MS IA is no longer bound as a “thin folio” in “red cloth,” as described by the editors of the Library Edition (Ruskin, Works, 2:530), a binding doubtless similar to the red buckram covering other manuscripts assembled and bound by Alexander Wedderburn after Ruskin’s death. The binding’s loss is not significant in itself, since, as Wedderburn remarks on his still extant title page for MS IA, the collection had “been bound since the publication of the Poems in 1891” (i.e., Poems [1891]), and the compilation appears governed by no detectable rationale, except that they are ordered roughly chronologically.
	The common ties linking these individual manuscripts are that the works are all poems—even the one prose piece, the Translation of Homer’s Iliad, can reasonably be classified as a poem—and that they were bound following publication of Poems (1891) possibly because W. G. Collingwood had either overlooked them altogether or consulted without identifying them. Of these works that he did publish, Collingwood drew on other versions without acknowledgment of those now in MS IA. For example, in his introduction, he quotes “Time: Blank Verse” in its entirety without identifying the source, but variants such as the title and the pronoun in line 22 (see “Time: Blank Verse”: Textual Note) clearly point to MS III as his copy-text. Other works published in Poems (1891) identifiably from sources other than the MS IA versions include. . . .
	It is perplexing why these manuscripts were not included in MS XI, which, when Collingwood prepared his “Preliminary Note on the Original MSS. of the Poems,” consisted only of “an envelope containing loose papers, including poems; fair-copied by the author as presents, chiefly to his father; or copied by others” (Poems [4o, 1891], 1:266; Poems (8o, 1891), 1:268). Some of the MS IA manuscripts likewise are inscribed as fair copies for Ruskin’s father, including “Bosworth Field”; probably the trio “Vesuvius,” “Trafalgar,” and “The Yew” (see Content, e); and the birthday odes. One possibility is that Collingwood had simply overlooked these items among the papers at Brantwood when researching his edition. Meanwhile, in 1889, even prior to the publication of Poems (1891), MS XI had been bound—despite Collingwood’s description of it as an “envelope”—and the items accidentally omitted were in due course gathered up to form MS IA. (Years later, MS XI was rebound to take account of still other omissions; see MS XI: Date; and MS XI: Description).
	Another possibility is that the miscellany in MS IA is not accidental, but reflects some matter of provenance, now unrecoverable. The seemingly appropriate gathering for these items, MS XI, was a gift by Ruskin to Alexander Wedderburn; and Collingwood’s description of MS XI in his “Preliminary Note,” which fails to take account of a binding added since he wrote the note, may indicate, not a failure to revise, but limited access. Other language might be construed as a euphemism for the fact that he knew only what Wedderburn chose to tell him about MS XI: its contents, Collingwood added, “are useful as fixing dates in some cases; e.g., the New Year’s Address, 1827; and as supplying corrections or additions in other instances” (Poems [4o, 1891], 1:266; Poems [8o, 1891], 1:268). (The “New Year’s Address, 1827,” is “The Sun,” which is dated in its MS XI version, and not in MS III, which Collingwood may have used for copy-text.) Similarly, was there some tension concerning ownership and use of the items in MS IA, items that Collingwood appears not to have consulted at all, and that by their nature belonged in MS XI, a collection to which he may have allowed only limited access? The suggestion is entirely speculative. It is noteworthy, however, that in the closing paragraph of the “Preliminary Note, which immediately follows the discussion of MS XI, Collingwood somewhat unnecessarily refers to the “excessively rare” Poems (1850) along with mention of T. J. Wise. It is a reminder that of the atmosphere of the 1890s, rife with jealousies and acquisitiveness of book collectors.
	Whatever the circumstances of its compilation, MS IA was not dignified with the blue morocco treatment given to select juvenilia. Its red buckram must still have been in place when Goodspeed acquired it, since Goodspeed, Catalogue mentions the contents as “mounted and bound in a small folio cloth volume” (p. 20). This description matches that in Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of Manuscripts and Library (1931), item no. II of lot 27 (p. 6), as having been “bound in cloth.” In his 4 November 1942 letter to Chauncey Tinker (see Provenance), Goodspeed refers to a “folder of Ruskin manuscripts,” not a volume, suggesting that the dealer was responsible for disassembling the collection, although he does not indicate whether the binding was removed before or after the fire. Certainly, the items of MS IA were loose when delivered to the library as (or among) “31 sheets of poems,”#FN1# and Goodspeed could not have retained two poems and sent another separately, unless he had first removed the binding. The larger items, whose edges perhaps would have been more exposed to the heat, have since then been encased in clear plastic to protect the seared paper.
	The title page, which Goodspeed attributes to Wedderburn, reads as follows: “Ruskin MS. / Early Poems. / IA / This has been bound since the publication of the Poems in 1891 / and may be added to the list of MS. given there, as IA. / See The Library Edition II.530.” This sheet, as well as the “Contents” page, measures approximately 17.5 by 30 cm., which points to the approximate size of the “small folio volume” described in Goodspeed, Catalogue, although these sheets appear to have been trimmed after they were charred at the edges.
	The title page is followed by Wedderburn’s table of contents, which presents two columns, one of “Contents” and the other of “Sheets” (the following transcription reproduces the original’s erratic punctuation):#FN2#
	Contents.	Sheets
	Very early MSS.  Come on, good horse  &c.	1–3.
	Papa, what’s time, a figure or a sense.	5.
	Bosworth Field.	6.
	Vesuvius; Trafalgar; The Yew.	7-10.
	Death.	11.
	My father’s birthday. 1833.	12.
	Calais &c. (2 items)	13.
	Lille, The Meuse &c	14.
	To his father. Birthday ode 1834.	15.
 	Twelve months all rolling round have past	16.
	Ode to his father 1836.	17.
	Mont Blanc.	18.
	Athens	19.
	A visit to the Hospice of St. Bernard.	20
	A Scythian Banquet Song.	24.25.
	The Broken Chain. (Stanzas 17.26.)	26
	Prose translation of the Iliad i. ii 1–127	28
It is unclear what Wedderburn’s column of numbered  sheets  refers to, or why his enumeration omits 4, 21–23, and 27, since the numbers cannot be reconciled with consistent features of the individual manuscripts. Nor can Wedderburn’s numbers, even subtracting the skipped numbers, be reconciled with Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of Manuscripts and Library (1931), which describes MS IA as containing “24 pp.” One possibility is that Wedderburn was counting sheets on which items were mounted. For example, “Come on good horse” (part of “The Monastery”), mentioned in Goodspeed’s letter to Tinker, is pasted onto a sheet with a watermark partially visible, “[. . .]ETOWGOOD FINE,” the same watermark found in the paper on which “The Constellations: Northern, Some of the Zodiac, and Some of the Southern” is mounted (see Content, a; and Content, b). These papers cannot be proven to have belonged to MS IA as originally bound, since Wedderburn’s title and contents pages are written on quite different paper, watermarked “Judicature Foolscap.” However, this style of mounting is common in the older collections of Ruskin manuscripts, as in MS XI, in which the early small poetry pamphlets are mounted onto larger sheets, which are in turn bound together. Further connecting the mounting sheets for “The Monastery” and “The Constellations: Northern, Some of the Zodiac, and Some of the Southern” with the original MS IA, these papers show evidence of slight charring. It is reasonable to conclude, then, that Wedderburn’s column of numbers refers to mounting sheets but possibly only for the smaller items; in MS XI, for example, larger items were not mounted on sheets but attached directly to binding stubs.
	Other possible discrepancies arise in comparing Wedderburn’s table of contents with the contents of MS IA as listed in the Library Edition. “The Constellations: Northern, Some of the Zodiac, and Some of the Southern,” listed in Ruskin, Works, 2:530, is omitted from Wedderburn’s table of contents, unless this item is comprised among very early MSS.  (see below,  Content ). Wedderburn’s table also fails to mention  The Crystal Hunter  (no. 188), mentioned in the Works list, unless Wedderburn meant to include this ode under the entry  To his father. Birthday ode 1834.  Otherwise, the two lists of contents match, the one in Works being ordered according to what Cook and Wedderburn judged (partly erroneously) to be the items’ dates.
	Somewhat better success may attend comparison of the January 1943 acquisition notice in YULG of  31 sheets of poems  with the numbers of sheets presently extant—but only by stretching the definition of  sheet.  Putting aside Papa whats time  and Bosworth Field,  which Goodspeed held back, and  Hospice,  which he sent separately, thirty sheets can be counted, plus one sixteen-page (or eight-sheet) sewn booklet. If it is credible that a cataloger counted the booklet as one  sheet,  we can refer to at least one benchmark, that the present collection corresponds to what Goodspeed originally sent, when considering the possibility of lost or destroyed items.
	I think it more likely, however, that the YULG count of thirty-one refers, not to physical sheets, but titles of poems—i.e., the notice ought to have read  sheets of 31 poems.  One can arrive at that number by counting the individual titles in Goodspeed,Catalogue, for both MSS IA and X. MS X is recognizable in the YULG notice by the listing of one of its items, a 31 March 1836 verse letter to John James Ruskin (see MS X,  Content,  e). If one discounts this item as listed separately, as well as the poems Goodspeed held back from MS IA, one can imagine a cataloger at Yale using the Goodspeed Catalogue cursorily to check the titles of pieces delivered to Yale. This would still tell us that the present collection largely corresponds to what Goodspeed sent, although it provides no certainty that portions of individual titles--sheets of  The Monastery  and  The Constellations,  items that can be only partially reconciled with the earlier descriptions--may not have been lost or misplaced after, rather than before, the collection arrived at Yale.
	At some point after acquiring MS IA from Goodspeed, Yale enclosed most of MS IA’s original items in a folder labeled  Early Poems IA  but sorted a few other items probably from MS IA into other, separate folders labeled  The Monastery  and  Calais  (see  Content,  a and g, below; neither of these separate folders is listed in the Beinecke’s card catalog, unlike  Early Poems IA  and folders containing other items donated by Goodspeed). All three folders are enclosed in a box labeled  Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 / Miscellaneous Manuscripts,  along with folders devoted to other manuscripts, which are unrelated to MS IA.
	Of these manuscripts in the box that are unrelated to MS IA, some were once included in MS X, a volume that was split up like MS IA and donated by Goodspeed in 1942: nos. 109, 203, 215, 256, and the  Peace Song,  and the  Zodiac Song  (see part 1, MS X). Other folders contain manuscripts also donated by Goodspeed:
The Laws of Fiesole (Goodspeed, Catalogue,  item 95; Sotheby Catalogue 1931, item VII of lot 28; YULG 17, no. 3 [January 1943]: 59; fire damaged, and no longer  bound in blue cloth ).
Review of Lindsay’s Sketches of the Hitory of Christian Art (Goodspeed,Catalogue, item 85; Sotheby Catalogue 1931, item VII of lot 27; YULG 17, no. 3 [January 1943]: 59; fire damaged, and no longer bound in the  red cloth,  of which a fragment is kept in the folder). Listed along with this manuscript in YULG is  Lord Lindsay’s Christian Art, printed ‘reading copy,’ 1847, with manuscript corrections,  a volume now cataloged separately. . . .?
Undated math problem (not listed in Goodspeed,Catalogue, but notated on its folder as a gift of Goodspeed in 1942, and listed in YULG 17, no. 3 [January 1943]: 59; fire damaged).
Lecture V of The Art of England, corrected proofs (neither listed in Goodspeed, Catalogue, nor notated on its folder as a gift of Goodspeed, but charred and mounted on rice-paper stubs like other survivors of his fire; not mentioned in YULG, unless included among other Ruskiniana  donated by Goodspeed in 1944 [YULG 19, no. 2 (October 1944): 34]; not specifically listed in the Sotheby’s catalogs, unless it was included in Sotheby Catalogue 1931, p. 7, lot 30,  Oxford Lectures ).
Roadside Songs of Tuscany, a folder included in the box, although not acquired from Goodspeed but from ?. Goodspeed did donate a Ruskin letter to Francesca Alexander, Brantwood, 23 March 1886 (YULG 19, no. 2 [October 1944]: 34).
Map of Scandinavia, drawn by Ruskin and dated 18 September 1830, included in the box, although not acquired from Goodspeed but from ?.
	When I follow tradition in referring to  MS IA,  it is to be understood that I intend the items as originally bound together under this designation and that these items can presently be found in Yale’s box  Miscellaneous Manuscripts --if not in the particular folder labeled  Early Poems IA.
	#FN1#Yale University Library Gazette 17, no. 3 (January 1943): 59.
	#FN2#In the original, the titles and numbers, which are written in ink, have been checked off in pencil, perhaps by Charles Goodspeed, whose notations are also in pencil. Likewise attributable to Goodspeed may be a penciled gloss “(2 items)” entered next to  Calais.