MS X

Body paragraph. Yale (original contents dispersed in individual folders by title, and the folders contained either in box labeled Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 / Miscellaneous Manuscripts [along with other folders unrelated to the original MS X] or in Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 / Letters, boxes F‐H and N‐Z ).

Body paragraph. Sothebyʼs 1931. For Joan Severnʼs possession of MS X, along with other manuscripts containing tour poems, see Sothebyʼs 1930. Not all the items in MS X are associated with touring; it is unknown whether the other items held some especially fond association for Joan.

Body paragraph. According to Collingwoodʼs original description, MS X was a cover containing a number of miscellaneous items, from which, by the time the Library Edition was undertaken, the diary of 1830as well as other papers, not in verse had been separated (see MSS XA and XB). The remaining contents of the original cover, along with a few additions, were bound up in a volume, which retained the designation MS X. This was item III of lot 27 in Sotheby Cat. 1931 (p. 6), described as The Poetical Tour of 1835, Letter to his Father in verse, 31 March, 1836, and much later in date The Peace Song and the The Zodiac Song, and other pieces. MS X then came into Goodspeedʼs possession and is described in his Cat. as one volume, red cloth, no doubt the red buckram used for other Ruskin manuscript bindings of this period. Like MS IA, however, by the time MS X was turned over to Yale, it had been unbound and its contents separated—whether before Goodspeedʼs fire, or after (and owing to) the damage. The separate items are now cataloged at Yale under their individual titles, many of them enclosed in folders inside the box Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 / Miscellaneous Manuscripts (see also MS IA, Description ).

From front of book, the sequential order of contents:

Body paragraph. Content a) To Poesie (no. 109) is listed first in Goodspeed, Cat. (item 83.A), and presumably appeared first in the original binding, although according to Works (2:534) this item either was added later to MS X as described by Collingwood or was omitted from that earlier description. Its place in front of the contents may account for its severe fire damage, much of the upper right corner being lost of the 10.3 × 18.8‐cm sheet. (Similarly, the upper right corners of b, below, which probably lay immediately beneath a, were sacrificed.) For preservation, the sheet is encased in rice paper, and enclosed in a separte folder in Miscellaneous Manuscripts. Both Goodspeed, Cat. and Works are tentative in identifying the hand of this copy, but the hand is unquestionably Margaretʼs. In a penciled note at the end of the poem, she apologizes I am sorry this is no better writte[n b]ut my pen was bad & I coul[d] not make it better. b) Journal of a Tour through France to Chamouni (no. 203), according to Works (2:534), was contained in two paper books, one of 26 pages for Canto I, and the second of 10 pages as far as carried for Canto II. Goodspeed, Cat. (item 83.B) summarizes 36 pp., 4to. Despite the severe charring, the manuscript is preserved complete, although the books are cut into individual leaves, which are encased in rice paper. Canto 1st (the poem is untitled) is written on thirteen 15.5 × 19‐cm sheets; the presumptive second canto (no such designation is supplied, only the stanzas are numbered) is written on five 22.5 × 18‐cm sheets. In both books, the stanzas run continuously recto to verso, leaf by leaf. In canto two, two successive stanzas are numbered 24, the editors of the Library Edition silently correcting the second to 25 and adjusting the successive numbering accordingly. The fragmentary twenty‐ninth and final stanza (thirtieth, in the Library Edition) is not incomplete owing to missing manuscript, since it stops in the middle of a verso. With its very few corrections, the manuscript appears to be fair or semifinal copy (although one must never underestimate Ruskinʼs facile ability to produce uncorrected draft). If fair copy, the manuscript, by comparison with Ruskinʼs other travelogues, is no copperplate fair copy like the Iteriad in MS VII, much less an elaborately illustrated production like the Account of a Tour on the Continent in MS IX. Perhaps Ruskin was becoming less interested in bookmaking as an aspect of his poetry. c) Both descriptions (Goodspeed, Cat., item 83.C, and Works, 2:534) list a versified letter from abroad to Richard Fall, 14 June—2 September 1835 (no. 204), which is now kept inside a folder in a box at Yale, Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 / Letters: F‐H. The description in Works specifies double columns on 5 large pages, but Goodspeed, Cat. cites 10 pp. On the folder containing the manuscript (resembling the other folders for items of the Goodspeed donation), as in Works, 5 p. is notated. Goodspeed Cat. gives the erroneous description, since the manuscript presently consists of three sheets, 20.5 × 25 cm, two of them written in double columns on both sides, and the third written in double columns on one side. Nothing is missing, since these sheets constitute the entirety of the poem as published in Works, 2:429–38—including the ms. postscript, dropped into a note on p. 438. The charred sheets are encased in rice paper. The hand appears to be Margaret Ruskinʼs. d) Both Goodspeed, Cat. (item 83.D) and Works (2:534) list Conversation supposed to be held between Mr R. Mrs R. Miss R. & Master R. on New‐years morning 1836 (no. 215). Both descriptions count six pages— 6 pp., 4to, according to Goodspeed—which correspond to the three extant 25 × 20‐cm sheets, encased in plastic and enclosed in a separate folder in the box Miscellaneous Manuscripts. Fire damage was severe to the right edges, which show a curious vertical streak, as if the sheets had been folded along that crease; however, Ruskinʼs writing carries across the crease. e) Both Goodspeed, Cat. (item 83.E) and Works (2:534) list a rhymed letter to John James Ruskin, 31 March 1836 (no. 230), which is now kept inside a folder in a box at Yale, Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 / Letters: N‐Z. The 20.5 × 25‐cm folded sheet, written in verse on three sides, with the address and a prose paragraph on the fourth side, corresponds to Goodspeedʼs 3 pp., 4to, and address. Charred and encased in rice paper. The most thorough transcription of the letter is in Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters, 358–64, which also provides a full description of the letter. This is the only item from MS X that is specifically identified among Goodspeedʼs donations in YULG (17, no. 3 [January 1943]: 59). The remainder may have been included among the 31 sheets of poems also listed in that acknowledgment, or they may have been comprised in the other Ruskiniana acknowledged later in YULG (19, no. 2 [October 1944]: 35). See MS IA, Description. f) Both descriptions (Goodspeed, Cat., item 83.F, and Works, 2:534) identify a partial copy (lines 1–185 only) of The Exile of St. Helena (no. 256) in an unidentified hand— in the hand of a secretary, the Library Edition adds, in its list of Exile manuscripts, of which Yaleʼs is b (Works, 2:45 n. 2). The hand, I believe, is Margaret Ruskinʼs. The manuscript is untitled, except for the epigraph drawn from II Samuel (the second epigraph of the printed version, from Aeschylus, is not present; see Works, 2:45). The manuscript consists of three 18 × 23‐cm sheets, written on both sides, plus one shorter 18 × 15‐cm sheet, written on one side, and torn just below line 185; hence, the torn page represents the state of the manuscript since it was first described as totaling 185 lines, and nothing was lost to fire damage except for the right edges, which are severely charred. The leaves are encased in plastic and enclosed in a folder in the box Miscellaneous Manuscripts. g) Both descriptions (Goodspeed, Cat., item 83.G, and Works, 2:534) include the Peace Song, and the Zodiac Song, the Library Edition explaining that these poems, like a above, were added to MS X when first bound and were not enclosed in the cover described by Collingwood. The charred manuscripts of the two poems are encased in rice paper and kept in separate folders in the box Miscellaneous Manuscripts. Works (2:245 n.) describes a loose sheet for each, and Goodspeed, Cat. 2 pp., 4to for both. Specifically, The Peace Song is 20 × 25 cm and watermarked 1863, and The Zodiac Song is 18 × 25 cm (no watermark). Perhaps the two manuscripts were intended as a pair, since the one is entitled and numbered 1. The Peace Song, and the other 2. The Zodiac Song. The first printing of The Zodiac Song (Works 2:247) follows this manuscript exactly and is evidently taken from it, while the printing of The Peace Song in the Library Edition (there entitled Awake, Awake ) is taken from another source and lists this manuscript as a variant. See also Van Akin Burd, ed., The Winnington Letters (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1969), 251, 253 n. 4.

Body paragraph. Dates of composition of original contents range from 1831 to 1860