University of Virginia Library

Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington: Addenda to Shannon and Ricks
by
Aidan Day and P. G. Scott

Though Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., and Christopher Ricks have recently provided a very substantial collation of the variants in Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (SB, XXXII, 1979, 125-157), four further proof-copies have come to light at the Tennyson Research Centre in Lincoln.[1] Three were among uncatalogued material in the Centre: one of these is an incomplete proof-copy for the first edition of 1852, with interesting corrections in Tennyson's hand; and the other two are minimally-corrected proof-copies for the second edition of 1853. The fourth is a late set of page-proofs for Tennyson's Maud, and Other Poems (1855); this volume is listed in the Centre's Catalogue, but its text for the Wellington Ode does not seem to have been previously studied.[2] The purpose of this note is to describe these hitherto unrecorded stages in the poem's development, as a supplement to the Shannon-Ricks collation.

The Lincoln proof-copy for the first edition is a single octavo gathering (opened), unsigned, and comprising: pp. [1]-[2], half-title (verso blank); pp. [3]-[4], title (imprint on verso); pp. [5]-16, text (with imprint on p. 16). The gathering lacks leaves 4.5, pp. 7-10 (lines 35-131); it is without the paper covers of the first edition; and there are no stitch or stab holes. The leaves measure approximately 8¾” x 5frac916”. This general pattern is, of course, with the exception of the missing leaves, the same as that of the first edition itself, though the paper (white wove, and unwatermarked) is slightly thinner than that in the copies we have examined of 52. The text in the letter-press is also identical to 52, in all but a single variant; in line 170, where 52 and all subsequent states read

the Lincoln proof-copy for the first edition follows the corrected Lincoln galley-proof for that edition (Shannon-Ricks, 52(p2); autograph corrections, AT/52(p2)), and reads

Further collation shows that this Lincoln proof-copy was not set directly from 52(p2), since it incorporates corrections not present on the galley-proof. At the same time, the variant in line 170 of the proof-copy, together with the lack of stitching, indicates that this new copy is not, as might first appear, an unused sheet, pre-print or 'trial copy' of 52, but a distinct page-proof stage, intermediate between the corrected galley-proof and 52 itself, and it provides therefore a 52(p3) for the Shannon-Ricks listing.

The copy carries some of Tennyson's autograph corrections, and these show that it was not the printer's copy used in the final correction for the first edition. For instance, the addition of "slothful" made by 52 in line 170 had not been marked on this copy. As on many proofs surviving among an author's own papers, the corrections seem to have been 'working' or draft revisions, rather than printer's instructions. Indeed, collation shows that the autograph emendations here are associated, not with the 52 text, but with Tennyson's subsequent revision of the Ode for the second edition, published in 1853. The manuscript corrections on the proof thus constitute a separate stage, which simply happens to have been entered on a spare copy of a late proof rather than on a copy of the first edition.

The extant corrections in this Lincoln proof-copy occur on two pages only, though there could originally have been more on the missing centre leaves. On p. 12, lines 169-170 and 171 originally read as follows:

In the corrections, in line 169, Tennyson has first altered the terminal semicolon to a comma, and then cancelled that for a period; in line 170, the words "But wink no more in" are cancelled, and the line rewritten as "We fool ourselves with overtrust." (a variant with no equivalent in any other text); and in line 171, the initial "And" is altered to "But" (a reading shared with Emily Tennyson's redrafting of this line from the Trinity College manuscript [Shannon-Ricks, TC] in a manuscript fragment [Shannon-Ricks, ET/ 52(a)], tipped into the Pierpont Morgan copy of the first edition).

On p. 15, lines 254-255 had read:

In the corrections, the words "For . . . . friends," have been deleted, and in the margin is written a draft of what eventually became lines 251-255 in the second edition (lines 251-253 being published for the first time in that edition): This version of lines 251-255 falls mid-way between Tennyson's separate drafting of the lines on paper watermarked 1852 (Shannon-Ricks, MS 6) and the version inserted by Tennyson in his autograph corrections on the Pierpont Morgan copy of the first edition (Shannon-Ricks, AT/52(a)). There seems no reason to doubt that the other autograph corrections in the Lincoln proof-copy for the first edition also belong to the same general revision-stage, the preparation of the second edition of 1853.

The two Lincoln proof-copies for the second edition may be dealt with more briefly. They both consist of a single octavo gathering (opened), unsigned, and comprising: pp. [1]-[2], half-title (verso blank); pp. [3]-[4], title (imprint on verso); pp. [5]-16, text (with imprint on p. 16). In one of the two copies, the Q of QUEEN in the imprint on the title-verso has dropped. The paper in both copies is white wove, unwatermarked; the leaves measure approximately 8¾” x 5frac916”. The copies are without covers, and there are no stitch or stab holes. The text in the letter-press in both copies is identical to that in the Widener proof-copy for the second edition, collated by Shannon and Ricks as 53(p). The only manuscript correction on the Lincoln copies (the same on both) is that line 218 on p. 14 ("He has not fail'd: he hath prevail'd:") has been cancelled, as also in the Widener copy.

The fourth set of proofs at Lincoln forms part of a proof-copy for the first edition of Maud, and Other Poems, and provides a 55(p) for the Shannon-Ricks listing. This copy, together with a set of page-proofs for the first edition of In Memoriam, was bought at Sotheby's in March 1891 by G. L. Craik of Macmillan's, Tennyson's publishers. Both copies were presented to Tennyson by Craik, on behalf of Macmillan.[3] The set of page-proofs for Maud, and Other Poems lacks the prelims (Sg. A1-4) of the first edition, and has a single leaf tipped in (Sg. M, pp. 153-[154]) where the first edition has a final gathering (Sg. M2, pp. 153-154, [155]-[156]). Otherwise the proof-copy, which has regular signatures and continuous pagination throughout, is identical in make-up, though not in text, to the first edition.[4] It is printed on white wove paper, unwatermarked, and the leaves measure approximately 6½” x 4⅛”.

The present binding (brown morocco with the spine lettered in gilt: "TENNYSON'S / MAUD. / REVISES. / 1855.") and the endpapers of the volume are not connected with the original printing of the page-proofs. In addition to the single Ode correction noted below, the proofs bear quite extensive autograph corrections to "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (text, pp. [151]-153; autograph corrections on pp. [151]-[154]).

The Wellington Ode itself is on pp. [119]-136, as in the first edition of Maud, and Other Poems (p. [119], divisional title; p. [120], blank; pp. [121]-136, text). There are four variants in the letter-press from the published 1855 text. In the opening line, the proof follows 52 and 53 in reading

but this is corrected in Tennyson's hand to the reading of 55 ("Bury the Great Duke"). On p. 125 (line 59), the proof, like 53, has as against the reading "And a deeper knell . . ." in 55. On p. 131, the proof ends Tennyson's new version of line 172 ("He bad you guard the sacred coasts") with a colon, rather than the period of 55. On p. 136 (line 267), the proof follows 53 in reading whereas the March "wails" in 55. The special interest of this group of variants is the very late stage at which they show Tennyson still making revisions to the minor poems of the Maud volume.

These additional proof-copies of the Wellington Ode do not, of course, alter the general picture of the poem's history given by Professors Shannon and Ricks, but they do fill in some detail. In particular, the first edition proof and its later manuscript corrections help to document two important stages in the textual development of the poem.

Notes