The Annotated Tennyson (1969)
[bought at Dominion Books, Jervois Rd, Auckland: - Monday, 15 April, 2019]:
The Longmans Annotated English Poets series is an excellent one - very useful for teachers and students, but also for the general reader.
The jewel in the crown is undoubtedly their Tennyson, though. It was edited by Christopher Ricks, and designed to be as complete as he could make it without being allowed to quote from the large body of Tennyson's manuscripts held by his alma mater, Trinity College Cambridge.
Sometime after it had appeared, however, the College changed its mind, and decided that it would no longer insist on an embargo "in perpetuity" of the contents of these vital papers. Ricks's face must have been a sight to see when that bombshell descended!
Nothing daunted, he decided to re-edit the whole thing, with the help of the new manuscript evidence. Unfortunately it could no longer be made to fit into one monster volume, so the new, 1987, edition was divided into three.
There's a certain undeniable fascination about that original edition, though. The second edition is undoubtedly the more reliable research source, but for sheer heft and gravitas this mighty single-volume Tennyson takes some beating. One added source of interest is the fact that the book once belonged to well-known New Zealand writer Bill Pearson, author of Coal Flat, 'Fretful Sleepers' and other classic texts.
Tennyson: The Poems (1969)
Here are the other volumes in the Longmans - or 'Longman' - the publisher's name seems to have changed sometime in the 1970s - series I happen to own myself:
- Matthew Arnold, The Poems. Ed. Kenneth Allott. Longmans Annotated English Poets. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd., 1965.
- William Blake, The Poems. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. W. H. Stevenson. Text by David V. Erdman. 1971. London: Longman / Norton, 1972.
- William Blake, The Complete Poems. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. W. H. Stevenson. Text by David V. Erdman. 1971. London: Longman / Norton, 1972.
- John Donne, The Complete Poems. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. Robin Robbins. London: Routledge, 2010.
- Roger Lonsdale, ed. The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, Oliver Goldsmith. 1969. Longman Annotated English Poets. London: Longman Group Limited, 1980.
- John Keats, The Poems. Ed. Miriam Allott. Longman Annotated English Poets. London: Longman, 1970.
- Andrew Marvell, The Poems. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. Nigel Smith. 2003. Revised Edition. Pearson Longman. Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. Alastair Fowler. 1968. London: Longman Group Limited, 1974.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost. Ed. Alastair Fowler. 1968. Second Edition. 1997. Longman Annotated English Poets. Pearson Longman. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
- John Milton, Complete Shorter Poems. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. John Carey. 1968. London: Longman Group Limited, 1971.
- Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. A. C. Hamilton. 1977. London: Longman Group Limited, 1980.
- Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. A. C. Hamilton. 1977. Revised Second Edition. 2001. Text edited by Hiroshi Yamashita & Toshiyuki Suzuki. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Poems of Tennyson. Longmans Annotated English Poets. Ed. Christopher Ricks. London & Harlow: Longman, Green and Co, Ltd.. 1969.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tennyson: A Selected Edition. Longman Annotated English Poets. Ed. Christopher Ricks. 1969. Revised ed. 3 vols. 1987. Selected Edition. 1989. Pearson Longman. Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
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Mind you, the saga doesn't seem to be over yet. New volumes in the series continue to appear from time to time:
- Robert Browning - a selection from a multi-volumed edition in progress: 6 volumes (of an eventual 7?) have already been published (1991-2022)
- John Dryden - a selection from the complete 5 volume edition (1995-2005)
- Ben Jonson (complete)
- Alexander Pope - the first instalment of a multi-volumed edition in progress (2019- ).
- William Shakespeare (complete)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley - volume 2 of a multi-volumed edition in progress: 4 volumes (of a projected 5) have already been published (1989-2013)
- William Butler Yeats - volume 1 of a multi-volumed edition in progress: 2 volumes (of a projected 5) have already been published (2020-2021)
In fact, the only person I can think of who's missing is Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He is mentioned on an early list of projected titles, but nothing appears to have come of it (so far, at least):
Tennyson: The Poems (1969)
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- category - English Poetry: pre-1900
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