The King's Tragedy (Huntington Library Manuscript)

This is the printer's copy manuscript for the first publication of the poem in the 1881 Ballads and Sonnets volume. It is comprised of two distinct parts: a completed text of the unrevised version of the poem (45 leaves); and a transcript (6 leaves) of two parts of the poem that DGR altered and made additions to: lines 519-588 and 742-814. The manuscript concludes with a second copy of lines 568-572.

The poem was composed between December 1880 and February 1881. This copy was made shortly afterwards and completed on 20 February 1881. The revised section (the 6 concluding leaves) would have been added shortly afterwards. The latter is a text that would itself be revised by DGR.