Algernon Charles Swinburne Collection, 1839-1981 (majority within 1860-1930)

Summary

Creator:

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 1837-1909, Kerr, Lowell, and Kerr, Evelyn

Abstract:

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an important Victorian poet and critic. The collection documents Swinburne's literary affairs and friendships, plus critical reactions to the poet. It consists of correspondence, writings, photographs, artworks, and printed material produced by Swinburne, his friends and associates, and present-day scholars. Over 200 pieces of holograph correspondence and manuscript material, over half of which is by Swinburne, are included. Also prominent is material by Theodore Watts-Dunton, Swinburne's friend and legal advisor.

Extent:

3.5 linear feet
(8 boxes and 2 portfolios)
Photographs in box 4.
Artworks and prints in box 4 and portfolio 1.
Clippings, pamphlets, and journal articles in box 4 and portfolio 2.

Language:

English

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Rebecca Bizonet

Background

Scope and Content:

This finding aid encompasses accessions of single manuscripts and small groups of manuscripts and other papers by or pertaining to Algernon Charles Swinburne, which the library has chosen to gather into one collection.

Much of the material in this collection forms part of the Kerr collection, formally titled the "Evelyn and Lowell Kerr Collection of Swinburne Books and Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Michigan." The Kerr collection was assembled by Lowell Kerr, a dedicated Swinburne collector. (See biographical entry.) In addition, Kerr worked for many years on the compilation of a descriptive catalog to the collection, which was, unfortunately, never completed. More information on arrangement of the Kerr collection can be found at the end of this section. All of the books from the Kerr collection, and many of the pamphlets, have been removed and cataloged separately.

The works and correspondence of Swinburne are well-represented here. Much of the selection of verse is fragmentary in nature--in some cases, leaves of a single work are spread across repositories; but Swinburne's prose pieces are notable in their completeness and number. Also showcased are the letters and works of important figures in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, as well as other literary luminaries of the day. The publishing interests of Swinburne and his circle are also detailed.

The collection is made up of six series: Works, Correspondence, The Swinburne Circle, Photographs and Art Images, Printed Material, and Swinburne Research and Collecting. Unless indicated otherwise in the contents list, items in the Works and Correspondence series are holograph works by Swinburne (or, rarely, in the hand of an amanuensis). Items in the Swinburne Circle series are letters or manuscripts in the hand of their respective authors, or their secretaries. In some cases, autograph material originally laid into books has been removed and added to the collection; in other cases, such items have been left in the books. Either way, a note to such effect has nearly always been made in the book's catalog record or in the contents list below. Moreover, for purchased material, copies of dealer descriptions often have been retained and may offer further details not included here.

A Note on the Kerr and Lang Numbers:

Since many of the pieces in this collection have already been cataloged individually, further details can often be found in the catalog records for those items. Furthermore, "Kerr numbers" have been assigned to many items. These numbers refer to entries in Lowell Kerr's catalog, in which he described the items that were originally from his collection. Along with library staff members, he continually updated and reworked the catalog up until his death. Library staff continued to revise the work through the 1980s, but it was never completed.

Although every effort has been made to respect the provenance of items from the Kerr collection, in some cases a Kerr number may have been assigned but is not noted in the finding aid. Researchers wishing for more information on items originally from the Kerr collection should consult the various drafts of the Kerr catalog, which are available in the Swinburne Research and Collecting series. The Kerr numbers in this finding aid refer to the most recent available draft of the Kerr catalog. The researcher should note that the Kerr catalog, while containing a wealth of information, is heavily anecdotal in nature, with a number of guessed-at facts and dates still in need of verification.

Cecil Lang, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, is an eminent Swinburne scholar. Professor Lang is the author of the six-volume The Swinburne Letters (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1959-1962). In this work, he assigns numbers to every item of Swinburne correspondence which he was able to locate, across repositories; thus, many items have both Kerr numbers and Lang numbers. Both numbers, where extant, are generally noted in the contents lists below.

Biographical / Historical:

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was one of the great poets of the Victorian era. From early on Swinburne delighted in flouting the sensibilities of his day, and at least some of his reputation as a 'decadent' poet is well-founded, given his deep-seated atheism, sadomasochism, and frequent treatment of taboo subjects. Also evident in his work, however, are his deep love of nature and a vast knowledge of biblical, classical, and medieval literature. His passionate republicanism is also manifest in much of his work. Stylistically, his verse is characterized by its musicality, innovative rhythmic structures, and evocative imagery. He was well regarded in his later years for his continued output of verse and for astute, if opinionated, critical writings. Swinburne was admired by and an influence upon writers as diverse as Thomas Hardy, William Butler Yeats, Eugene O'Neill, and Ezra Pound.

Swinburne was born April 5, 1837, to parents of aristocratic lineage, Lady Jane Henrietta Ashburnham and Charles Henry Swinburne, an admiral in the British navy. He grew up at his family's ancestral dwellings on the Isle of Wight and in Northumberland and Sussex. The natural surroundings in these areas, especially the sea, would later strongly inform his poetry. Another significant influence on the young Swinburne was his grandfather, Sir John Edward Swinburne, who, born and raised in France, was a free-thinker and republican. In spite of his small stature and seeming frailness, Swinburne was adept at such vigorous outdoor sports as riding, swimming, and climbing, and sometimes pursued them to a dangerous extent. At one time he considered a career in the cavalry, but was dissuaded from it by his parents.

Although gifted academically, Swinburne had a checkered educational career. It was elevated by his prodigious writing skills (which he displayed from a very early age), his wide reading, and his talent in modern languages, but marred by disciplinary troubles and failing grades in those subjects which did not interest him. Swinburne entered Eton at the age of twelve and was a student there from 1849 to 1853. Most biographers hold that the corporal punishment then so commonly practiced there contributed to, or at the very least awakened, his masochistic tendencies in later life. In spite of these difficulties, Swinburne enjoyed his years there. In 1849, for reasons that remain unclear, he left Eton, and his secondary education was finished under a private tutor.

From 1856 to 1860, Swinburne attended Balliol College at Oxford University. In contrast to his time at Eton, Swinburne's years at Oxford were not happy ones. As at Eton, he was never graduated. After being suspended for a term because of failing grades, he left in 1860. So bitter was he about his time at Oxford that he refused the university's later offer of an honorary degree. Oxford did, however, introduce him to many people who were to influence him profoundly, especially free-thinker John Nichol, other members of the Old Mortality Society, and Pre-Raphaelites figures Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones.

From 1860 to 1879, Swinburne lived in London. Here his life fell into a cycle of periods of frenzied creativity, excessive drinking, and ill health, followed by rescue by his father and removal to the family's home in the country for recovery. Along with drinking to excess, Swinburne indulged his mania for flagellation. However, the majority of the tales of Swinburne's legendary immorality appear to be just that, many of them invented or encouraged by Swinburne himself. When sober, he was by all accounts kind, generous, and courteous, if also extremely talkative and excitable. Epileptiform attacks, which he experienced throughout his life, were exacerbated by his drinking. He also fell into ever-worsening depression and isolation--his father's death in 1877 certainly being a contributing factor--but through it all he maintained a continued output of verse, including Poems and Ballads: Second Series in 1878.

For a time, from 1862 to 1864, Swinburne lived in Chelsea with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, and George Meredith, until personal differences created a rift. He was, however, to remain lifelong friends with many in this group. Among later, and more destructive, influences were Richard Burton and Monckton Milnes.

1862 was the year of Swinburne's one great love affair, about which little is known. Its failure inspired one of his most beautiful poems, "The Triumph of Time." It is widely speculated that this affair was with his cousin, Mary Gordon (later Mrs. Disney Leith), his childhood companion and close friend for his entire life. Swinburne did conduct a later, short-lived affair of sorts, arranged and encouraged by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with the American actress and poet Adah Menken in 1867.

Swinburne's first published work was a pair of plays, The Queen-Mother and Rosamund, appearing together in 1860. These brought him little notice. In 1865, however, the publication of Atalanta in Calydon garnered him instant fame. 1866 saw the publication of Poems and Ballads, which caused a scandal due to its overtly erotic and antitheistic content and dark themes. Other works include Songs Before Sunrise (1871), a volume of republican poems, and Erechtheus (1876), which like Atalanta in Calydon was a drama modeled after classical Greek plays. Swinburne also wrote fine criticism and was a brilliant parodist, as seen in The Heptalogia (1880).

In 1879, his health in a perilous state due to his alcohol abuse and other excesses, Swinburne was taken in by Theodore Watts-Dunton (formerly known as Walter Theodore Watts). He was Swinburne's friend and legal advisor, as well as a critic and poet in his own right. Swinburne remained under Watts-Dunton's care at the famed villa, No. 2, "The Pines," located at the outskirts of London in Putney, for the rest of his life--another thirty years. Without Watts-Dunton's intervention and, some say, smothering care, it is certain that Swinburne could not have survived much longer. Watts-Dunton gradually weaned Swinburne from drink and through careful regimentation of the poet's life, protected him from his own destructive impulses and from the less healthy influences of his former life.

Further isolated from society by increasing deafness, Swinburne found comfort and inspiration in his first love, nature, on long daily walks through the countryside. He also developed an extreme fondness for children and composed many verses to and about them. He lived a quiet but seemingly contented life, punctuated by occasional callers: first old friends from London and later admirers on 'pilgrimages' to his home. Reading and writing too formed part of his daily schedule.

Swinburne's literary output from this time has been generally less critically revered, but this stance has changed in more recent years as scholars begin to view Swinburne's later work not so much as a decline, but as a development of what had gone before. Amid the baby-worship and the imperialistic jingoism into which Swinburne's republicanism had by then evolved, are some fine pieces, including "By the North Sea" from Studies in Song (1880) and Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems (1882).

Weakened from a combination of influenza and pneumonia, Swinburne died April 10, 1909. He was buried near his old home on the Isle of Wight, facing the sea.

Sources:

• Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, Volume 4: Victorian Writers, 1832-1890. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991.
• Fuller, Jean Overton. Swinburne: A Biography. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.
• Kunitz, Stanley J., ed. British Authors of the Nineteenth Century. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1936.

Lowell Kerr

Lowell Kerr was born January 10, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois. He was a University of Michigan alumnus (Bachelor of Arts, Literature, 1923) and a New York City author, editor, and bibliophile. He served as the editor of Exporters Encyclopedia, and as associate editor of a foreign trade magazine, from 1936 until his retirement in 1966. Additionally, he was a former president of the World Trade Writers Association, and a member of the Syracuse Library Associates and the Clements Library Associates of the University of Michigan.

Chief among his book-collecting interests was material of and pertaining to Algernon Charles Swinburne. Over many years, Kerr amassed a Swinburne collection of significant size and quality, which included not only first editions, but autograph material, printed ephemera, and artworks as well. He donated the collection to the library in two major installments--one in 1935 and the other, with his wife Evelyn, in 1966.

Kerr carried on a long correspondence with eminent Swinburne scholar Cecil Y. Lang and fellow collector John S. Mayfield. He also worked closely with Special Collections librarians at the University of Michigan in the composition of a descriptive catalog of his Swinburne collection. In 1965, many pieces from his collection were featured in an exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library entitled "Atalanta in Brooklyn," which garnered favorable mention in the Times Literary Supplement. Another exhibit was mounted by the Special Collections Library in 1978.

Lowell Kerr died August 12, 1980, following a long illness.

Acquisition Information:

The collection was acquired from various vendors and donors, notably Evelyn and Lowell Kerr, from 1935 through the present.

Processing information:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Rebecca Bizonet.

Arrangement:

The collection is made up of the following six series:

• Works
• Correspondence
• The Swinburne Circle
• Photographs and Art Images
• Printed Material
• Swinburne Research and Collecting

Subjects

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Formats:

Manuscripts
Correspondence
Photographs

Names:

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 1837-1909
Poets, English -- 19th century
Arnold, Edwin, Sir, 1832-1904
Bell, Mackenzie, 1856-1930
Bird, Alice, of London
Burne-Jones, Edward Coley, 1833-1898
Burne-Jones, Georgiana, Lady, 1840-1920
Chatto, Andrew, d. 1913
Colles, Ramsay, 1862-1919
Collier, John Payne, 1789-1883
Gosse, Edmund, 1849-1928
Hughes, Charles, 1851-
Kernahan, Coulson
Kerr, Lowell
Kingsley, Henry, 1830-1876
Lang, Cecil Y.
Livingston, Luther Samuel, 1864-1914
Locker Lampson, Godfrey Tennyson Lampson , 1875-1946
Mayfield, John S., 1904-
Nichol, John, 1833-1894
Rhys, Ernest
Rossetti, William Michael, 1829-1919
Rothenstein, William, 1872-1945
Stephens, Frederic George, 1829-1907
Swinburne, Isabel, d. 1915
Swinburne, Paul, 1839-1905
Watts, George Frederick, 1817-1904
Watts-Dunton, Clara.
Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 1832-1914
Waugh, Frances Gledstanes, 1846-1902
Wilde, Constance, 1858-1898
Williams, William S., II