Filii Filia (fair copy manuscript, Delware Art Museum library)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Production Description
Document Title: Filii Filia
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of composition: 1869
Type of Manuscript: holograph pen and ink fair copy
Note: The manuscript dates from 1869 but the two sonnets are early work, the first
from 1847, the second from 1849.
Scribe: DGR
Corrector: DGR
Provenance
Current Location: Delaware Art Museum, Bancroft Collection
Catalog Number: Box 22 no. 25
Note: Bought from Fanny Schott.
Physical Description
Paper: writing paper, measurements: 18 x 22.8 cm
Watermark: watermarked
Other Physical Features: The sonnets are written on one side of the single sheet, which is
folded in the center, separating the pair.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
page images | transcript
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This is the only known manuscript of the pair of sonnets. As the priner's note in the upper right corner shows, the document was prepared specifically as printer's copy for the 1881 Poems. A New Edition. That DGR thought about publishing these sonnets at all has not been hitherto known. That he thought about including them in the 1881 volume has also not been known. The notation shows that DGR's idea to include them came at a very late stage of the pre-publication process, probably in late May 1881.
Printing History
The pair of sonnets was first printed in the first revise proof of Signature T of the 1881 Poems . This Delware manuscript was the copy text for that printing. When the signature went into its second revise, the sonnets were removed.
The second sonnet was first published by WMR in its earlier (1849) variant form under the title “Returning to Brussels” (see Family Letters (II. 79)), and collected thereafter. The first was also printed posthumously (in 1886) by WMR under the title “ For an Annunciation. Early German ”.