The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson 1821-1850 V 1: I - Hardcover

Tennyson, Al

9780674525832: The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson 1821-1850 V 1: I

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674525833 ISBN 13: 9780674525832

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1981

Many years in preparation, this first volume of Lang and Shannon's edition of Tennyson's correspondence lives up to all expectations. In a comprehensive introduction the editors present not only the biographical background, with vivid portrayals of the dramatis personae, but also the story of the manuscripts, the ones that were destroyed and the many that luckily survived. The Tennyson who emerges in this volume is not a serene or Olympian figure. He is moody, impulsive, often reckless, now full of camaraderie, now plagued by anxiety or resentment, deeply attached to close friends and family and uninterested in the social scene. His early life is unenviable: we see glimpses of the embittered, drunken father, the distraught mother, the swarm of siblings in the rectory at Somersby in Lincolnshire. The happiest period is the three years at Cambridge, terminated when his father dies, and the two years thereafter, with Arthur Hallam engaged to his sister and a frequent visitor at their house. The shock of Hallam's death in 1833, coupled with the savage attack on Tennyson's poems in the Quarterly Review, is followed by depression, bouts of alcoholism, financial problems, and gradually, in the 1840s, increasing recognition of his work. The year 1850 sees the publication of In Memoriam, his long-deferred marriage at age forty to Emily Seliwood, and his acceptance, not without misgivings, of the post of Poet Laureate. The editors have garnered and selected a large number of letters to and about Tennyson which supplement his own letters, fill in lacunae in the narrative, and reveal him to us as his friends and contemporaries saw him.

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Review:

(FOR VOLUME III)`... fascinating and entertaining. This is due to the masterly and evoted work of the editors ... who have annotated the letters with marvellous fullness and precision and - what seems even more remarkable - with zest and wit. Through their exhaustive work we get, incidentally, a feeling for the exture of Victorian life.' Richard Jenkyns, Times Literary Supplement

'a joy to read and explore from start to finish and nobody ever caught by the mystery and comedy of Tennyson's genius will wish to be without it' The Times

'outstandingly useful to Tennysonians ... annotation is scrupulous and extensive.' Times Literary Supplement

'encapsulates a world of abiding fascination ... No serious lover of Tennyson or of Victorian literature can afford to be without them.' Sunday Telegraph

'The editors are to be applauded for the fullness of this edition...these letters ensure that Tennyson continues to receive close attention.' Independent

`edited with brio...it adds immensely to our sense of the life which Tennyson kept so private and put so completely into writing.'Sunday Telegraph

'a careful reading of these letters reveals the demeanour of the man...It is doubly fortunate, then, that the editing of this correspondence is so unobtrusive...the editors have hit upon the appealing idea of including contemporary descriptions of the man at appropriate moments. And in these accounts the outline from the letters is, as it were, filled in.'Peter Ackroyd, The Times

`the transforming skills of our two American editors. They bring literary intimacy, along with historical scholarship and worldly wit, to full and positively frisky footnotes. ...but they seize upon the least opportunity to bring the Old Mystic of the Lincolnshire Wolds, the man "retired into himself", into vivid, bearish life. ...this edition is a triumph of imaginative scholarship...' Richard Holmes, The Times Saturday Review

`They [Lang and Shannon] are tireless where he [Tennyson] was fed up, and the three of them have concocted one of the indispensable books for anyone who now wants to read Victorian poetry.' Eric Griffiths, Correspondent

'editors of startling fondness ... one of the indispensable books for anyone who now wants to read Victorian poetry' Eric Griffiths, Sunday Correspondent

About the Author:

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809a1892) published his first two volumes of poems in 1842, establishing him as the leading poet of his generation. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Christopher Ricks is Warren Professor of Humanities and codirector of the Editorial Institute at Boston University. He is the editor of six poetry collections, including "The Oxford Book of English Verse,"

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