Chatterton, Thomas

Two volume contemporary manuscript fair copy of twenty-one pieces, the first volume containing "Songe to Ella, Lorde of the Castle of Bristowe," "Mynstrelle's Songe. bie a Manne & Womanne", "Mynstrell's Song, from the Interlude of Ella", "Mynstrell's Songe .. bie Syr Thyboot Gorges", "Another Mynstrelle's Song," "The Tragedy of Ella opens with the following speech of Celmonde", "Another passage from the Tragedy of Ella", "Extract from ... the Tournament", "War song, in the Tournament scene", "extracted from ... a Dream, or Vision [i.e. The Storie of Wyllyam Canynge]", "On Selyness (or Happiness)", "Mr Canyng's Public Day", "Memorandum ... of the late John Browning", "John, second Abbot of St Augustyn's .. onn Kyng Rycharde", "K. Richard's Expedition to the H. Land", "Verses sent by Lidgate ... in return for his song to Ella", and the second volume containing four Eclogues (including "Elinoure and Juga") and "The Bristow Tragedy", each volume with title-page, the second volume with a glossary, contemporary pagination, text mostly on rectos only, modern pencil notes by Juel-Jensen on front endpapers, 73 pages, plus blanks, 4to (247 x 195 mm), dated 1771; slight browning. Contemporary stiff blind-tooled vellum; lightly stained.

Dillon-Lee family, Earls of Lichfield and Viscounts Dillon, of Ditchley Park (small circular library stamp) -- Bent Juel-Jensen, 1922-2006 (purchased at Blackwell's, Oxford, 1949). acquisition: Bernard Quaritch, 2004

Index of English Literary Manuscripts: Volume III 1700-1800, Part I, ed. M.M. Smith (1986), Thomas Chatterton, introduction

"...Only recently has Chatterton begun to assume his rightful and important place in the English literary tradition. In a shockingly brief career he none the less gave voice to an unparalleled range of literary possibility. From the obsessive, lost world of Thomas Rowley to the immediate blood-red savagery of political satire, Thomas Chatterton showed what could be done..." (Nick Groom, Oxford DNB)

A rare contemporary manuscript copy of Chatterton's "Rowley" poems. After Chatterton's death, aged seventeen, the literary world became increasingly fascinated with his remarkable legacy, especially the cache of fifteenth century poems by one Thomas Rowley that he claimed to have uncovered. Chatterton's former collaborators in his native Bristol, William Barrett and George Catcott, soon began to receive enquiries about the poems, and sensed an opportunity. Catcott obtained Chatterton's surviving manuscripts from his mother and produced a number of transcripts of extracts from the "Rowley" canon from late 1770 until 1776, when he sold the originals to a London printer. The largest collection of these transcripts are in Bristol Reference Library, although a few are found in other institutional libraries around the world. The current pair of manuscripts do not appear to be in Catcott's hand but certainly date from this period.This pair of manuscripts is almost certainly the set of copies mentioned by Thomas Warton in the 1782 edition of his Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley as having been in the possession of the 3rd Earl of Lichfield by 1772.