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DONNE, John (1573-1631). Contemporary manuscript collection of poetry and prose, INCLUDING FIVE ELEGIES and the "Lecture Upon the Shaddowe"; the prose segment containing seven Problems, "An Essay on Valour," "The True Character of a Dunce," plus suppressed lines to Problem I, comprising two gatherings of inserted leaves bound following, respectively, exampla of Donne's Poems, 1633 and Juvenilia, 1633. Written in a single clear, cursive English italic hand, ca.1630-1633.
4o (185 x 136 mm). Two gatherings: 18 pp. (poetry), 5 blank ll.; 18 pp. (prose), 3 blank ll. In ink on paper, the margins of each page neatly ruled in pale ink, generally containing 24-27 lines per page. The paper of uniform stock, with indistinct "Post or Pillar" watermark (type of Heawood 3485 to 3535, nearly all in English use, first quarter of the seventeenth century).
A HIGHLY IMPORTANT VOLUME OF DONNE'S POETRY AND PROSE CONTAINING CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT SOURCES OF WORKS OMITTED FROM THE 1633 COLLECTED EDITIONS. ONE OF THE LAST DONNE SOURCES IN PRIVATE HANDS
A remarkable sammelband containing the first editions of Donne's Poems and Juvenilia (both with corrections and emendations in a contemporary hand), each followed by a manuscript gathering of texts omitted from those editions. The Berland sammelband constitutes one of the last manuscript sources for Donne remaining in private hands. (Virtually no autograph literary manuscripts of this seminal poet are extant, with the exception of two brief Latin epigrams written in books and a single autograph poem discovered in 1970 and now in the Bodleian Library.) Most of Donne's verse and much of his freer prose works, deemed unsuitable for publication during his lifetime, circulated widely in manuscript prior to the posthumous collected editions. The extensive manuscript sources (divided into several groups according to completeness and relative authority), are inventoried in the Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne, ed. G. Stringer et al, vol. 1. For additional information on the contents and textual significance of the Berland manuscript see John T. Shawcross, "Notes on an Important Volume of Donne's Poetry and Prose," in John Donne Journal, 9:2 (1990), pp.137-139.
MANUSCRIPT VERSE: The 12-page manuscript supplement after Poems includes the following:
1. Elegy 1 [XVII] Love's Progress ("Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love...")
2. Elegy 2 [XVI] [On his Mistris] ("By our first strange and fatall interview, By all desires which hereof did ensue,...")
3. Elegy 3 [XI] [The Bracelet] ("Not that in colour it was like thy haire, Armlets of that thou mayst still lett mee weare...")
4. Elegy 4 [XX] [Love's Warre] ("Till I have peace with thee warre other men, And when I have peace, can I leave thee then?...") 5. Elegy 5 [XIX] [To His Mistris Going to Bed] ("Come, Madame come, all rest my powers defye, Untill I labour I in labour lye....")
6. Lecture Upon a Shadow. ("Stand still, and I will reade to thee A lecture Love in Love's Philosophie....")
These added lyrics, all attributed with certainty to Donne, comprise elegies omitted from the 1633 collected edition although they were likely present in the manuscript used as copy-text for that collection. Shawcross notes that the "Lecture," included in all Group I manuscripts, is likely to have been inadvertantly omitted from the 1633 edition, and points out that the texts in the Berland manuscript have affinities with those in the Stephens Ms. in Harvard College Library (Ms. Eng. 966/6), a source which also includes non-canonical poems not present here. The Berland manuscript shows a number of differences in punctuation and significant textual variants, one occurring in the first couplet of Elegy XVI, which here reads "straung" rather than the "strange" reading found in most sources, and now generally accepted. Other differences are noted in the variorum edition.
MANUSCRIPT PROSE: The 18-page additions to Donne's Juvenilia comprises the following:
1. Problem XI. Why doth the Poxe soe much affect to undermine the nose?
2. Problem XII. Why dye none for Love now?
3. Problem XIII. Why doe women delight much in feathers?
4. Problem XIV. Why doth not Gold soyle the fingers?
5. Problem XV. Why doe Great men, of all Dependants, chuse to preserve Bawdes?
6. Problem XVI. Why are Courtiers sooner Athiests, then men of other Conditions?
7. Problem XVII. Why are Statesmen most incredulous?
8. [Problem I. Why have Bastards best fortune?] A section of text "wanting in the first printed Probleme," as published in 1633. 9. The true Character of a Dunce
10. An Essay of Valour.
These works were all added to the 1652 third edition of the Juvenilia (Keynes 45) and Shawcross speculates that this manuscript "may have been...the copy-text used for 1652 or related to the manuscript that became a source." Additionally, the Berland sammelband is significant for its inclusions and exclusions, which may provide indications for the authorative determination of which works are canonical and which dubious or non-canonical. Shawcross argues that "surely the canonicity of the alterations to the [printed] exempla and of the poems and the problems in the two manuscript gatherings point to canonicity for "The True Character of a Dunce," and "An Essay of Valour" (the canonicity of both of which has been questioned).
[Bound with:]
DONNE, John (1573-1631). Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death. London: M.F. for John Marriot, 1633.
4o. Final blank 3F4 present. (Lacking preliminary blank A1, without the extra inserted leaves containing "The Printer to the Understanders" and "Hexastichon Bibliopolae," small rust stains to title verso and a few other pages, slight browning to last few quires.) Contemporary speckled calf, covers blindruled, edges sprinkled red (neatly rebacked, rear hinge loosening). Quarter brown morocco slipcase. Provenance: Donne's name identified in ink on title-page by an early owner -- Four-line verse epigram on Donne by John Brown (1715-1766) neatly penned on A4v, manuscript additions in an early hand on a number of pages (see below) -- Dean and Chapter's Library, Norwich Cathedral (ink inscription in upper margin "Eccl. Cathedr. Norwi.M.91," 18th-century engraved bookplate on titlepage verso -- purchased from John F. Fleming, New York, 22 January 1970. Exhibited: Grolier Club, John Donne, 1572-1631, 1972, no. 25 (prose addition only noted); Grolier Club, 'This powerfull rime," 1975, no. 11.
FIRST EDITION of the principal collection of Donne's poetical works, issued two years after his death. The volume is also notable for containing the first appearance of several celebrated elegies on Donne, that by Izaak Walton ("Is Donne, great Donne deceas'd?..."), and Thomas Carew's famous elegy commencing "Can we not force from widdowed Poetry Now thou art dead (Great Donne) one Elegie To crowne thy Hearse?..." which concludes with the famous epitaph "Here lies a King, that rul'd as he thought fit The universal monarchy of wit..." This copy with sheet Nn1r in its earlier uncorrected state (running head omitted to accomodate 35 lines of verse). WITH TEXTUAL EMENDATIONS AND CORRECTIONS IN A CONTEMPORARY HAND in nine of the poems and WITH SUPPRESSED TEXT RESTORED in Satires II and IV (two words: "dildoes," and "letanie" added on 2V1v, four lines restored on 2V2 in Satyr II, three lines on Xx3r of Satyr IV). Grolier Donne, 81; Grolier English, 25; Hayward 54; Keynes 78; STC 7054.
[Bound with:]
DONNE, John. Juvenilia: or Certaine Paradoxes, and Problemes. London: Printed by E.P. for Henry Seyle, 1633.
4o. Woodcut printer's device on title. (Lacking preliminary blank A1.) WITH EMENDATIONS AND CORRECTIONS TO THE TEXT in a contemporary hand in ink in some 52 places.
FIRST EDITION, containing 11 of Donne's paradoxes and 10 of his problems, brief essays, "nothings," as Donne termed them, which "carry with them a confession of their lightness." They were composed, wrote the author in a letter to Henry Wotton, "rather to deceave tyme then her daughter truth." The collection, expanded in later editions, is usually bound with the Poems of the same year. In this copy F1v and H4v are blank; in some copies Henry Seyle's brief printer's license is added (Keynes records copies with both, either and neither licenses present.) Grolier Donne 26; Keynes 43; STC 7043.
4o (185 x 136 mm). Two gatherings: 18 pp. (poetry), 5 blank ll.; 18 pp. (prose), 3 blank ll. In ink on paper, the margins of each page neatly ruled in pale ink, generally containing 24-27 lines per page. The paper of uniform stock, with indistinct "Post or Pillar" watermark (type of Heawood 3485 to 3535, nearly all in English use, first quarter of the seventeenth century).
A HIGHLY IMPORTANT VOLUME OF DONNE'S POETRY AND PROSE CONTAINING CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT SOURCES OF WORKS OMITTED FROM THE 1633 COLLECTED EDITIONS. ONE OF THE LAST DONNE SOURCES IN PRIVATE HANDS
A remarkable sammelband containing the first editions of Donne's Poems and Juvenilia (both with corrections and emendations in a contemporary hand), each followed by a manuscript gathering of texts omitted from those editions. The Berland sammelband constitutes one of the last manuscript sources for Donne remaining in private hands. (Virtually no autograph literary manuscripts of this seminal poet are extant, with the exception of two brief Latin epigrams written in books and a single autograph poem discovered in 1970 and now in the Bodleian Library.) Most of Donne's verse and much of his freer prose works, deemed unsuitable for publication during his lifetime, circulated widely in manuscript prior to the posthumous collected editions. The extensive manuscript sources (divided into several groups according to completeness and relative authority), are inventoried in the Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne, ed. G. Stringer et al, vol. 1. For additional information on the contents and textual significance of the Berland manuscript see John T. Shawcross, "Notes on an Important Volume of Donne's Poetry and Prose," in John Donne Journal, 9:2 (1990), pp.137-139.
MANUSCRIPT VERSE: The 12-page manuscript supplement after Poems includes the following:
1. Elegy 1 [XVII] Love's Progress ("Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love...")
2. Elegy 2 [XVI] [On his Mistris] ("By our first strange and fatall interview, By all desires which hereof did ensue,...")
3. Elegy 3 [XI] [The Bracelet] ("Not that in colour it was like thy haire, Armlets of that thou mayst still lett mee weare...")
4. Elegy 4 [XX] [Love's Warre] ("Till I have peace with thee warre other men, And when I have peace, can I leave thee then?...") 5. Elegy 5 [XIX] [To His Mistris Going to Bed] ("Come, Madame come, all rest my powers defye, Untill I labour I in labour lye....")
6. Lecture Upon a Shadow. ("Stand still, and I will reade to thee A lecture Love in Love's Philosophie....")
These added lyrics, all attributed with certainty to Donne, comprise elegies omitted from the 1633 collected edition although they were likely present in the manuscript used as copy-text for that collection. Shawcross notes that the "Lecture," included in all Group I manuscripts, is likely to have been inadvertantly omitted from the 1633 edition, and points out that the texts in the Berland manuscript have affinities with those in the Stephens Ms. in Harvard College Library (Ms. Eng. 966/6), a source which also includes non-canonical poems not present here. The Berland manuscript shows a number of differences in punctuation and significant textual variants, one occurring in the first couplet of Elegy XVI, which here reads "straung" rather than the "strange" reading found in most sources, and now generally accepted. Other differences are noted in the variorum edition.
MANUSCRIPT PROSE: The 18-page additions to Donne's Juvenilia comprises the following:
1. Problem XI. Why doth the Poxe soe much affect to undermine the nose?
2. Problem XII. Why dye none for Love now?
3. Problem XIII. Why doe women delight much in feathers?
4. Problem XIV. Why doth not Gold soyle the fingers?
5. Problem XV. Why doe Great men, of all Dependants, chuse to preserve Bawdes?
6. Problem XVI. Why are Courtiers sooner Athiests, then men of other Conditions?
7. Problem XVII. Why are Statesmen most incredulous?
8. [Problem I. Why have Bastards best fortune?] A section of text "wanting in the first printed Probleme," as published in 1633. 9. The true Character of a Dunce
10. An Essay of Valour.
These works were all added to the 1652 third edition of the Juvenilia (Keynes 45) and Shawcross speculates that this manuscript "may have been...the copy-text used for 1652 or related to the manuscript that became a source." Additionally, the Berland sammelband is significant for its inclusions and exclusions, which may provide indications for the authorative determination of which works are canonical and which dubious or non-canonical. Shawcross argues that "surely the canonicity of the alterations to the [printed] exempla and of the poems and the problems in the two manuscript gatherings point to canonicity for "The True Character of a Dunce," and "An Essay of Valour" (the canonicity of both of which has been questioned).
[Bound with:]
DONNE, John (1573-1631). Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death. London: M.F. for John Marriot, 1633.
4o. Final blank 3F4 present. (Lacking preliminary blank A1, without the extra inserted leaves containing "The Printer to the Understanders" and "Hexastichon Bibliopolae," small rust stains to title verso and a few other pages, slight browning to last few quires.) Contemporary speckled calf, covers blindruled, edges sprinkled red (neatly rebacked, rear hinge loosening). Quarter brown morocco slipcase. Provenance: Donne's name identified in ink on title-page by an early owner -- Four-line verse epigram on Donne by John Brown (1715-1766) neatly penned on A4v, manuscript additions in an early hand on a number of pages (see below) -- Dean and Chapter's Library, Norwich Cathedral (ink inscription in upper margin "Eccl. Cathedr. Norwi.M.91," 18th-century engraved bookplate on titlepage verso -- purchased from John F. Fleming, New York, 22 January 1970. Exhibited: Grolier Club, John Donne, 1572-1631, 1972, no. 25 (prose addition only noted); Grolier Club, 'This powerfull rime," 1975, no. 11.
FIRST EDITION of the principal collection of Donne's poetical works, issued two years after his death. The volume is also notable for containing the first appearance of several celebrated elegies on Donne, that by Izaak Walton ("Is Donne, great Donne deceas'd?..."), and Thomas Carew's famous elegy commencing "Can we not force from widdowed Poetry Now thou art dead (Great Donne) one Elegie To crowne thy Hearse?..." which concludes with the famous epitaph "Here lies a King, that rul'd as he thought fit The universal monarchy of wit..." This copy with sheet Nn1r in its earlier uncorrected state (running head omitted to accomodate 35 lines of verse). WITH TEXTUAL EMENDATIONS AND CORRECTIONS IN A CONTEMPORARY HAND in nine of the poems and WITH SUPPRESSED TEXT RESTORED in Satires II and IV (two words: "dildoes," and "letanie" added on 2V1v, four lines restored on 2V2 in Satyr II, three lines on Xx3r of Satyr IV). Grolier Donne, 81; Grolier English, 25; Hayward 54; Keynes 78; STC 7054.
[Bound with:]
DONNE, John. Juvenilia: or Certaine Paradoxes, and Problemes. London: Printed by E.P. for Henry Seyle, 1633.
4o. Woodcut printer's device on title. (Lacking preliminary blank A1.) WITH EMENDATIONS AND CORRECTIONS TO THE TEXT in a contemporary hand in ink in some 52 places.
FIRST EDITION, containing 11 of Donne's paradoxes and 10 of his problems, brief essays, "nothings," as Donne termed them, which "carry with them a confession of their lightness." They were composed, wrote the author in a letter to Henry Wotton, "rather to deceave tyme then her daughter truth." The collection, expanded in later editions, is usually bound with the Poems of the same year. In this copy F1v and H4v are blank; in some copies Henry Seyle's brief printer's license is added (Keynes records copies with both, either and neither licenses present.) Grolier Donne 26; Keynes 43; STC 7043.