GB 0889

Harris Library

This catalogue was digitised by The National Archives as part of the National Register of Archives digitisation project

NRA 35054

The National Archives FRANCIS THOMPSON CONTENTS

MANUSCRIPTS FRANCIS THOMPSON AMPHICYPELLON. Wrought and upbrimmed for Two Sisters. With an inscription. Manuscripts Page 1 Seventy-four exercise book sheets. Letters Page 6 A fair copy, written in ink, with a small number of correc­ Collected Editions tions. There are also several verses in the manuscript which Page 8 were omitted from the published version. Poems - Editions Page 8 This poem was probably composed during 1890. It was first printed for private circulation as Songs wing to wing: an Poems - Individual works - Page 13 offering to two sisters, and then immediately published as Sister songs. Poems - Published in other works Page 15 Prose Works For Thompson's reasons for his choice of title and the sub­ Page 16 sequent change in title, see two of his letters to . Periodical Literature Page 19 BODY AND SPRITE Reviews and Criticisms Page 22 Two exericse-bobk sheets. Miscellanea Page 62 Three eight-line stanzas. Biographies and Criticisms - Books - Page 63 Biographies and Criticisms Appeared in Health and holiness, an essay published in 1905. - Periodicals Page 67 Thompson wrote: "A poet I know "has put, after his own fas­ 11 Bibliographies hion, the caBe between body and spirit, followed by the Page 72 text of the poem. Wilfrid Meynell has added a note in the Collected edition of 1913, stating "The verses are Thompson1 own." Page 75 CARMEN GENESIS WILFRID MEYHELL Page 74 Six exercise-book sheets. EVERARD MEYNELL Page 75 Seventeen six-line stanzas Page 75 First published In The Dublin Review for October, 1910.

This manuscript was presented by Wilfrid Meynell, at the suggestion of John Thomson, to the town in which Thompson was born. CECIL RHODES

Eight exercise-book sheets. Pour foolscap sheets (1 blank). One hundred and thirty lines, written in ink, except sheet Fifteen four-line stanzas. six which has been written in pencil and partly written over in ink. The verso of sheet six bears a pencil copy First published in Merry for March, 1890, and sub­ of the lines appearing on sheet seven, and the first line

of sheet eight. sequently in The child set in the midst, by Modern Poets. 1892 and then in Poems, 1893.

This ode, produced in less than three days at the request This poem was written in 1889 at the Premonstratensian

of the editor, Mr. Lewis Hind, was printed in The Academy Monastery of the Franciscans at Storrington on the Sussex for April 12th, 1902. Downs. The "Daisy" of the poem was a Storrington child. COMMONPLACE BOOK This manuscript is a clean copy and has only slight dif­ ferences in punctuation from the published version. Thirty-one leaves and covers, containing transcriptions of poems and cuttings of printed works. A DEAD ASTRONOMER The cover contains part of an essay on cricket in which he bemoans the deplorable standard of the players of the day One exercise-book sheet. compared with the team of his early days. Thirteen lines in two stanzas. COMMONPLACE BOOK A clean copy written in ink. Unbound exercise-book of thirty-two leaves in which the Father Perry died in December 1889 during an astronomical poet has copied poemB which interested him. expedition and tributes to him had appeared in the Press.

Among the poets copied are Donne, Cowley, Suckling, Greene and S out hey. This poem was published in Merry England for April 1890 and subsequently in New Poems, 1897. CRICKET NOTES AND VERSES "DIES IRAE, DIES ILLA" (July 16 '98: Mote Park and Old Trafford) Six leaves of an exercise-book.

.. Three pages contain part of an essay on cricket in which One' exercise-book sheet. he deals with the development of the "prepared" wicket compared with the "rough unhandled" fields of the early Two four-line and two eight-line stanzas. days of the game, and claims that "W.G." and VRanji" were no better than many of their predecessors, but had An unpublished cricket poem. a ^billiard-table" wicket on which to develop new strokes and run up enormous scores. THE HERETICS TRAGEDY

The remaining pageB contain a rough draft of the "Rime o 1 Four exercise-book leaves in exercise-book covers bat of 0 my-sky-'em" and other verses on cricket. Ten eight-line stanzas. One page contains some notes for Thompson^ prose work on A transcript, in an early hand, of Browning'e po St. Ignatius Loyola. " \$mSSmK£&$ THE INTOXICATION OP GENIUS RIME 0' BAT OP 0 MY-SKY-'EM. One exercise-book sheet. Six exercise-book leaves. A juvenile diversion by Thompson, with a letter from Wil­ frid Meynell testifying to the "undoubted genuineness of Eighteen four-line stanzas. the drawing. In freakish moments, few and far between, Thompson thus disported himself with his pen." First published in The Cornhill Magazine for July, 1908 in an article by E. V. Lucas Francis Thompson's cricket verses. MIDDLESEX v. YORKSHIRE, May 28-31, 1899. Lucas wrote "The piece is a tour de force, an imitation of Fitzgerald's Omar." 1. Two exercise-book sheets. SHELLEY Seventy-one lines in couplets. Eight exercise-book sheets. 2. Exercise-book of ten leaves containing pencil draft and unpublished lines of this poem. These leaves largely contain introductory comments on the attitude of the to poetry, and the omie­ This exercise-book also contains some two pages of other sion of poetry from the curriculum of catholic schools. poetry and part of an essay on the "modern child" and its The greater part of this introduction was omitted from disbelief in fairy tales. the published version of this famous essay.

E. V. Lucas wrote of this poem "It was never intended for It first appeard in The Dublin Review for July 1908, and print: it was merely a versified memorandum for the wri­ in book form a year later. ter's own amusement." SISTER SONGS OP HER AURA See AMPHICYPELLON. One exercise-book sheet. TO M.M.M. A sonnet (number V) in the sequence "Ad amicam," written for Katherine D. King, and published (in a slightly dif­ Three exercise-book sheets. ferent text) in Works, 1913, Vol. II, p. 175. Pourty-four lines in four 6tanzas. Por the text of other unpublished poems inspired by Miss King, see Appendix C (pp. 692-696) of M. Danchin's "Fran­ A clean copy, written in ink and signed. cis Thompson: la vie et 1'oeuvre d'un poete." The poem was published as To Monica: after nine years in PROLOGUE: THE SINGER.SAITH OP HIS SONG -The Monthly Review for August, 1901. . .

Pour exercise-book sheets. TOM 0'BEDLAM'S SONG (Written round selected stanzas from the well-known song in Wit and Drol Fifteen four-line stanzas. lery, extracted in Disraeli's Curro sities of Literature). Three only of the stanzas have been published, (the first

"dtta^Ahlittpeh^h) in Works, 1913, Vol. II, p. 228. jFpj^^leayef, of "typescript., ..5 .

Eight ten-line stanzas. There is an endorsement by Thompson at the foot of the Thompson tells how he was introduced to Miss Tynan's first leaf: "Note. - the italicised portions are those poetry through a copy of Merry England, which he pur­ belonging to the original poem." the word "Ital" has chased for twopence at a time when he was "struggling been written against the first half of stanza one and for mere existence, and a penny spent on aught but the the whole of three and four. necessities of life was a plank withdrawn between me and starvation." The poet closes with an apology for Printed in The Dome for May, 1898 but not subsequently his absentmindedness. He had forgotten that, he had reprinted. . recently changed his lodgings and had written his add­ ress as 31 Elgin Avenue, Paddington, before altering i t to 1 Fernhead Road, Paddington, E.

LETTERS FRANCIS THOMPSON TO WILFRID MEYNELL. Not dated.

A single page letter with no address. FRANCIS THOMPSON TO JOHN LANE. Not dated. Refers to an unidentified poem, about which Thompson A one-page letter written from Pantasaph, N. , pro­ says somewhat poignantly "if intensity of labour could bably dated 1893. It states that his poems are enclosed make it good, good i t would be" and goes on "one way and apologises for the delay. The poems are probably or the other it will be an effectual test." those for his first volume, published in 1893. FRANCIS THOMPSON TO WILFRID MEYNELL. Not dated. . FRANCIS THOMPSON TO JOHN LANE. Not dated. A six-page letter, written from 31 Elgin Avenue. A four-page letter, again from Pantasaph, N. Wales, but from Ivy Cottage instead of Bishop House. This letter was sent with the manuscript of Sister

The letter is sent with "the First Part of my poem; in Songs. which I have made al l the alterations I want." Thompson discusses the poem and Mr. Blackburn's opinion He says that Wilfrid Meynell has the Second Part,- to of it, and goes on to give his reasons for his choice which he desires three changes to be made. This probably of title, Amphicypellon. refers to Sister Songs, which is in two parts and was published by John Lane in 1895. FRANCIS THOMPSON TO WILFRID MEYNELL. Not dated. A three-page letter, written from Pantasaph. FRANCIS THOMPSON TO July 15, 1892. Thompson agrees to the change in title from tophicyp el ; Ion to Sister songs, but insists on retaining "An ofi'e Ah eight-page letter in which Thompson thanks Miss Tynan for favourable notices on hie Cardinal Manning and... The ing to two sisters." Making of Viola verses. FRANCIS THOMPSON TO WILFRID MEYNELL. Not dated. He^goee oe-tb discuss his choice of metre and tells how A single-page letter dated Wednes-- ly on printed station

he-has tried to employ ah early alliterative metre of, ery "2 Whitehall Gardens, S.W." pre-Elizabethan days. He acknowledges the beautiful effect achieved by Miss Tynan and Swinburne, but alleges Thompson mentions a proposed yisj that George Meredit.h;ha6 mis-construed its object an article on De Quincey. He reva "thereby stereotyped It in the most obvious and mechani­ English opium-eater under.the ti* cal fashion." ality In The Academy for 29 Apri Corrected Page proof of the poems "Above & Below". A Garden Scene and Far Niente.

^Autograph letter, signed, to Wilfred Meynell. 4 leaves * 2 double leaves. Not dated, from 28 Elgin Avenue. [c.1900].

A letter written in the depths of despair and poverty in which F.T. speaks of his intended parting from the Meynells so as no longer to be a burden to them.

Poem "Song of the Hours". Culled from Merry England, January 1890. Corrected and partly revised by F.T.