed would be an independent publication.[5] Although her sketch was found to be unsatisfactory by Murray's editor, John Wright, who said of it that "A Memoir such as Miss H[oare] had drawn up would have dropped still-born from the press and rendered a republication of the Poems a dangerous speculation" (A.L.S., JW to GCJ [Leeds], 5 March 1834), it is my belief that Lockhart did make use of the sketch in his revision. In particular, I suggest, on stylistic grounds, that the long quotation in the final chapter of the Life describing Crabbe's physical decline in old age was taken from her sketch.[6] The following brief sample is sufficient to show the character of the passage and probably of the entire sketch. She writes, paraphrasing Cicero, that in old age, "Nature discovers her destitute state, and manifests it in peevishness and repining, unless a higher principle than Nature takes possession of the mind, and makes it sensible, that, 'though the outward man

perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.' It was by this principle that Mr. Crabbe was actuated; and he at times gave such proofs of his confidence in the promises of the Gospel, that the spot on which he expressed these hopes with peculiar energy is now looked upon by the friend who conversed with him as holy ground" (Life, pp. 296-97).

By far the greatest alteration Lockhart made in the manuscript was radical condensation—amounting to excision of nearly 50%—of what George Crabbe, Jr. had written, with the cuts being especially severe in letters which had been incorporated into the biography (A.L.S., JC to GCJ [Leeds], 5 March 1834). The condensation was occasioned by the limitation of the biography to one foolscap octavo volume, required by Murray's format as announced in the Prospectus issued in October 1833. The letters of Crabbe's sons, following publication of the Life, are filled with regret that so few letters were printed. For example, George Crabbe Jr. wrote to Lady Pleasance Smith that "many more [letters] would have been interspersed with a larger portion of narration had not Mr. Murray miscalculated the probable bulk in his prospectus and agreement with the booksellers" (A.L.S., GCJ to Lady Pleasance Smith [Yale, Osborn], 17 March 1834). John Crabbe even suggested to his brother "could you not offer Mr. Murray a second Volume, allowing him a larger Share?" (A.L.S., JC to GCJ [Leeds], 5 March 1834)

In addition to regrets about substantial abridgement, George Crabbe, Jr. had serious reservations about the propriety of taking credit for being the sole author of the book. He alludes to Lockhart's role in the Preface, saying, "I cannot conclude without expressing my sense of the important assistance which has been rendered to me, in finally correcting my work and arranging it for the press, by a friend high in the scale of literary distinction; who, however, does not permit me to mention his name on this occasion" (Life, p. viii). He had desired a complete disclosure of Lockhart's role, but was over-ruled. He had written to Lockhart when he returned proofs of the Life that he "should not feel reconciled to myself did I not confess to the public in that Introduction that my share has been little more than that of a Compiler & that I have scarcely a right to put my name to the volume" (A.L.S., GCJ to JGL [N.L.S., fols. 100-101], 4 Jan. 183[4]).

Lockhart's reasons for suppressing his role are evident and not the least of them is the fact that any revelation would have made it impossible for him to write a review of the work for publication in the Quarterly Review, for which Murray, as has been mentioned, agreed to pay him £100.

This review, appearing soon after the publication of the Life, was an important item in Murray's promotional activity, and Lockhart begins by puffing the format, inexpensive price, splendid illustrations, and particularly recommends Crabbe's poetry and this edition to the middle classes:

At the end of his forty-page review, Lockhart draws attention to another promotional feature of the edition, its rather elaborate annotation consisting of biographical notes, variant passages, parallel passages from other poets, and excerpts from reviews. Lockhart points out that "we have in the present volume several interesting specimens of the style in which [the poet] enlarged, condensed, or metamorphosed the subjects with which his observation of life furnished him, and we are led to expect a rich store of such information in the shape of notes to the poems, old and new, about to be included in an uniform and authoritative edition" (p. 506).

Of the four classes of notes, it is certain that Crabbe's son contributed the biographical ones and at least supplied Murray, Lockhart, and Wright with the manuscripts for the variant passages, but it is equally certain that with his small knowledge of, and general distaste for, poetry he could not have supplied the other two classes of notes, which were probably written by Wright.

The appropriateness of the extensive annotation was challenged by William Empson in an unsigned review in the Edinburgh Review for January 1835. Empson declares that "In proportion, too, as the text itself is interesting, a reader is provoked, as often as he is interrupted, by unnecessary and unmeaning notes. From the want of judgment displayed by the editor in this part of his office, we have been loath to draw too large an inference to the discredit of his general qualifications to be the biographer of his father. But where he had little or nothing to communicate, he had far better have plainly told us so, than load his pages with the semblance of parallel passages from Southey down to D'Israeli, and with extracts from contemporary reviews. A son was not wanted for this purpose. The common hangers-on of literature would thankfully have contributed any amount of this species of annotation at so much a-yard" (Edinburgh Review, 60 [1834-35]:278).

Crabbe's son was angered by this attack, and especially so since not he, but one of those "hangers-on of literature" was the guilty party. He wrote a reply to the Edinburgh and sent it to Lockhart for delivery. Naturally enough,

Lockhart counseled silence and apparently George Crabbe, Jr. let the matter drop (A.L.S., JGL to GCJ [Leeds], 9 March 1835).

How successful, then, was the 1834 edition? In 1952, Franklin Batdorf published an article built around the accounts in the Stock Books of John Murray for the 1834 edition and its various subsequent printings.[7] And in general, his figures agree with reports through the end of 1835 sent to George Crabbe, Jr. by Wright (A.L.S.'s, JW to GCJ [Yale, Hilles], 31 May 1834, 27 Aug. 1834, 10 Dec. 1834, 19 Dec. 1834). Volume I, the Life, sold 8,292 copies by the end of 1835; Vol. II, 6,369; Vol. III, 6,115; Vol. IV, 5,986; Vol. V, 5,878; Vol. VI, 5,838; Vol. VII, 5,822; and Vol. VIII, the Posthumous Poems, 6,124 (Batdorf, p. 194). As was stated above, the profit on the first printing of 5,000 was estimated by Murray at £207 per volume and the profit on subsequent printings was 3/5 per copy. Thus, by the end of 1835, George and John Crabbe had received 414£, the entire profit for the first 5,000 copies of Vols. I and VIII; plus 2/3 (⅔ of 3/5) per copy on an additional 4,416 copies of these volumes, amounting to £496/16/-; for a total payment of £910/16/-. Murray's profit was £1242. for the first 5,000 copies of the remaining six volumes, plus 3/5 per copy on 6,008 additional copies, amounting to £1026/7/4, plus 1/2 per copy on 4,416 additional copies of Vols. I and VIII, amounting to £257/12; for a total profit of £2525/19/4. From this must be deducted £400. paid to Lockhart, leaving £2125/19/4, which, although not coming close to equalling his profits from the Byron edition, was nevertheless a very considerable success and one which would be envied by any publisher.

Notes