Ashley MS 175

Poetical Notebook used for fair copies by Emily Brontë; 1839. Autograph fair copies, with revisions, written on both sides of twelve octavo leaves of ruled cream wove paper. Watermark ''J Rump / 1831''. The leaves once formed part of a notebook, but were disbound and mounted on guards by T. J. Wise. Their lower edges have been torn, or cut with scissors, apparently by Emily, and without loss of text. The sixteen poems contained in the MS. are dated by Emily from 26 July 1837-15 October 1839, but these are the dates of composition, not of transcription into this MS. Since the poems were not transcribed in chronological order (the third poem, for instance, being dated 20 April 1839 and the penultimate October 1837), it appears that the whole MS. was written out in late 1839. Emily composed her poems on small fragments of paper (many are preserved among the Bonnell MSS. at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, and at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and among the Howe MSS. in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library) and later transcribed and retranscribed them. The present MS. was intermediate between that early stage and two new fair copy books which Emily started in February 1844, one, now Additional MS. 43483, to contain poems relating to Gondal, the imaginary country whose history she and her sister Anne amused themselves by writing from 1831 until Emily''s death in 1848, and the other, now known as the Honresfeld MS., to contain poems not relating to Gondal. As each poem was transcribed, in revised form, into the later volumes, it was either torn out of the present MS. or, if the presence of another poem sharing the same leaf prevented this, cancelled. As a result, of the sixteen poems this is the unique MS. except where otherwise stated. In C. W. Hatfield, The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë, 1941, the present MS. is allotted the siglum ''C''. The number given to each poem in that edition is recorded at the end of the individual descriptions. Ashley Library Catalogue, i, p. 82. As follows:

1. ''Lord of Elbë, on Elbë hill'', ll. 16-20. Signed and dated ''E J Brontë August 19th 1837''. Revised in minute characters. The whole poem is found in the Bonnell MSS., Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. 127 (4) (where it is cancelled), and in Additional MS. 43483, f. 2b. All three versions are dated the same. Hatfield No. 16. f. 1.

2. ''To a Wreath of snow, by A G Almeda''. Signed and dated ''Emily Jane Brontë December 1837'' (at this point Emily changed her system of dating so it is hard to say whether the date refers to this poem or the next). Lines 22-28, cancelled, are also found in the Howe MSS. No. 13. Hatfield No. 39. ff. 1-2.

3. ''Song by Julius Angora'' (''Awake! awake! how loud the stormy morning''). Undated, but see (2) above. Also found, cancelled, in the Bonnell MSS., Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. 127 (4), where it is dated ''December, 1837''. Hatfield No. 40. ff. 2, 2b.

4. ''Song'' (''King Julius left the south country''). Dated ''April 20th 1839''. Hatfield No. 98. ff. 2b-3.

5. ''Lines by A G A to A S'' (''O wander not so far away''). Dated ''May 20th 1838''. Cancelled. Also found, with the same date, but with variants in ll. 6, 9, 10 and 18, in Additional MS. 43483, ff. 3b-4. Hatfield No. 61. ff. 3-4.

6. ''Song to A A'' (''This shall be thy lullaby''). Dated ''May 1838''. Also found, cancelled, in the Bonnell MSS., Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. 127 (4), where it is equally dated ''May 1838''. Hatfield No. 62. ff. 4, 4b.

7. ''To a Bluebell by A G A''. Dated ''May 9th 1839''. Revised in minute characters. Cancelled. Also found, with the same date, but with variants in ll. 9-12, 14 and 16, in Additional MS. 43483, f. 4. Hatfield No. 100. ff.

4b-5.

8. ''Lines'' (''I die but when the grave shall press''). Dated ''December 1837''. Hatfield No. 41. ff. 5, 5b.

9. ''Song'' (''O between distress and pleasure''). Dated ''October 15th 1839''. Hatfield No. 118. ff. 5b-6b.

10. ''O Dream where art thou now?'', ll. 1-12. Dated ''November 5th 1838''. Cancelled. The whole poem is found, with the same date, but with a variant in l. 3, as No. 12 in Honresfeld MS., formerly owned by Sir Alfred Law. Hatfield No. 86. f. 6b.

11. ''Shed no tears o''er that tomb''. Dated ''July 26th 1837''. Revised in minute characters. Hatfield No. 111. ff. 7, 7b.

12. ''Sleep not dream not this bright day''. Undated. First published in a version which lacks ll. 19-22 and is dated 26 July 1837 in C. K. Shorter, Complete Works of Emily Brontë, 1910, p. 327. It is difficult to say whether this represents editorial inaccuracy or a now unlocated MS. Hatfield No. 112. ff. 8, 8b.

13. ''Lines by R G'' (''From our evening fireside now''). Dated ''April 17th 1839''. Lines 4-33 are missing, having been written on a leaf subsequently torn out by Emily. The surviving lines are cancelled. The whole poem is found, with same date, and headed ''By R Gleneden'', but with variants in ll. 35, 38, in Additional MS. 43483, ff. 7, 7b. Hatfield No. 97. ff. 8b, 9.

14. ''Lines by Claudia'' (''I did not sleep ''twas noon of day''). Dated ''May 28th 1839''. Hatfield No. 102. ff. 9-10.

15. ''Lines'' (''Far away is the land of rest''). Dated ''October 1837''. Hatfield No. 32. ff. 10b-11.

16. ''Lines'' (''The soft unclouded blue of air''). Dated ''April 28th 1839''. Revised. Hatfield No. 99. ff. 11-12b.

Octavo; ff. ii+12.

Emily Jane Brontë, author: Poetry ENGLISH: Poems of Emily Jane Brontë: 1839: Autogr. fair copies.