NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS

Part 1: The Browning, Eliot, Thackeray and Trollope Manuscripts from the British Library, London

The type of material covered includes: Autograph literary manuscripts; Writers "quarries" and notebooks; Manuscript autobiographies and biographical sources; Correspondence - especially unpublished in-letters; and Records relating journalism, publishing and printing.

This first part makes available the British Library’s key holdings relating to:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans, later Lewes, then Cross) (1819-1880)
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)
Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)

In addition, there are literary manuscripts by Wilkie Collins (two short stories: Mr Wray’s Cashbox and Basil: A Story of Modern Life); Benjamin Disraeli (Speech on the death of Wellington); and George Henry Lewes (Aristotle). There are also six autograph poems by James Sheridan Knowles.

By far the largest section (31 manuscripts in all) is that devoted to George Eliot. The complete manuscript versions of seven of her major novels (as sent to the printers, with numerous corrections) are featured here:

Adam Bede; The Mill on the Floss; Silas Marner; Romola;
Felix Holt, the Radical; Middlemarch; and Daniel Deronda.

There are also two volumes of manuscript poetry by Eliot (including The Spanish Gypsy, O may I join the choir invisble, Agatha, Brother and Sister, The Legend of Jubal, and Armgart), the manuscript of Impressions of Theophrastus Such, the notebook for Romola, a quarry, and four volumes of correspondence.

The second largest section comprises 22 manuscripts by Thackeray. These include 11 volumes of diaries, 1832-63; unpublished accompts and miscellanea; 3 volumes of sketches; a host of material relating to Denis Duval; the autograph manuscript of his play The Wolves and the Lamb (together with an annotated acting version); and fragments of The Newcomes.

The final three authors are represented by a single manuscript work: Anthony Trollope by his manuscript Autobiography; Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Sonnets from the Portuguese; and
Robert Browning by The Ring and the Book.

The manuscripts covered are British Library Additional Manuscripts 34020-34044, 37502, 37952, 40768, 41060, 41667, 42856, 43484-43487, 46891-46910, 54338, 58436, 59866, 65530 and Egerton Ms 3689.