University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION

The gift to a University of a collection of books in honor of a scholar-president is not so unusual a circumstance at the University of Virginia as to require extended comment, because no President here has yet escaped this distinction.

Nor is the fact of generosity to the Library on the part of Virginia's alumni and friends in any way unique. In more ways than one, the patrons of Jefferson's University have built its libraries.

In one sense, however, the present gift is both unique and peculiarly appropriate. It seems natural and inevitable for the greatest remaining private collection of Tennysoniana to be presented in honor of a Tennyson scholar's accession to high office, but for a gift celebrating the assumption of unrelenting and oppressive duties to contain (as this one does) the manuscripts of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and of "Tears, Idle Tears" seems almost too true to be good. This is appropriateness with a vengeance, or at least with subtlety and serendipity.

That the Templeton Crocker Collection of Tennyson is worthy of the fame it has achieved in the world of book collectors is best seen by reviewing the contents of this astonishing collection. The inventory has, therefore, been reproduced in the following pages without change from the form in which it was made under the late Mr. Crocker's supervision. Henry Wagner's Recollections of Templeton Crocker are reproduced from the California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 28, p.364-6.

Although a description is appended to the list of items which have been added to the gift in honor of President Shannon, no mention is made elsewhere in these pages of other Tennysoniana already at the University of Virginia, so a word about these is in order. There are a few fine Tennyson books at the University, for example, from the Library of a Virginian friend of Tennyson's, W. Gordon McCabe of Petersburg, a portion of whose

books were given to the University in 1922 by W. Gordon McCabe II. It will be noted in the latter pages of this book that another Virginian friend of Tennyson's, John R. Thompson, is represented in the Barrett addition.

Furthermore, the gift to the University in 1938 of the Tracy W. McGregor Library brought, among a dozen other Tennyson gems, the 1842 Poems with manuscript annotations by Charles Kingsley, and Arthur Hallam's annotated copy of the 1830 Poems, the only known copy in which Hallam's poems are bound up in the form originally planned by Tennyson and Hallam.

The McGregor Library also has two Tennyson autographs: a note to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and a wonderful letter to the Duchess of Argyle expressing Tennyson's trepidation over an impending and over-tardy visit to Queen Victoria to express condolences over the death of Prince Albert.

In this same collection there is a forged letter in which Swinburne seems to be enshrouding his grief over Tennyson's death, and two of the Wise-forged pamphlets. The late Tracy McGregor did not discover the forged nature of the Swinburne-Tennyson letter, which was not unmasked until 1949, but he was well aware of the forgeries represented by his two Wise-produced pamphlets, probably even at the time he bought them. Templeton Crocker, on the other hand, (if one may judge from his catalog entries produced verbatim in the following pages) apparently died without in every case admitting to himself, or at least to his catalog, that Wise's Tennyson forgeries were here in real strength (as indeed they should have been in so comprehensive a collection), though some of the relevant entries carry the not-wholly-illuminating expression "pirated."

No attempt has been made to edit or elaborate the Crocker entries, and the sole addition to the Templeton Crocker part of the catalogue is the section describing additions generously made to this superb collection to make it even more befitting a happy occasion.