Ashley MS 5257

The 'Kirklowes' Fragment: portions of an abandoned novel by A. C. Swinburne; [1861?]. Autograph draft, written on both sides of six folio leaves of cream wove paper, unwatermarked (ff. 1, 1b, 3-7b), one side only of another leaf of the same (f. 2), both sides of a folio leaf of blue laid paper (ff. 8, 8b), and one side only of another, conjoined, leaf (f. 9). Watermark 'E Towgood / 1861' and figure of Britannia. Ashley Library Catalogue, vi, p. 48. As follows:―

1. The beginning of the novel, in the order f. 1a, f. 2. ff. 3-5b, f. 1b.

2. Continuation, after an apparent gap in the narrative, of the same chapter, in the order f. 6, ff. 7, 7b, 6b. At the foot of f. 7, inverted, is the title or chapter heading 'Kirklowes', together with the first half of the opening sentence of the work, identical with the text found on f. 1.

3. A passage describing the drowning of the character Mr Champneys. ff. 8-9.

The 'Kirklowes' fragment is printed in Lesbia Brandon, ed. Randolph Hughes, 1952, pp. 171-180, and in The Novels of A. C. Swinburne, with introduction by Edmund Wilson, 1962, pp. 357-366. On f. 1b are autograph notes of names used by Swinburne in his epistolary novel A Year's Letters, and the quotation 'Never any more while I live' from the first line of Robert Browning's poem 'In a Year'. Swinburne has also written one above the other the words 'Lucrezia Estense Borgia'.

Folio; ff. i+9.

Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet: Prose narrative, the so-called 'Kirklowes fragment' by Algernon Charles Swinburne: [1861?]: Autogr. draft. Imperf.