ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882). Autograph manuscript of 'St Agnes of Intercession', corresponding to the first part of the fragment of a part-autobiographical tale published posthumously, n.p., n.d. [1870], the title amended twice, including cancellations and emendations, written on recto (one page revised on facing verso), pencilled annotation on front free endpaper and a 3-line continuation at the end in the hand of William Michael Rossetti on lined paper, 21 pages, 4to (one page removed without loss of text), in a notebook, dark blue limp morocco. THE MANUSCRIPT INCLUDES ROSSETTI'S MEMOIR OF HIS YOUTH AND ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT TO THE TIME WHEN HE FELL IN LOVE WITH MARY ARDEN who sat for his Girlhood of the Virgin Mary , describing the exhibition of the picture [at the Hyde Park Gallery] before his twenty-first birthday, and an encounter there with an unsympathetic critic and poet. It ends with a poem allegedly given to him by the latter, and was used by William Rossetti for the publication of the first part of the unfinished tale (in his edition of The Collected Works (1890), I, 399-427 and 524-525). He used the 'original copy going much farther' for the continuation of the story. William suggests that his brother began work on the tale as early as 1848 or 1849, intending to publish it in The Germ and the title was apparently inspired by a painting in Perugia. In the late 1840s Dante Gabriel was much attracted to Tristram Shandy , of which the 'Motto' on the first page purports to be an excerpt but, as his brother suggests, is his own work. The 'memoir' itself opens with a sketch of their father, and some pages later introduces Mary Arden: 'Among my earliest recollections, none is stronger than that of my father standing before the fire when he came home in the London winter evenings, and singing to us in his sweet generous tones: sometimes ancient English ditties ... sometimes those with which foreign travel had familiarized his youth'. 'She [Mary Arden] had her back to the window, and I could not well see her features at the moment; but I made sure she was very beautiful, from her tranquil body and the way that she held her hands ... I had come in utterly spiritless; but now I fell to and worked well for several hours ... After that, every time I saw her, her beauty seemed to grow on my sight by gazing, as the stars do in water'. The present manuscript appears to be all that survives of the final version of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's unfinished autobiographical tale. An early draft of the material in it (but differing considerably from it) is in Duke University Library, North Carolina (P.F. Baum: Dante Gabriel Rossetti An Analytical List of MSS in the Duke University Library , 1931, p.33).
ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882). Autograph manuscript of 'St Agnes of Intercession', corresponding to the first part of the fragment of a part-autobiographical tale published posthumously, n.p., n.d. [1870], the title amended twice, including cancellations and emendations, written on recto (one page revised on facing verso), pencilled annotation on front free endpaper and a 3-line continuation at the end in the hand of William Michael Rossetti on lined paper, 21 pages, 4to (one page removed without loss of text), in a notebook, dark blue limp morocco. THE MANUSCRIPT INCLUDES ROSSETTI'S MEMOIR OF HIS YOUTH AND ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT TO THE TIME WHEN HE FELL IN LOVE WITH MARY ARDEN who sat for his Girlhood of the Virgin Mary , describing the exhibition of the picture [at the Hyde Park Gallery] before his twenty-first birthday, and an encounter there with an unsympathetic critic and poet. It ends with a poem allegedly given to him by the latter, and was used by William Rossetti for the publication of the first part of the unfinished tale (in his edition of The Collected Works (1890), I, 399-427 and 524-525). He used the 'original copy going much farther' for the continuation of the story. William suggests that his brother began work on the tale as early as 1848 or 1849, intending to publish it in The Germ and the title was apparently inspired by a painting in Perugia. In the late 1840s Dante Gabriel was much attracted to Tristram Shandy , of which the 'Motto' on the first page purports to be an excerpt but, as his brother suggests, is his own work. The 'memoir' itself opens with a sketch of their father, and some pages later introduces Mary Arden: 'Among my earliest recollections, none is stronger than that of my father standing before the fire when he came home in the London winter evenings, and singing to us in his sweet generous tones: sometimes ancient English ditties ... sometimes those with which foreign travel had familiarized his youth'. 'She [Mary Arden] had her back to the window, and I could not well see her features at the moment; but I made sure she was very beautiful, from her tranquil body and the way that she held her hands ... I had come in utterly spiritless; but now I fell to and worked well for several hours ... After that, every time I saw her, her beauty seemed to grow on my sight by gazing, as the stars do in water'. The present manuscript appears to be all that survives of the final version of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's unfinished autobiographical tale. An early draft of the material in it (but differing considerably from it) is in Duke University Library, North Carolina (P.F. Baum: Dante Gabriel Rossetti An Analytical List of MSS in the Duke University Library , 1931, p.33).
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
