Abstract
Tennyson disapproved of many of the illustrated editions of his work and distanced himself from gift books. Edward Moxon had worked with many of the individuals who developed the Victorian gift book but repeatedly failed to generate commercial success through illustrated editions. Tennyson authorised a series of illustrated publications beyond the Moxon firm. Edward Moxon saw illustrated editions as a way of claiming a larger percentage of the profit, but his illustrated edition of the 1842 Poems was a commercial failure due to its high price and poor timing. Moxon’s early death in 1858 precipitated the disintegration of the relationship between poet and publisher. The Moxon company was effectively left without a manager and Tennyson’s aggressive renegotiation of his arrangement with the publisher led to conflict.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Alfred Tennyson, The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson, ed. by Cecil Y. Lang and Edgar F. Shannon Jr. 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982–1990), II, p. 456 (Tennyson 1982–1990).
- 2.
- 3.
Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing, p. 68.
- 4.
Peter Mandler, ‘Hall, Samuel Carter (1800–1889)’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online] http://www.oxforddnb.com/article/11987 [accessed 10 December 2015].
- 5.
Letters of Tennyson, I, p. 63.
- 6.
Letters of Tennyson, I, p. 155; The Book of Gems. The Modern Poets and Artists of Great Britain ed. by S. C. Hall (London: Whitaker, 1838), p. 274.
- 7.
National Portrait Gallery, ‘Napoléon Bonaparte by Benjamin Robert Haydon’ [online] http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw04614/Napolon-Bonaparte [accessed 11 April 2015].
- 8.
Tennyson did not authorise reprinting until 1872 under the title ‘Juvenilia’ Poems of Tennyson, ed. by Ricks, I, p. 385.
- 9.
The Book of Gems comprises three related volumes, volume one covering the middle ages to the mid-seventeenth century, volume two the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and volume 3 the nineteenth century, see The Book of Gems. The Poets and Artists of Great Britain ed. by S. C. Hall (London: Saunders and Otley, 1836); The Book of Gems the Poets and Artists of Great Britain ed. by S. C. Hall (London: Saunders and Otley, 1837).
- 10.
‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum, 1209 (1850), 1363, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 9 February 2016]; Illustrations to Alfred Tennyson’s Poem The Princess by Mrs S. C. Lees (London: Dickinson Bros, c. 1850), TRC/W/4355.
- 11.
The cover of the book measures 55.6 × 36.5 cm.
- 12.
Thomas Deloney, The Spanish Ladye’s Love illustrated by Lady Dalmeny (London: Dickinson, 1846) see British Library C.20.f.1.
- 13.
‘Illustrations to Alfred Tennyson’s Poem “the Princess”’, The Athenaeum, 1209 (28 December 1850), 1383, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 10 February 2016]. For the outline style see Colin Cruise, Pre-Raphaelite Drawing (London: Thames and Hudson, 2012).
- 14.
Art Journal 13 (1851), p. 67.
- 15.
Art Journal 13 (1851), p. 67.
- 16.
‘Advertisement’, Examiner, 1841 (13 May 1843), p. 304.
- 17.
Shannon R. McBriar, ‘Dickinson, Lowes Cato (1819–1908)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online] http://www.oxforddnb.com/article/32818 [accessed 14 December 2015].
- 18.
In August 1892 Dickinson was staying at Blackdown Home Farm, Lurgashall near Aldworth. He wrote to Tennyson asking if he might call and explain who he was: ‘I can hardly hope you will remember me – for many years have passed away since as a modest occasional visitor to little Holland House I had sometimes the honour and great pleasure of meeting you.’ (TRC/LETTERS/6389). Tennyson is known to have been at Little Holland House in 1858–1859, this may be the period to which Dickinson referred. Dickinson wrote to Hallam Tennyson, consoling him about Lionel Tennyson’s death in 1886 (TRC/LETTERS/3639). A pencil portrait of Tennyson signed ‘LDC’ in the Tennyson Research Centre has the dedication ‘To Lady Tennyson in memory of days at Aldworth Augt and Sept 1892 Lowes Dickinson’ the portrait is based on Mayall’s 1864 photograph and would appear to have been created soon after Tennyson’s death in October 1892, see TRC/Images/5579. Another watercolour of Lurgashall Church, painted by Dickinson at the same date was also given to Emily Tennyson (TRC/Images/5580).
- 19.
H. W. Longfellow, Voices of the Night. With illustrations by a Lady (London: Dickinson Bros, 1850). The only copy in a UK research library appears to be in the National Art Library at the V&A pressmark 34.F.139.
- 20.
Illustrations from Tennyson Drawn on Stone and inscribed by her gracious permission to her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester by her obedient servant Maria Adelaide Marsh (1853) TRC/W/3731.
- 21.
The Lady of Shalott illustrated by A Lady (1852) TRC/W/4039. The Midland Institute for the Blind was founded in 1843 and moved into a new building in 1852: this book seems to have been part of the effort to raise funds for the new building, see Nottinghamshire Archives Worldwide Catalogue, DD/2648 [online] http://nawcat.nottinghamshire.gov.uk [accessed 12 April 2016].
- 22.
Jim Cheshire, ‘The Post-Medieval Period’, in Stained Glass of Lincoln Cathedral (London: Scala, 2012) pp. 48–81 (p. 50–2).
- 23.
‘St Annes Bedehouses, Lincoln’ [online] http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-486220-st-annes-bedehouses-lincolnshire [accessed 15 April 2016].
- 24.
A. Tennyson, Dora illustrated by Mrs Paulet St. John Mildmay (London: Vernon, 1856); In Honorem. Songs of the Brave Poems and Odes by Campbell, Wolfe, Collins, Byron, Tennyson and Mackay (London: Sampson Low & Son, 1856); The Poets of the Nineteenth Century, ed. by R. A. Willmott (London: Routledge, 1857); Alfred Tennyson, The May Queen. Illuminated by W. H. Hartley (London: Day and Sons, 1861); Alfred Tennyson, The May Queen, illustrated by E.V.B (London: Sampson Low, 1861).
- 25.
Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing, p. 11.
- 26.
Poems and Pictures: A Collection of Ballads, Songs, and Other Poems Illustrated by English Artists (London: James Burns, 1846).
- 27.
William Wordsworth, Select Pieces from the Poems of William Wordsworth (London: James Burnes, c. 1843); Brian Alderson, ‘Some notes on James Burns as a Publisher of Children’s Books’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 76.3 (1994), 103–26 (p. 117).
- 28.
In 1847 Burns converted to Roman Catholicism and subsequently sold many of his copyrights: see John Buchanan-Brown, Early Victorian Illustrated Books (London: British Library and Oak Knoll, 2005), p. 135.
- 29.
Buchanan-Brown, Early Victorian Illustrated Books, pp. 131–2.
- 30.
Moxon originally listed the book at 6s 6d but the price was lowered slightly in about 1857 to 6s, see ‘A List of Books Published by Edward Moxon, Dover Street (London: Moxon, September 1857), p. 5.
- 31.
TRC/LETTERS/7901.
- 32.
Thomas Hood, Hood’s Own, or Laughter from Year to Year (London: Moxon, 1846).
- 33.
Advertised in ‘A List of Books Published by Edward Moxon, Dover Street’ (London: Moxon, August 1855), p. 3.
- 34.
John Keats, The Poetical Works of John Keats with a Memoir by Richard Monkton Milnes illustrated by 120 designs original and from the antique drawn on wood by George Scharf (London: Moxon, 1854).
- 35.
Peter Jackson, ‘Scharf, Sir George (1820–1895)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online] http://www.oxforddnb.com/article/24796 [accessed 10 July 2015].
- 36.
Austen Henry Layard, Nineveh and its Remains (London: Murray, 1849); Thomas Babbington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome with illustrations from the original and from the antique drawn on wood by George Scharf (London: Longman, 1847).
- 37.
Jackson, ‘Scarf, Sir George’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- 38.
‘Advertisement’ Examiner, 2038 (20 February 1847), 127; ‘Advertisement’, The Reader 5, 116 (18 March 1865), 304.
- 39.
‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum, 1371 (4 February 1854), 159, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 24 February 2016]; ‘A List of Books Published by Edward Moxon, Dover Street’ (London: Moxon, March 1856).
- 40.
TRC/LETTERS/7868.
- 41.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 210.
- 42.
TRC/LETTERS/7869.
- 43.
Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing, pp. 40–64; Julia Thomas, ‘“Always another poem”: Victorian Illustrations of Tennyson’, Tennyson Transformed: Alfred Lord Tennyson and Visual Culture, ed. by Jim Cheshire (London: Lund Humphries, 2009), pp. 20–31 (Thomas 2009).
- 44.
Routledge sold the book at 21s from which Tennyson received a royalty of 4s per copy: Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 379 note.
- 45.
Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing, p. 39.
- 46.
William Wordsworth, The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth illustrated by Birket Foster (London: Routledge, 1858), p. iii.
- 47.
TRC/LETTERS/7887.
- 48.
TRC/LETTERS/7873.
- 49.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 203.
- 50.
Anita McConnell, ‘Weld, Charles Richard (1813–1869)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online] http://www.oxforddnb.com/article/28982 [accessed 23 July 2015].
- 51.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 203.
- 52.
TRC/LETTERS/2419.
- 53.
TRC/LETTERS/7339, a letter from Thomas Nettleship to Charles Field contested the claim of Moxon’s trustees, he claimed that they owned unsold copies of Tennyson’s work and confirms that the firm’s share was now just 10 per cent of sales. This letter implies that this agreement had been in place since 1 October 1858.
- 54.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 209.
- 55.
TRC/LETTERS/7874.
- 56.
R. A. Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher: A Study of the Bentley Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 109 (Gettmann 2010).
- 57.
Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing, pp. 193–206. The illustrated The Princess was sold for 16s by Moxon but listed as sold by Routledge ‘reduced to 10s 6d’ in 1861: see The English Catalogue of Books for 1861 (London, 1862), p. 61. The English Catalogue of Books for 1865 (London, 1866), p. 54 lists an 1865 reissue of the illustrated The Princess again by Routledge although the title page of the book still lists Moxon as publisher, this edition was advertised by Routledge in 1865 at 10s 6d: ‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum, 1986 (18 November 1865), p. 674.
Select Bibliography
Gettmann, R. A., A Victorian Publisher: A Study of the Bentley Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Kooistra, Lorraine Janzen, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture 1855–1875 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011).
Tennyson, Alfred, The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson, ed. by Cecil Y. Lang and Edgar F. Shannon Jr. 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982–1990).
Thomas, Julia, ‘Always Another Poem’ Victorian Illustrations of Tennyson’ in Tennyson Transformed Alfred Lord Tennyson and Visual Culture, ed. by Jim Cheshire (London: Lund Humphries, 2009), pp. 20–31.
Thomas, Julia, Pictorial Victorians (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cheshire, J. (2016). Moxon, Tennyson and the Illustrated Book. In: Tennyson and Mid-Victorian Publishing. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-33815-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-33815-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-33814-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-33815-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)