Ashley MS 1399, B1399

'Poems (Privately Printed)': fragments of a copy of the third set of printed page proofs for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poems, 1870, with autograph revision, corrections and addition; second half of Sept. 1869. The fragments comprise the title-page and author's note (pp. [i-iv]), and pp. 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17-25, 29-40, 45-50, 53-58 of the text, i.e. part of 'The Blessed Damozel', part of 'Love's Nocturn', most of 'The Burden of Nineveh', 'Ave', most of 'The Staff and Scrip', part of 'Sister Helen', most of 'Stratton Water', and 'Dennis Shand'. There are corrections by Rossetti on pp. 45 and 57, a cancelled revision on p. 21, and on p. 37, at the head of 'Sister Helen', he has added a French motto, supposedly dated 1465, but composed by himself. The remaining pages appear to have been in the possession of Mrs J. C. Troxell (see her Rossetti's 'Sister Helen', 1939, and her article 'The "Trial Books" of D. G. Rossetti' in Colophon for Spring 1938). Ashley MS. 1399 is incorrectly described by Wise, Ashley Library Catalogue, iv, p. 124, as part of what he pleases to call the 'First Trial-book'. According to Wise, D. G. Rossetti privately issued two volumes of poems in 1869, of which the type was then distributed, before publishing Poems, 1870. Wise attempts to account for the existence of sheets, not part of the proofs of Poems, with more than two different paginations by an ingenious but untenable theory. In fact, Rossetti appears to have contemplated a private issue, but abandoned the idea when he definitely decided to publish (see description of 1387). He therefore continued to revise, transpose, and add to the page proofs, of which copies were sent to W. M. Rossetti, Swinburne and others for comment, and then had the changes incorporated in further sets of page proofs. This process continued through six sets, including the immediate proof of the First Edition. In addition, revises were made of sections of the various sets of proofs. That the same type was in fact used throughout may be seen from plentiful examples of broken letters. Wise's 'First Trial-book' is the fourth set and his 'Second Trial-book' the fifth. In a letter to Wise dated 15 Nov. 1902 (Ashley MS. B1399) W. M. Rossetti also speaks of two 'Trial-books', but from his Bibliography of D. G. Rossetti, 1906, where he gives the 'First Trial-book' 166 pages while Wise gives it 199, it is clear that by 'First Trial book' he means the second set of proofs, not the fourth. For a detailed account of the series of proofs leading up to Poems, 1870, see J. C. Troxell, opp. cit., where Ashley 1399 is referred to as 'A2'. A copy of the fourth set of proofs containing autograph corrections and revisions on pp. 7, 8, and 172 is now Ashley Library No. 1393 in the Department of Printed Books. A revise of part of 'Jenny' with autograph additions, printed after the recovery of the poem from Lizzie Rossetti's grave and before the production of the fifth set of proofs (of which the rest of 1400 is a copy), but with the additions made after the appearance of the fifth set, and sent in a letter to Swinburne dated 8 Dec. 1869 (now Ashley MS. A1400) for comment, is now Ashley Library No. 1400, pp. 201-206 (placed at the end of the volume). Page proofs of additional material for Poems, 1870, with autograph revisions, printed in March 1870 after copies of the proofs of the rest of Poems had been sent to the reviewers, are now Add. MS. 45353, ff. 2-17. Of these proofs Ashley Library No. 1404 is a revise, of the kind sent to reviewers so that they might include the additional poems in their reviews. Ashley Library Catalogue, iv, p. 124.

Octavo; ff. iv+22.