WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Bibliographic Notes on One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature cover

Bibliographic Notes on One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature

Chapter 94: ALFRED TENNYSON, FIRST BARON TENNYSON (1809-1892)
Open in WeRead

About This Book

The book presents concise bibliographical essays on one hundred significant works of English literature, summarizing authorship, publication histories, typographical features, editional variants, and illustration and collation details. A prefatory explanation outlines the selection criteria and editorial practices used for handling early spelling and printing peculiarities. Individual entries vary in length depending on existing scholarship and rarity, and the volume includes a list of corrections, a contents list, and an index to aid reference. Overall, it documents the physical and textual histories of landmark volumes to assist readers in identifying and understanding important variant issues.

ALFRED TENNYSON,

FIRST BARON TENNYSON

(1809-1892)

89. In Memoriam. | London. | Edward Moxon, Dover Street. | 1850.

In May of the year 1850, In Memoriam was privately printed for the use of friends, and soon afterward was published in the present form, at six shillings. A second and third editions were issued in the same year. They are alike in all particulars except for the correction of two literal misprints. Though the book was anonymous, the authorship was never in doubt.

A circumstance connected with its publication, though not bibliographical in its bearing, demands a passing word. "If 'In Memoriam' were published," Hallam Tennyson says in his life of the laureate, "Moxon had promised a small yearly royalty on this and on the other poems, and so my father had decided that he could now honourably offer my mother a home. Accordingly after ten years of separation their engagement was renewed ... Moxon now advanced £300—so my uncle Charles told a friend,—at all events £300 were in my father's bank in his name." With this and their small incomes combined they decided to marry. The marriage took place June 13, the month that saw the publication of "In Memoriam."

Octavo.

Collation:  vii, 210 pp.