Item 2 - Book containing copies of 'Letters from Thomas Carlyle, chiefly concerning Cromwell' and 'Fragments of some letters from an ill-starred Man of Genius [Savile Morton]'

Identity area

Reference code

Add. MS a/6/2

Title

Book containing copies of 'Letters from Thomas Carlyle, chiefly concerning Cromwell' and 'Fragments of some letters from an ill-starred Man of Genius [Savile Morton]'

Date(s)

  • 1866- [c 1874?] (Creation)

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Extent and medium

1 vol; manuscript; some letters and sketches pasted in.
Enclosures: 1 loose sheet; 3 three sheets taped together; 1 loose sheet previously pasted in.

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1 loose sheet at front: 'Copies. Letters from Carlyle - on "Cromwell", Extract of Letters from S[avile] M[orton]'

'Edward Fitzgerald. Littlegrange. Woodbridge' written on flyleaf, recto; on verso 'Letters from Thomas Carlyle, chiefly concerning Cromwell'

ff 1-36r: Copies by FitzGerald of letters from Carlyle, dated mid-Sept 1842-6 Nov 1874, with occasional notes and annotations by FitzGerald. Most letters written directly into book, though ff 34-36 (letter of 6 Nov 1874, not in FitzGerald's hand) pasted in.

ff 36v: Note by FitzGerald on 'the following Enquiries concerning th[e] one Long Parliament Election on record', sent to him by Carlyle in about 1846 or 1847 [in fact in 1844] 'to be answered & elucidated by Mr Davy, an old Suffolk Gentleman then residing in... Ufford near Woodbridge'. Davy was 'duly acknowledged & complimented as "Dryasdust"' in the paper Carlyle published on the subject in Fraser's Magazine [Oct 1844].

ff 37-39: Copy of the enquiries on the Long Parliament election (as above) sent by Carlyle to FitzGerald.

Reading from other end of book: 'Extract from letters of Savile Morton' written on flyleaf, verso; Morton's name later crossed out and 'an ill-starred Man of Genius'. 'Finished copying out at Midnight, Sunday May 27, 1866. Edward FitzGerald, Market-hall, Woodbridge' is legible below despite further crossing out. A loose sheet is pasted to the bottom of the flyleaf, on which Fitzgerald has written 'Fragments of some Letters from an ill-starred Man of Genius'' and added in pencil below 'for a Notice of Morton see at th[e] end of th[e] Letters'; other notes in pencil are probably in another hand.

ff i-iii: Three sheets bound together with tape found loose after flyleaf, containing a biographical note on Morton in FitzGerald's hand.

ff 1-61r: Copies by FitzGerald of letters from Morton, dated 28 Oct [18]40-Jul 1845, with occasional notes and annotations by Fitzgerald. Occasional pages have been cut out, and a series of stubs (about 11 ff) follows f 61. The letters themselves, or portions of them, are sometimes pasted in, particularly to include illustrations by Morton, as follows:

f 5r: 'Petrarch's Chair', pen and ink illustration
f 16r: Part letter of 10 Sept 1842 (once pasted in, now loose)
f 17r: Part letter with pen and ink sketch of ruins in Rome
f 23r: Pen and ink sketch of lamp.
f 50: Part letter, discussing Keats.

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      Related units of description

      Add.MS.c.6.2b, an incomplete original letter from Savile Morton to Edward Fitzgerald, and Add.MS.c.6.2a, a letter from Sidney Lee [to William Aldis Wright?] about Morton's death, were found loose inside this volume.

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      Publication note

      See Carlyle, 'An Election to the Long Parliament', Fraser's Magazine 30 (Oct 1844): 379-393. On the writing of this piece, and FitzGerald's role as intermediary between Carlyle and Davy, see Trela, D. J. “The Writing of ‘An Election to the Long Parliament’: Carlyle, Primary Research and the Book Clubs.” Carlyle Studies Annual, no. 14 (1994): 71–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44945790.

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