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Ruthven Todd's Blake Papers at Leeds ARTICLE Ruthven Todd’s tlake Papers at Leeds G. E. tentley, Jr. tlake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 16, Issue 2, Fall 1982, pp. 72-81 72 RUTHVEN TODD'S BLAKE PAPERS AT LEEDS G. E. BENTLEY, JR. n 1978, the books and papers of Ruthven The Library MS. 470 Blake letters and papers of Campbell Todd relating to WilliaM Blake were Ruthven Todd, Handlist 49 [1981], on which the I given by his son Dr. F. C. C. Todd to the following list is based. I have, however, with Mr. Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds. The Morrish's consent, taken a nuMber of liberties with Brotherton Library, naMed after Lord Brotherton who the list. For one thing, I have oMitted Nos. 1-291, paid for its construction, is the main library of which are letters of 1927-78 froM Blake scholars and the University for the huManities and social sciences collectors such as C. H. C. Baker, G. E. Bentley, I t is nobly housed and is especially rich in English Jr., David BindMan, Martin Butlin, Morris Eaves, D. literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth V. ErdMan, R. N. Essick, Sir Geoffrey Keynes, T. L. centuries. Minnick, W. E. Moss, M. D. Pa l e y , Leslie Parris, Kerrison Preston, Kathleen Raine, Lessing J. u What follows i s priMarily a catalogue of Ruthven Rosenwald, Mark Schorer, and R. R. Wark. This is Todd's papers rela ting to WilliaM Blake presented to the section of the list to which access is restrict- the Brotherton Lib rary, but it is both more and less ed, at least until A. D. 2011. (Written applications than that. It is less in that soMe of the Papers froM bona fide Blake scholars for a dispensation to froM Todd seeM to have no connection with Blake1 or consult specific iteMs may be considered by the are merely printed works without annotation,2 and Librarian and the representatives of Ruthven Todd.) consequently they are dealt with only in footnotes here. It is more i n that it includes a) soMe works For another, I have added further inforMation related to Blake 1 n the Library which did not coMe froM a personal inspection of the Todd manuscripts froM Ruthven Todd, and b) soMe works in the Todd and froM other sources. col lection which a re not about Blake but which are about his conteMpo rari es. And for another, I have reorganized the material. However, each entry is preceded by the This catalogue is organized round Ruthven Todd's Handlist 49 entry nuMber. Blake publications in chronological order of date of publication.3 Each entry begins with the earliest Ruthven Todd's Life version of the work and concludes with the published version or, if it was revised after publication, with Two stateMents by Ruthven Todd in these papers may the revisions. At the conclusion of the list of be sufficient to establish a biographical context publications are a nuMber of entries related to Blake for these manuscripts. The first is in an applica- but not published, also arranged in chronological tion to the Chapel brook Foundation on 15 June 1968 order. for support in preparing the new edition of Gilchrist's Life of William Blake: The Todd Blake manuscripts have been catalogued anonymously by Miss Jean Radford and Mr. P. S. I don't know what I should say about Morrish, sub-librarian (MSS and Special Collections) myself. Fifty-four yesterday, born in o f the Brotherton Library, in University of Leeds Edinburgh, art-student, farM-laborer, editor, 73 moved to London, worked as tutor and publisher's Lectures on Painting (1801), Gay, Fables (1793), reader, reviewer and other jobs. War years was Hayley, Little Tom the Sailor (1800), Essay on i n Civil Defence {as a conscientious objector Sculpture (1800), Designs (1802), Life . of to military service'], and then worked in a William Cowper (1803-4), Triumphs of Temper (1803), bookstore before (bombed out) moving to Essex. Ballads (1805), and Life of George Romney (1809), To U.S.A. January 1947. Lived mostly in New Henry, Memoirs of Albert de Haller (1783), Hoare, York (apart from short semester in Iowa City) Academic Correspondence (1803), Hunter, Historical till 1954. Lived on Martha's Vineyard till Journal of . Port Jackson (1793), Lavater, . 1960. Came to Mallorca to spend summer as Aphorisms (1789), Mai kin, A Father's Memoirs (1806), guest of Robert Graves. Got ill and spent Mora, Meditaciones Poeticas (1826), Remember Me.' return money. Have now got a cottage home. (1825), Shakspeare, Plays (1805), Stedman, Surinam Have written several books of poems, novels (1796), The Wit's Magazine (1784), Mary Wollstone- (not really good enough), essays on art and craft, Original Stories (1791), and Young, Night science, and edited books on painting and Thoughts (1797). Notice that in the thirty some selections from poets. Much more could be said, years after these were lost, apparently only one but I think that may serve. was recovered or replaced. [No. 44] Ruthven Todd's Blake Work And in a latter to the distinguished Blake collector George Goyder he wrote on 6 February 1970: Most of Ruthven Todd's accomplishments were in poetry and fiction, but he made a major contribution to I dropped out of the Blake world into a strange Blake scholarship. From his earliest published work world of alcoholism, and only pulled myself out on Blake (1941) to his latest (1980), he showed an o f that some six years ago.5 extraordinary skill in finding new facts and relating them illuminatingly to Blake's work, in areas as More details may be found in a moving obituary by M. diverse as the two engravers named William Blake, to i n the Majorca Daily Bulletin, in Julian Symons, his pigments, to the discovery of his advertisement "Ruthven Todd 1914-1978: Some Details for a for his "Exhibition of Paintings in Fresco." Todd's Portrait," London Magazine (April-May 1979), 62-80,6 earliest and his greatest Blake enterprise was his and especially in his autobiography which has been revised edition of Alexander Gilchrist's Life of edited by his Majorcan friend Robert Latona and William Blake which, from its first publication in excerpts from which will appear in Malahat Review 1863, was recognized as being of central importance i n January and April 1982. One particularly in- for Blake studies: triguing piece of information provided by Symons is that Symons' Its effect was thunderous. Never has an important [English] literary reputation been first crime story, The Immaterial Murder Case, posthumously established so instantaneously and 7 . was meant to be a collaboration, but effectively. Ruthven never did any writing. I wrote it, made him the murderer, and put the typescript Gilchrist's biography was repeatedly reprinted, in i n a drawer for several years. 1880, 1906, 1907, 1922, and 1928 and proved its [P. 65] lasting value. As a young man, Todd became fascinated by Blake There were, however, a number of serious defects and collected works by and about him as assiduously to the work. For pne thing, the collection of as his very slender means permitted. He once had Blake's writings in Volume II, edited by D. G. an extensive library of Blake and Flaxman, and the Rossetti and a syndicate of the Pre-Raphaelite Flaxmans in particular were quite important. The Brotherhood, was seriously incomplete and inaccurate, bibliography section of Todd's copy of his edition though it displayed to the public far more of Blake's o f Gilchrist's Life of William Blake (1942), below, work than had previously been popularly available. i s annotated: For another, Gilchrist's transcriptions of Blake's letters in his biography were often merely approxi- All items underlined in red were in my library mate and usually at one or two removes from the a t Tilty Mill House nr. Dunmow, at the end of manuscripts. And for a third, Gilchrist was alarmed 1946 (dotted lines show that I owned only the by footnotes and systematically omitted identifica- plates). It was a pretty good library as tion of the sources of his information. All these libraries go and like all good libraries it factors made the work difficult to depend upon, but, went. The rest of my Blake collection [of because Gilchrist had talked to many of Blake's scholarship] is also now scattered. young disciples such as John Linnell and Frederick Tatham and Samuel Palmer, his book cannot be ignored. According to this marked list, among works with Ruthven Todd approached these problems boldly and Blake's engravings he once had Allen, History of solved them successfully. First, he simply omitted England (1797) and Roman History (1798), Ariosto, Gilchrist's Volume II with its incomplete and Orlando Furioso (1783), Blair, The Grave (1808; inaccurate writings, reproductions, and catalogues 1813), Boydell, Graphic Illustrations of the Dramatic o f Blake. Second, he corrected the texts of Blake's Works of Shakspeare ([1803]), Burger, Leonora (1796), letters and poems in Gilchrist's biography (except Cumberland, Thoughts on Outline (1796) and Outlines where Gilchrist is the only authority for them, of from the Antients (1829), Darwin, Botanic Garden course). Thirdly, and most laboriously, he sought (1791; 1795; 1799), Flaxman, Iliad (1805), Fuseli, out systematically the factual bases for Gilchrist's 74 conclusions and anecdotes and displayed them i n on Blake (1961), and a slight edition o f Blake meticulous notes to the biography. Todd's edition (1960), he produced nothing on Blake until his appeared i n a modest Everyman edition i n January announcement o f "Gilchrist Redivivus" (1968).
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