Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

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Tennyson #6 in our series by Tennyson
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Title: The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson
Author: Tennyson
Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8601]
[Yes, we are more than
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[This file was first posted on July 27,
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Edition: 10
Language: English
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY
POEMS OF TENNYSON ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall, Charles Franks, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE EARLY POEMS
OF
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
EDITED WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION.
COMMENTARIES AND NOTES,
TOGETHER WITH THE VARIOUS READINGS,
A TRANSCRIPT OF THE POEMS TEMPORARILY AND
FINALLY SUPPRESSED
AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY
BY
JOHN CHURTON COLLINS
PREFACE
A Critical edition of Tennyson's poems has long been an acknowledged
want. He has taken his place among the English Classics, and as a
Classic he is, and will be, studied, seriously and minutely, by many
thousands of his countrymen, both in the present generation as well as
in future ages. As in the works of his more illustrious brethren, so in his
trifles will become subjects of curious interest, and assume an
importance of which we have no conception now. Here he will engage
the attention of the antiquary, there of the social historian. Long after
his politics, his ethics, his theology have ceased to be immediately
influential, they will be of immense historical significance. A
consummate artist and a consummate master of our language, the
process by which he achieved results so memorable can never fail to be

of interest, and of absorbing interest, to critical students.
I must, I fear, claim the indulgence due to one who attempts, for the
first time, a critical edition of a text so perplexingly voluminous in
variants as Tennyson's. I can only say that I have spared neither time
nor labour to be accurate and exhaustive. I have myself collated, or
have had collated for me, every edition recorded in the British Museum
Catalogue, and where that has been deficient I have had recourse to
other public libraries, and to the libraries of private friends. I am not
conscious that I have left any variant unrecorded, but I should not like
to assert that this is the case. Tennyson was so restlessly indefatigable
in his corrections that there may lurk, in editions of the poems which I
have not seen, other variants; and it is also possible that, in spite of my
vigilance, some may have escaped me even in the editions which have
been collated, and some may have been made at a date earlier than the
date recorded. But I trust this has not been the case.
Of the Bibliography I can say no more than that I have done my utmost
to make it complete, and that it is very much fuller than any which has
hitherto appeared. That it is exhaustive I dare not promise.
With regard to the Notes and Commentaries, I have spared no pains to
explain everything which seemed to need explanation. There are, I
think, only two points which I have not been able to clear up, namely,
the name of the friend to whom the 'Palace of Art' was addressed, and
the name of the friend to whom the 'Verses after Reading a Life and
Letters' were addressed. I have consulted every one who would be
likely to throw light on the subject, including the poet's surviving sister,
many of his friends, and the present Lord Tennyson, but without
success; so the names, if they were not those of some imaginary person,
appear to be irrecoverable. The Prize Poem, 'Timbuctoo', as well as the
poems which were temporarily or finally suppressed in the volumes
published in 1830 and 1832 have been printed in the Appendix: those
which were subsequently incorporated in his Works, in large type;
those which he never reprinted, in small.
The text here adopted is that of