The booklet below is reproduced from a manuscript in the collection of Houghton Library, Harvard University. It is cataloged as MS Am 889.433, and it came to the Harvard collection in 1918 as an item in the vast and important bequest of Evert Jansen Wendell. The manuscript is undated and signed only with the initials "J. H. W."

The page numbers given for the texts that are illustrated are consistent with those in the first Ticknor & Fields edition, the "Blue & Gold" of 1860. This was reprinted in 1862 and stereotyped, with the stereo plates then used for Blue and Gold and Cabinet editions into the mid-1880s. Both these editions had 352 pages of text. By the 1880s, of course, used copies of both editions were widely available from booksellers. Wendell acquired materials from a great many diverse sources, so it probably is not possible at this time to date the booklet's creation more narrowly than 1860-1918, nor is it likely that J. H. W. will be identified.

Nonetheless, the booklet stands as a fascinating record of one early reading of the poem!

 

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[The drawing which should follow, on the recto of a new card [11], has apparently been lost; or perhaps J. H. W. did not complete it. The composition was likely fairly complex with the tea group in the foreground, Vargrave a bit to the side, and the figure of Lucile seen somewhat dimly in the background distance. The verso of this card was likely left blank as the next two cards contain both text and and illustration on their rectos.]

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Last revised: 29 June 2011