Tennyson and His Publishers PDF
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TENNYSON AND HIS PUBLISHERS Frontispiece Alfred Tennyson. From a photograph (circa 1860) by James Mudd of Manchester TENNYSON AND HIS PUBLISHERS June Steffensen Hagen © June Steffensen Hagen 1979 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1St edition 1979 978-0-333-25931-3 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1979 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Hagen, June Steffensen Tennyson and his publishers I. Tennyson, Alfred, Baron Tennyson - Friends and associates 2. Authors and publishers - Great Britain I. Title 821 '.8 PR5583 ISBN 978-1-349-04438-2 ISBN 978-1-349-04436-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04436-8 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions of the Net Book Agreement In memory of my mother, Emma). Steffensen, and for Jim either sex alone Is half itself, and in true marriage lies Nor equal, nor unequal: each folfils Defect in each, and always thought in thought, Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, The single pure and perfect animal, The two-celled heart beating, with one foil stroke, Life. Tennyson, The Princess, VII, .2.83-90 Contents List of Plates viii Preface xi Acknowledgments XIV I Introduction: Tennyson's Early Publishing (I827-3 I) I 2 Persuasive Friends: Moxon, Hallam, FitzGerald (I 8 p- 4I) 2I 3 Heyday for Publisher and Poet Laureate: Edward Moxon (I842-s8) s8 4 Troubled Years with Moxon & Co. (I8S8-68) IOO s Successors: Strahan, King, and Kegan Paul (I869-83) 119 6 Final Choice: Alexander Macmillan (I884-92) IS8 Appendixes: 1 Tennyson Editions I86 II Deed of Agreement, I4 February I879, Between Alfred Tennyson and C. Kegan Paul & Co. I88 Notes I94 Bibliography 2I4 Index 22I vii List of Plates Frontispiece: Alfred Tennyson (Between pp. 128 and 129) 1. Proof page of "Book-making" (later entitled "Poets and their Bibliographers"), showing Tennyson's extensive corrections, revisions and additions 2. Emily Tennyson's handwritten list of semi-yearly income from Idylls of the King, Enoch Arden, and Selections 3· Alfred Tennyson's handwritten letter (I7 April I867) to J. Bertrand Payne, partner in Moxon & Co. 4· "The Lady of Shalott" illustration by Dante Gabriel Rossetti s for the Illustrated Edition of Tennyson's Poems (Moxon, I 8 7) s. Charles Kegan Paul, Tennyson's publisher from I879 to I883. Reproduced from F. A. Mumby, The House ofR outledge, 1834- 1934 (London: Routledge, I934) 6. Alexander Macmillan, Tennyson's publisher from I 884 to I 892. Reproduced in C. L. Graves, Life and Letters of Alexander Macmillan (London: Macmillan, I9IO) 7. Alfred Tennyson 8. Emily Tennyson with sons Hallam and Lionel 9· Aldworth, Tennyson's home in Blackdown, Sussex IO. "Merlin and Vivien" illustration by Julia Margaret Cameron for Idylls of the King (Cabinet Edition, King, I 874). Reproduced by permission of the National Portrait Gallery I 1. Title-page to trial copy of The Holy Grail and Other Poems (Strahan, I 869) I2. The parting of Lancelot and Guinevere. "Guinevere" illus tration by Gustav Dore for the folio edition of Idylls of the King (Moxon & Co., I867). Reproduced by permission of the Mansell Collection I3. Guinevere's last meeting with Arthur. "Guinevere" illustration V111 List of Plates ix by Gustav Dore for the folio edition of Idylls of the King (Moxon & Co., 1867). Reproduced by permission of the Mansell Collection The frontispiece and plates 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and II are from the Tennyson Research Centre Collection and are reproduced by courtesy of Lord Tennyson, the Tennyson Society and Lincolnshire Library Service. Preface Always the artist before the merchant, Alfred Tennyson was often reluctant to put his poems into print. In fact, early in his career only the efforts of persuasive friends such as Arthur Hallam and Edward FitzGerald and the dedication of such a committed poetry publisher as Edward Moxon enabled the poems ever to see publication. It was only after the appearance in I 8 50 of In Memoriam, for which Moxon particularly pressed, that the forty-one-year-old Tennyson felt sure enough of his own work to make such decisions by himself. After this success, he seldom allowed the convictions of others to undermine his own good judgment in the practical details of publication. On the major occasion when Tennyson failed to heed his own instincts about format and yielded to his publisher's wishes, both poet and publisher soon regretted it. Later repercussions from this single miscalculation contributed heavily to Tennyson's breach with the Moxon firm. I speak here of the celebrated Illustrated Edition of Tennyson's Poems published by Edward Moxon in I 857. A decade of difficulty, centering first on this edition and then on others, followed Edward Moxon's death in I858. With Moxon himself Tennyson had a close friendship, which began when both men were just starting their respective careers and which continued into their respective heydays. They dined and smoked and laughed together; they went on holiday together in Switzerland; they knew and cared about each other's wives and children. Only at the end of his life, this time with Alexander Macmillan, who had been a family friend for a full thirty years before finally becoming the aging laureate's publisher, did Tennyson again go beyond the bounds of a cordial, business relationship. With various other publishers - J. and J. Jackson, Effingham Wilson, Alexander Strahan, Henry S. King, Charles Kegan Paul- his dealings were never primarily personal. Tennyson expected his own tastes to be honored in the printing, binding and advertising ofhis poems, with the publishers being given a free hand in matters of distribution, sales, and demands for new xi
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