MS Juvenilia C
MS Juvenilia C
Title
MS Juvenilia C
In the bibliography of the Library Edition, section III (“Catalogue of Ruskin MSS.”), subsection B (“Diaries and Note‐books”), the editors list under “Note‐books” a group of manuscripts that they entitle “Juvenilia” (Ruskin, Works, 38:206). They intend the categorical title “Juvenilia” to apply to all the “MSS., containing Poems, Geological Notes, etc., etc.,” comprised by their expanded version of W. G. Collingwoodʼs descriptive bibliography, “Preliminary Note on the Original MSS. of the Poems” in volume 2 of the Library Edition (Ruskin, Works, 2:529–34). The title “Juvenilia” came to be applied in particular, however, to “three small books” that, in the main bibiography in volume 38, the editors note as an addendum to “those [MSS.] there described” in Collingwoodʼs “Preliminary Note” reprinted and expanded in volume 2 (Ruskin, Works, 38:206), these three notebooks being nowhere described. (W. G. Collingwood omitted these three manuscripts from his original “Preliminary Note” presumably because they contained no poetry by Ruskin.)
As a result, the title “Juvenilia” stuck for these three notebooks in particular, as attested by the embossing of this title on the spine of the blue morocco slipcase containing the three notebooks, a slipcase that was constructed at perhaps the same time that the bibliography volume of the Library Edition was being compiled (see below, Location, Provenance). Consequently, the three notebooks came to be listed for sale under the title “Juvenilia” in Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Remaining Library of John Ruskin, 21 (lot 112, no. VI).
I have conventionalized the title “MS Juvenilia C” as referring to the third of the three notebooks, identified by the editors as (c) in their list of “Juvenilia” (Ruskin, Works, 38:206). See also MS Juvenilia A and MS Juvenilia B.
Location
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Formerly, the Beinecke kept the manuscript inside the slipcase “Juvenilia” which, when sold at auction, contained MS Juvenilia C along with MS Juvenilia A and MS Juvenilia B. The slipcase is now preserved separately.
Provenance
See Provenance, Sothebyʼs, 1930.
Description
Red Book, 9.9 × 15.1 cm, 42 leaves, with watermark “1823.”
In Ruskin, Works, 38:206, the editors describe this manuscript as “Early mineralogy, with some notes of travels added to by Ruskinʼs father, and a very neat ‘printed’ copy of Mrs. Hemansʼ ‘The Sound of the Sea.’”
Collation
Ruskin created no title page for the Red Book or for its opening work. Likewise, MS Juvenilia A and MS Juvenilia B lack title pages.
Ruskin evidently planned this Red Book initially to serve as a travel diary for the famiy journey of 1828. Beginning on 1v, he and John James Ruskin laid out the Tour of 1828: Prospective Itinerary, with the boy listing the sights for each stage of the journey, and the father following up and elaborating the list. The planned itinerary takes up 15 2‐page spreads (1v–16r), at the end of which the project runs up against Ruskinʼs transcript of “The Sound of the Sea”, a poem by Mrs. Hemans.
Once the family embarked on the actual journey, Ruskin turned the Red Book upside down and, starting from the opposite end, entered the Tour of 1828: Actual Itinerary. This work took up only a single leaf (42v–42r), since the journey was unexpectedly cut short.
Since Ruskinʼs transcript, “The Sound of the Sea”, is oriented verically along with, and at the end of Tour of 1828: Prospective Itinerary—that is, positioned in the sequence coming from that end of the Red Book, and not upside down coming from the opposite end—the transcript likely belongs to the planning stage of the journey. It is also possible, however, that Ruskin placed the poem at the end of the prospective itinerary after the actual journey was abandoned. It could even have predated the prospective itinerary.
Oriented in the same direction Tour of 1828: Prospective Itinerary and “The Sound of the Sea” is a sequence that follows the poem transcript and 18r, and that is made up of “Wanting” [MSJC uncertain 4] (18v), Sketches of Machinery [MSJC uncertain 5] (18v–19r, 20v–21r, 22r), and Mineral List [MSJC uncertain 6] (20r). The hand and color of ink used for much of this sequence appear to associate it with the Notes on Mineralogy, which runs sequentially from the opposite end of the Red Book (see below); however, the latter is written over top of one of the pencil sketches on 20v, so the order of composition and drawing here in the middle of the Red Book is unclear.
At the opposite end of the Red Book, following Tour of 1828: Actual Itinerary—and, judging by the hand, not long after returning home from the familyʼs aborted journey—Ruskin recorded his geological interests. First, as if serving as a transition between the initial use of the Red Book as a travel diary and its recycled use as a mineralogy and geology notebook, Ruskin entered the brief Description of Bowder Stone in Borrowdale, which the family had failed to reach. Then, immmediately following, he entered “Minerals”, a catalog of 105 minerals (41v–39r).
Later, probably in 1831 and/or 1832, and in a cursive hand, Ruskin used the recto immediately following “Minerals” to start Notes on Mineralogy. The Notes continue in the same direction as Tour of 1828: Actual Itinerary and “Minerals”, but Ruskin started numbering the pages from the first page (38v) of the Notes on Mineralogy (38v–22v, 21v–20v, 18r, 16v–11v, 10v–7r, 6r–5v, 4v–3v, 1v). The pagination extends 1–37 (38v–20v), but the Notes skip 22r, despite the page number (p.34) Ruskin entered there, apparently because at this point the Notes ran up against the final page of Sketches of Machinery [MSJC uncertain 5], suggesting that these sketches predated at least this portion of the Notes. On 21v (p. 35), the Notes resume, taking up this page that contained no sketches. The Notes continue on 21r–20v (pp. 36–37), which do contain sketches, and the Notes overwrite a pencil sketch here, indicating again that the sketches predated them.
Ruskin continued the pagination on 20r–19v with pp. 38–39, but he wrote p. 38 upside down to the Mineral List [MSJC uncertain 6] on this page, possibly indicating the latterʼs preexistence; and he entered p. 39 on an otherwise blank page. He did not write page numbers on the following 2‐page spread (19r–18v), which contains both “Wanting” [MSJC uncertain 4] and the first two pages of Sketches of Machinery [MSJC uncertain 5]—again suggesting the preexistence of these items, which, like Mineral List [MSJC uncertain 6] run upside down to the Notes. Although not showing pp. 40–41 on these pages, he resumes numbering in correct order (pp. 42–43) on 18r–17v, resuming the Notes on p. 42, formerly a blank page, and entering p. 43 reverso and upside down to the 1828 material coming from the opposite end of the Red Book—17v (p. 43) being the second page of “The Sound of the Sea”.
While Ruskin largely spared his neat transcript of Mrs. Hemansʼs poem, writing only page numbers (pp. 43–44) upside down and reverso to the poem, he resumed the Notes reverso to the Tour of 1828: Prospective Itinerary, inserting the Notes into spaces of the itinerary formerly left blank by him and his father. The Notes take up a page, 16v (p. 45), formerly left blank prior to the recto containing the poem; and then the Notes run reverso and upside down to the itinerary, 16r–1v, numbered as pp. [46], 47, [48], 49, 50, [51], 52, 53, 54, [55], 56, [57], 58, [59–62], 63, [64], 65, [66], 67, [68], 69, 70, 70, [71], 72, [73], 74, with the bracketed numbers indicating that Ruskin entered no numbers on those page but nonetheless counted them in the pagination correctly, and with the repeated p. 70 indicating an incorrect doubling on successive pages. The Notes intrude on most pages of the itinerary, skipping over only 11r (p. 56), 6v (p. 65), 5r (p. [68]), and 3r–2r (pp.[71]–73). The entry on 1r (p. 74) is unique in being oriented in the same vertical direction as the surrounding itinerary.
The material on the inside front cover and 1r—Mineral List [MSJC uncertain 1], Sketches of Minerals [MSJC undertain 2], and Mineral List [MSJC uncertain 3]—appears by its hand and subject matter to be related to Notes on Mineralogy, as does the Geological Sketch [MSJC uncertain 7] on in the inside back cover. The other item on the inside back cover, however, the Latin Word List [MSJC uncertain 8], is the sole work on this subject in this Red Book.
Contents
The contents are described, incompletely, in Ruskin, Works (38:206) as “Early mineralogy, with some notes of travels added to by Ruskinʼs father, and a very neat ‘printed’ copy of Mrs. Hemansʼ ‘The Sound of the Sea.’” (see Title).
From front of book, the sequential order of contents:
From end of book, the sequential order of contents:
Date
The journey itineraries date from 1828, as do probably the earilier mineralogy and geology works, Description of Bowder Stone and “Minerals”. The Notes on Mineralogy cannot be earlier than J. C. Loudonʼs Magazine of Natural History, which they extensively reference, and which was first published in 1829. The Notes appear, however, to mine all at once volume 1 (1829), volume 2 (1829), volume 3 (1830), and volume 4 (1831), suggesting that the Notes belong to 1831 and/or 1832. (John James Ruskin purchased the magazine in August 1829, December 1831, December 1832, and December 1836 [Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters, 1:187n, 230n, 260n, 394n]).
Discussion
Hand
The manuscript is written and drawn almost entirely in ink. Pencil is used for portions of Sketches of Machinery [MSJC uncertain 5] on 22r, 21r, 20v; a portion of Geological Sketch [MSJC uncertain 7]; and a portion of Sketches of Minerals [MSJC undertain 2]. There is in addition a very slight sketch of a house on a hilltop in pencil (37r). Some of the entries for the catalog, “Minerals”, have pencil annotations in Ruskinʼs cursive hand next to them.
Of the 1828 works, Ruskin compiled Tour of 1828: Prospective Itinerary using ink printing, which varies widely in the size of lettering, but which appears generally to improve over the course of the work. The ink hand for “The Sound of the Sea” is remarkably small and neat, suggesting that control over his pen was part of Ruskinʼs purpose in making this transcription. He commanded a similar neat, ink lettering for Description of Bowder Stone and “Minerals”. For Tour of 1828: Actual Itinerary, however, he used cursive in ink. Among his earliest attempts at cursive using a pen, this hand must have helped him make efficient use of time during stops in the journey.
John James Ruskinʼs annotations in Tour of 1828: Prospective Itinerary are in ink, in his large eighteenth‐century hand. A small cursive pencil annotation next to the title of “The Sound of the Sea”, "(<persName corresp="#FDH">M Hemans</persName>)", appears to be in the hand of W. G. Collingwood.