WITH AN A.L.S. FROM LADY JANE SHELLEY
Poems selected from percy bysshe shelley with a preface by Richard Garnett.
London.
C. Kegan Paul & Co, 1880.
Limited edition on large paper.
8vo.
One volume, bound as two. [2], xxvi, 188; 189-393pp, [1]. With an engraved frontispiece vignette of Shelley's tomb, on india paper. No. 20 of just 50 copies on large paper; each endorsed by the publishers 'Charles Whittingham & Co'. Uncut and partially unopened, finely bound in gilt-tooled green morocco by S.[imon] Kaufmann. A little rubbed and marked. From the recently dispersed library of Stopford Brooke, with a loosely inserted 4pp A.L.S., folded and lightly spotted, addressed to him by Lady Jane Shelley, dated Good Friday 1899, on Boscombe Manor headed notepaper.
An appealing large paper copy, finely bound and with an interesting additional A.L.S. from Lady Jane Shelley - the daughter-in-law and fierce protector of the late Victorian reputation of the poet and his second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - of the Richard Garnett's (1835-1806) selection of Shelley's shorter pieces.
Garnett was better known as a librarian and editor, but the first of his slim volumes of verse to bear a name on the title - Io in Eygpt (London, 1859) - included a sonnet ,'To the memory of Shelley', which 'which appears to have given Garnett an introduction to the poet's son Sir Percy Florence Shelley, and his wife, Jane' (Bell, A. (2004, September 23). Garnett, Richard (1835-1906), librarian and author. Oxford DNB). Garnett visited Boscombe Manor in 1859, and despite turning down an offer to write Shelley's authorized biography, remained a strong proponent of Shelley's work and stayed in touch with Sir Percy and Lady Jane even after coming to regret his being drawn into the latter's dispute with Shelley's friends Hogg, Peacock and Trelawny'.
The inclusion of an A.L.S. to Stopford Brooke (1832-1916), Anglican clergyman, poet, university lecturer and literary editor, in this copy from Lady Jane Shelley, the wife of Shelley's only son with his second wife, neatly ties together three of the poet's late Victorian supporters and editors. Like Garnett before him, Brooke edited and arranged an edition of Shelley's verse (for publication by Macmillan in 1906). The letter itself - written in the very final year of her life - also mentions Garnett in relation to one of Lady Jane's pet topics; the collection and curation of material relating to her father-in-law, and the protection to her very end of his reputation from the views especially of T.J. Hogg, referring to Garnett's keenness to 'go through...letters which I have been able to purchase from the executor of Hoggs daughter who died last year'.
Provenance: From the remains of the library of Stopford Brooke, recently dispersed from the estate of his great-grandson, Patrick Dockar-Drysdale (1929-2020).
£ 950.00
Antiquates Ref: 26576
Garnett was better known as a librarian and editor, but the first of his slim volumes of verse to bear a name on the title - Io in Eygpt (London, 1859) - included a sonnet ,'To the memory of Shelley', which 'which appears to have given Garnett an introduction to the poet's son Sir Percy Florence Shelley, and his wife, Jane' (Bell, A. (2004, September 23). Garnett, Richard (1835-1906), librarian and author. Oxford DNB). Garnett visited Boscombe Manor in 1859, and despite turning down an offer to write Shelley's authorized biography, remained a strong proponent of Shelley's work and stayed in touch with Sir Percy and Lady Jane even after coming to regret his being drawn into the latter's dispute with Shelley's friends Hogg, Peacock and Trelawny'.
The inclusion of an A.L.S. to Stopford Brooke (1832-1916), Anglican clergyman, poet, university lecturer and literary editor, in this copy from Lady Jane Shelley, the wife of Shelley's only son with his second wife, neatly ties together three of the poet's late Victorian supporters and editors. Like Garnett before him, Brooke edited and arranged an edition of Shelley's verse (for publication by Macmillan in 1906). The letter itself - written in the very final year of her life - also mentions Garnett in relation to one of Lady Jane's pet topics; the collection and curation of material relating to her father-in-law, and the protection to her very end of his reputation from the views especially of T.J. Hogg, referring to Garnett's keenness to 'go through...letters which I have been able to purchase from the executor of Hoggs daughter who died last year'.
Provenance: From the remains of the library of Stopford Brooke, recently dispersed from the estate of his great-grandson, Patrick Dockar-Drysdale (1929-2020).
