The Correspondence of Samuel Butler with His Sister May [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9780520331204

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The (Correspondence of Samuel ^Butler with His Sister ¿May

The Correspondence of Samuel Sutler with His Sister ¿May EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DANIEL F. HOWARD

University of California

Tress

"Berkeley and Los ^Angeles 1962

UNIVERSITY BERKELEY

OF CALIFORNIA

A N D LOS A N G E L E S ,

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LONDON, ©

PRESS CALIFORNIA

PRESS

ENGLAND

1 9 6 2 B Y T H E REGENTS OF T H E UNIVERSITY OF

CALIFORNIA

PUBLISHED WITH T H E ASSISTANCE OF A G R A N T F R O M T H E FORD

FOUNDATION

L I B R A R Y OF CONGRESS C A T A L O G CARD N U M B E R : PRINTED IN THE

U N I T E D STATES O F

DESIGNED B Y

MARION

62-13075

AMERICA

SKINNER

For M.K.H.

gQ^

PREFACE

Without trying to reproduce in print the vagaries of manuscript, I have transcribed these letters exactly and made minor corrections only when an overliteral transcription would interfere with the reader's convenience. I have, for example, silently supplied the ends of parentheses and quotation marks, and capitalized the beginnings of sentences, but only when even such minor emendations were necessary to make the sense clear. I have also regularized all headings and paragraph indentations, and consistently run complimentary endings, except the last phrase, into the body of the letters. I have enclosed in pointed brackets ( ) phrases which in the original letters are overscored but recoverable; frequently such phrases suggest interesting alternative thoughts in the writer's mind. I have not attempted to indicate the process by which I have identified many of the people whom Butler mentions in the letters, but where a positive identification is made it has been verified. All references to Butler's published works, unless otherwise specified, are to the twenty-volume Shrewsbury Edition edited by Henry Festing Jones and A. T. Bartholomew (London and New York, 1923-1926). In citations where no place of publication is indicated, London is to be understood. vii

Because there is not yet a definitive edition of Butler's Notebooks, and the text of the published selections is often corrupt, I have cited and occasionally quoted from the manuscript of the Notebooks in the Chapin Library at Williamstown, Massachusetts; but for the convenience of the reader I have also cited published selections from the Notebooks if they contain substantially the same material. (For a discussion of the differences between the manuscript and the printed versions, see Lee Elbert Holt, "The Note-Books of Samuel Butler," PMLA, 60 [1945], 1 1 6 5 - 1 1 7 9 . ) I am particularly grateful to Sir Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill for their great personal kindness to me and for permission to publish this correspondence. Mrs. Donald E. Richmond, formerly Custodian of the Chapin Library, first encouraged my explorations of the Butler manuscripts in her charge, and she has furthered my work at every stage. I am grateful also to H. Richard Archer, the present Custodian of the Library, for his generous assistance. I am indebted to the following persons for their kind assistance on various problems: Lord Bridges; Professor Geoffrey Tillotson; John McKenzie of the British Museum Manuscript Room; G. J. Merson, Vicar of Granby, Nottinghamshire; Mrs. Henry W. Howell, Jr., Librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library, New York City; Professor Ellis Waterhouse, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham; John E. C. Dakin, Rector of Langar, Nottinghamshire; Dr. Diehl, Stadt-und Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main; Heinrich Nidecker, Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität, Basel; and Margaret Jadot of the British Museum staff. Without the good taste and keen eyesight of Grace Wilson, my editor at the University of California Press, and of C. F. Main and Paul Fussell, Jr., my colleagues at Rutgers, this book would be faultier than it is. My greatest debt is to Professor Gordon Haight, who generously read the manuscript at a time when he himself was most pressed; without him it could not be. Netv Brunswick, N. J.

D.F.H. viii

CONTENTS

List of Letters and Postcards, xi Abbreviations, Biographical

xv

Sketches,

Introduction, Letters, 35 Index, 249

3

xvii

LIST OF LETTERS AND POSTCARDS

Date

Page

Author

Written from

3J 36

I.

August i o ,

185j

Butler

Cambridge

2.

February 5, 1 8 J 7

Butler

Cambridge

3-

September 27, 18 j j

Butler

London

3»

4-

[ca. March 21, 1 8 6 1 ]

Butler

[New Zealand]

•4'

J-

September 24, 18 66

Butler

London

42

6.

October 4, 1866

Butler

[London]

43

78.

January 30, 1867

Butler

London

41

August 30, 1868

Butler

London

4«

9-

J u l y 4 . ['«]

Butler

London

Butler

Venice

4« jo

10.

March 20,

11.

[July, 1870]

Butler

London

J3

[2.

July

May

[Langar]

J4