M.S. Poetry 1869.70.71 (composite manuscript collection, Princeton/Taylor collection)

The DGR materials in this volume all relate to the production of the volume of poetry he published in 1870. This collection was probably put together by Alice Boyd at a somewhat later date, and largely from materials she had from William Bell Scott and DGR in 1869, when the two men were together at her estate in Scotland, Penkill Castle.

The volume contains a miscellaneous collection of poems, most by DGR and William Bell Scott, that date from the early 1850s to 1871, and a couple of letters. There are a few other poems by Christina Rossetti and Edmund Gosse and others. The DGR materials are manuscripts dating from ca. 1850 to November 1869.

The DGR materials cast interesting light on his earliest conception of the 1870 Poems and what he planned to include in it. The notebook contains lists that pre-date the printing of the Penkill Proofs and represent his thoughts about what to include in those proofs, the first he had pulled (in August 1869) for the volume to come in 1870. Also in the notebook are copies of poems that were made for the early proof printings of August and September 1869. Most important here are the manuscript texts of “Ave”, “Troy Town”, and “Stratton Water”.

The DGR manuscripts in this collection are in four distinct groups. First are four leaves that date from August-September 1869. Next come eleven leaves torn from a single notebook that dates from ca. 1850-1855. Then there are three uniform leaves from another notebook dating from sometime in the mid-1850s. Finally come five leaves that date from September 1869.

Virtually all of the DGR manuscripts in this collecton show revisions of one kind or another, as well as variances from received texts.

The DGR manuscripts were probably not printer's copy for the proofs pulled in August and September 1869 but they were almost certainly the copy from which those printer's copies were made.