The
Swinburne Presentation Copy
Rossetti,
Dante Gabriel, POEMS: COPYRIGHT EDITION. WITH A MEMOIR OF THE
AUTHOR BY FRANZ HÜFFER (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1873
[1878]). Revised edition, 16.5 x 12cm (8vo), in publisher's
printed paper wraps, [i-vii] viii-xxvi [xxvii-xxviii], [1] 2-282,
[283-284] pp. w/publ. adverts (dated May 1878) to verso of rear wrap,
all enclosed in a custom-made brick red morocco folding wallet within a
brick red morocco pull-off case w/gilt decorations, title, & raised
bands to spine, made for A. Edward Newton (w/his gilt circled initial
to spine) by "H. Zucker, Phila." (stamped in gilt to the inner
side). Printed by the publisher. Inscribed by the author to
half-title: "To Algernon Swinburne, with all affection, DG Rossetti
1879." Folding wallet & pull-off case Near-Fine (spine &
adjoining rear edge sl. sunned); binding Fair (spine broken, &
wraps soiled w/some loss to corners of fr. wrap); contents
Near-Fine. Rossetti p.19, Fredeman p.92, Fennell p.9. (Inv.
#605) C$3,000
Provenance: Algernon Charles Swinburne from 1879
to 1909; Walter Theodore Watts-Dunton from 1909 to 1916; the Swinburne
library sale, Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, 21 June 1916 (Lot
671). A. Edward Newton, w/his Oak Knoll bookplate (designed by
Charles Grosvenor Osgood, & engr. by "S.L.S.") to half-title; the
Newton library sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, NYC, 29 Oct. 1941 (Lot
143), sold for US$110. Donald & Mary Hyde (later Lady
Eccles), w/their bookplate to verso of fr. wrap; thence in 2003 to the
beneficiary of Lady Eccles's library. Included with this item are
copies of the Swinburne & Newton library sale catalogues.
Swinburne & Rossetti had been close friends for many
years, but by the Spring of 1874 DGR had grown weary of his friend's
deviant behaviour: "As for Swinburne I must say I now view him as the
crowning nuisance of the whole world & have no longer the slightest
toleration for his abominable ways" (DGR to F. Madox Brown, [8 Apr.
1874]; Doughty & Wahl #1470). DGR's anger was short-lived, as
evidenced by his 6 July 1874 letter to Theodore Watts-Dunton: "As to
the Tauchnitz, I should have thought it an impertinence to trouble
Swinburne with a still further form of those out-of-date
productions.... When I have anything worth offering [him], he will be
one of those surest to get it" (ibid #1508). By mid-1878
DGR had reconsidered his assessment that his 1870 poems were
"out-of-date" (perhaps due to the fact that for this issue he made
revisions to "The Blessed Damozel"?): in July he asked F.S. Ellis to
secure a dozen copies from Baron Tauchnitz "for presents," & it
appears that Swinburne received one of the last of the 12 (by the end
of Jan. 1879 DGR was making attempts to secure more copies, but these
finally arrived in Jan. 1880).
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