William Michael Rossetti Edits His Father’s Poems
ROSSETTI, Gabriele.
[Extracts of his poems from L’Arpa Evangelica]. Genoa, Dario Rossi, ‘1852’ [1853].
[bound with eight other works.]
8vo, pp. [7]–10, 27–30, 37–40, 85–91, 105–106, 109–114, 127–138, 163–4, 177–190, 193–196, 205–226, 231–233, 237–8, 243–246, 255–260, 269–280, 283–286, 291–296, 303–306, 309-324, 247–252; numerous deletions, dates of composition added in manuscript, a few minor corrections, and two significant insertions (on pp. 203 and 246); bound with eight unrelated works in English, German, and Italian, in maroon roan, worn, spine partly detached, front joint fragile; manuscript index in the hand of William Michael Rossetti to front endpaper, with a long note opposite dated 1904.
A unique selection of Gabriele Rossetti’s poems from the Genoa-printed collection L’Arpa Evangelica, a volume of religious verse composed in only three months. According to his note here, William Michael Rossetti ‘made this selection with a view to its forming part of a volume of Selections from Gabriele Rossetti, to be published by Dario Rossi. Rossi excluded these compositions from the Arpa Evangelica on the ground that the whole of that work was his own copyright; eventually the proposed volume of selections remained unpublished’.
William Michael has added a footnote to one poem (which is also retitled), and rectified the omission of two stanzas to another. This cut-and-paste approach was his standard method in editorial projects; his copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass treated thus is now at the Morgan Library and Museum.
Other contents in the volume include four Italian chapbooks and the second edition of Francis Palgrave’s Descriptive Handbook to the International Exhibition of 1862.