I have received the Chap-Book for Dec. 1st — but none of the others for which I subscribed in advance last summer (as detailed in a previous letter). Can I not have these missing parts, as I was a subscriber, namely, all *after* August 1st, except Septr. 15th till Nov. 15th inclusive.

I am sorry not to hear from you about "*The Gypsy Christ*". Some time ago I had an offer from an American firm anxious to publish some stories by me — but had to answer that I would let them know before Christmas, though I doubted being able to send anything this year. So now, as time is up, I must write & decline definitely.

I forget if I wrote to you that, when I sent the G.C. MS. I was uncertain as to the length of book you wanted. Let me add now that I do not say "take it or leave it as it stands': for if you find it overlong for your purposes, I would suggest that the volume consist of, say, seven instead of ten stories: in which case the three to be set aside might be "The Burden of a Song", "Primavera di Capri", and any other you choose except the first three (*The G. Christ*, *Madge o' the Pool*, and *The Rape of the Sabines*).

If, however, you think of the book for the G. T. series — which, I take it, you do not purpose — I suppose that 3, or at most 4, stories would suffice: in which case I would suggest simply *The Gipsy Christ*, *Madge o' the Pool* and *The Rape of the Sabines* under the collective title "The G.C". ("The King" could be included or not as you prefer). For sake of dramatic contrast, a vol. consisting only of three such diverse pieces as "The G.C"., "Madge", and "The Rape of the Sabines" *might* be most effective. What do you think?

Having glanced again at *Vistas*, it has occurred to me that you might care to have for it a strange 'Drama of Destiny', called "*The Tower of Silence*". The same acute critic who wrote the long *étude* on *Vistas* from which you quote, said of it (in MS) that "it is the most remarkable and significant production the co-called Décadent or Fin-de-Siécle school": and added, that it involves such a tremendous dramatic situation, "that some may at first fail to see the vital spiritual possibilities suggested in the last act".

This may or may not be. I can send you no more than the first act: all that is typed, & that not finally revised. It will show you the method: an extended use of that in *Vistas*, more actual, and with a poetic background of nature. (A strange problem of reversion in heredity, and a stranger psychological development, are the motive factors).

I had intended to publish this myself, semi-privately. I did this before, with my *Sospiri di Roma*, which I had printed for me in Italy, and 'published' through two paras. in the *Athenaeum & Academy*, and with some privately issued order-slips. Without other advt. the whole edn. (a limited one of course) was taken up. Recently, six copies were sent to me from a relative to whom I had entrusted them: of which I was glad, for the book is now very rare, and almost impossible to get. It has an added interest (besides being the first volume in English of nothing but unrhymed irregular verse) in the fact that it was set up by Italian printers in a small printing-place in the ancient Temple of Hercules at Tivoli in the Sabine Hills, & was printed under my supervision. I recollect, some months ago, intending to send you one of these copies: but don't think I did so. I now send it, for your acceptance, the last I shall ever have to give away: and please take with it my cordial greetings for Christmastide and 1895.

Please let me hear in due course what you think of this proposal: and kindly do not fail to return the type-copy herewith. I shall expect to hear from you at an early date about *The Gypsy Christ*, either as a 3-story volume or otherwise.

In haste, | Cordially Yours, | William Sharp

*ALS Huntington*

#### *To Herbert Stuart Stone, December 31, 1894*

Rutland House | Greencroft Gardens | South Hampstead | 31:Dec':94

Dear Mr. Stone,

Thanks for your letter of the 17th, to hand this morning.

I am glad you like the "Gypsy Christ" volume so well, and that you are willing to take it for publication.

A letter from me, à propos, will have crossed yours. I am still inclined to the belief that the volume would be more artistic in point of unity if it were shortened by one or two stories. For my own liking, I should say, let it comprise (1) The Gypsy Christ (2) Madge o' the Pool (3) The Rape of the Sabines

If this is too small a volume, then, say, "Fröken Bergliot" and either "The Coward" or "The Burden of Song".

There is an Italian story of mine, which I think is forceful, which Mr. Bliss Carman will remember — as it appeared in *The New York Independent* while he was editorially occupied there. I regret that I have

no copy of "The Second Shadow" as it is called: & cannot remember when it appeared.86 I wrote it in Rome in either January or February of 1891 — and I *think* it appeared either in the Spring or Summer of the same year. I take it to be a much stronger story than "A Venetian Idyl" or "Primavera di Capri" — though too somber perhaps. If Mr. Carman happens to remember it, and should think sufficiently well of it to advise its inclusion, it could doubtless be obtained from the *Independent* office. If it be included, I should prefer the volume to be composed as follows: —

1. The Gypsy Christ | 2. Madge o' the Pool | 3. Fröken Bergliot | 4. The Second Shadow | 5. A Venetian Idyl | 6. The Coward | 7. The Rape of the Sabines

If it is not included, the best arrangement, I think, would be

1. The Gypsy Christ | 2. Madge o' the Pool | 3. The Coward | 4. A Venetian Idyl | 5. Fröken Bergliot | 6. The Rape of the Sabines

I think now, that there is rather too pronounced affinity between "A Venetian Idyl" and "Primavera di Capri" — and of the two I fancy the first-named more. In any case, perhaps both "The Burden of Song" and "The King" might be omitted. I am quite willing, however, to be guided by your wishers in these matters. Finally, if you prefer it, I would not object to this arrangement: —87

I. Madge o' the Pool | II. The Rape of the Sabines | III. The Coward | IV. A Venetian Idyl | V. Fröken Bergliot | VI. The Gypsy Christ

I am glad you think so highly of "Madge o' the Pool". Your opinion as to its force and artistic unity concur with that of one of our ablest critics, who did me the honour (when he read it in M.S). of calling it a masterpiece.

As to what you say about "The Gypsy Christ", I daresay you are right: indeed, I am sure of it, and realized this some time ago. The plot is novel and remarkable, as you are good enough to imply in a generous incidental remark: and the story should be more concentrated and thus actualized. I thank you for your friendly criticism and suggestions. I will, therefore, give the story that kind of "revision for strength" which is practically a re-writing. Unfortunately, the only copy in existence is that in your possession. Both to avoid loss in transmission and to save time (a few months ago an important article was lost thus) are you willing to go to the expense of having the G.C. story set up in type, in "galley" say, and let me revise it in that form?

If not, I suggest that (if you are ready to go on with the book at once) you send me all or part of the remainder of the vol. in print for my revision — and at the same time let me have my copy of "The G. C.".: which I could rework, and send back with the proofs of the rest of the vol. (The G. C. could be type-written, and revised by me — so that no proofs of it need be sent). This arrangement would save time, and be advisable in every way. Of course, I prefer, if practicable, that the G. C. come to me in print. Otherwise, kindly see that it be registered.

As to terms, I am uncertain as to what you propose to do in the matter of English publication. Naturally, I would like the book to be issued here as well as in America. I am quite willing to leave the whole control in your hands. I will accept whatever royalty you suggest, as I am confident in your good intent and good faith: and know that you will make the best arrangement compatible with our joint interests. The last two or three books of mine published on the royalty system have been on a 15% royalty: though Osgood McIlvain and Co. allowed a 20% royalty on "A Fellow and His Wife".

Against this frank acceptance of whatever royalty you can honestly allow, however, I set my request that, on publication, the sum of £50 (Fifty Pounds) be advanced to me on account of royalties.

Finally, may I stipulate that, on publication, 25 copies be sent to me gratis.

In the circumstances, I do not think you will find these suggestions unduly exigent?

The looked-for copies of *Vistas* are not yet to hand. I hope to have them in time for New Year's Day. The two early copies you so kindly sent to me have been much admired by those who have seen them. The title page, too, is very taking. I thank you again for all your heed and courtesy in this republication of *Vistas*.

Cordially yours, with sincerest good wishes for 1895.

William Sharp

When the time comes near, do not forget to let me know beforehand about your visit to London.

P.S. I am pleased that you like my article on Walter Pater in the *Atlantic Monthly*. 88

I may add that I am today revising the proof of a long & rather important article for (I believe) either the March or April issue of *Harper's Monthly*. 89

And that reminds me: if you have not already done so, will you kindly send a copy of *Vistas* to the dedicatee, Mr. H. M. Alden, Editorial Offices, *Harper's Magazine*?

W. S.

*ALS NYPL, Berg Collection*

## Chapter 1

1 Most of what is known about William Sharp's early life is contained in *William Sharp (Fiona Macleod) A Memoir*, compiled by his wife Elizabeth A. Sharp (New York: Duffield & Co., 1910), https://archive.org/details/williamsharpfion00shariala

2 The first two letters, the earliest that survive and both only fragments, were written to Elizabeth A. Sharp (hereafter E. A. S.) after Sharp returned from Australia and before he settled in London in the spring of 1878. The ellipses indicate deletions by E. A. S. in printing the letters in the *Memoir*.

3 This early poem has not survived.

4 John Elder was the brother of Adelaide Elder, one of E. A. S.'s closest friends. Their father, Alexander Elder, found an opening for Sharp as a clerk in the London office of the City of Melbourne Bank in Spring 1878, thus enabling him to move to London (*Memoir* 27). Sharp met Adelaide Elder upon his return from Australia in the summer of 1877. Since John Elder was then in New Zealand for his health, he and Sharp first met in the summer of 1878 and soon became close friends. "John was a graduate of Cambridge, a thinker and man of fine tastes, and his new friend (Sharp) found a great stimulus in the keen mind of the older man" (*Memoir* 29). Adelaide gave William Sharp a book of Rossetti's poems, and they led to Sharp's first visit to Rossetti in Cheyne Walk in September 1879. Although this fragment of a letter is dated October 23, 1880 in the *Memoir* (31), it was written prior to the publication of Sharp's sonnet entitled "Religion" in the Examiner in September, 1879.

5 Probably "On Reverence," which, according to Elizabeth Sharp's bibliography, was published in *The Secular Review* on May 17, 1879. There was no *Sectarian Review*.

6 Ernest Belford Bax (1854–1926) was a barrister, author, musician, and philosopher Along with William Morris, he started the Socialist League. As the first to mount a sustained public campaign soliciting compassion for men and boys while denouncing gynocentric chivalry, he is considered the father of the "men's rights movement." As young Londoners, he and Sharp took long walks together in the late 1870s, but they drifted apart in the early eighties. For Bax's view of Sharp, see his *Reminiscences and Reflections of a Mid and Late Victorian* (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1920). His principal works include; *Jean-Paul Marat* (1878), *Kant's Prolegomena, etc., with Biography and Introduction* (1882), *Religion of Socialism* (1886), *The Roots of Reality* (1907).

7 "Religion" appeared in *The Examiner: A Sunday Paper on Politics, Literature, and Fine Arts* (September, 1879).

8 Sharp's first meeting with Rossetti probably occurred in September 1879 for, as this letter indicates, he was corresponding with him in familiar terms in January, 1880. In 1899 Sharp thanked Adelaide Elder for introducing him to Rossetti's poetry "two and twenty years ago" (*Memoir* 35). Miscalculating, E. A. S. set the date of Sharp's first acquaintance with Rossetti's work as fall 1879 and of his first meeting with Rossetti as September 1, 1881 (*Memoir* 36). The 1899 letter to Adelaide Elder and Sharp's early letters to Rossetti support fall 1877 as the date of Sharp's discovery of Rossetti's poetry and fall 1879 as the date of Sharp's appearance at Rossetti's door in Cheyne Walk to present him with the letter of introduction from Sir Noel Paton, an event that changed the course of Sharp's life by providing entrance to the literary and artistic life of London. For more information about Paton, see note to July 25, 1881 letter to Rossetti.

9 "Dance" was not published and has not survived. Rossetti's "The Card Dealer" (1849) appeared in *Poems* (1870).

10 Alice Mona Henryson Caird (1854–1932), a novelist, critic, social reformer, girlhood friend of E. A. S., was married to James Alexander Henryson Caird of Casseneary, Creeton, Kirkeudbrichtsh on December 19, 1877. They had one son, Major A. H. Caird. Her publications include: *Whom Nature Leadeth* (1883), *The Wings of Azrael* (1889), *Beyond the Pale: An Appeal on Behalf of the Victims of Vivisection* (1897, *The Morality of Marriage, and Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Woman* (1897). She was widely known, and by many disdained, for advocating changes in the marriage laws to grant women greater equality. E. A. S. dated this letter February 23, 1880, but it was written soon after Sharp's memorable private dinner with Rossetti on Friday, January 30. The invitation to that dinner prevented Sharp from continuing a letter to Mona Caird, and this letter describes the evening with Rossetti.

11 The completed "House of Life" was published in *Ballads and Sonnets* (London: Ellis and White, 1881). Sharp said the sonnet sequence "is, in the main, a record of individual emotions suggested by the presence and absence of embodied love … — a House, not of Life, but of Love… . [They] are the record of what a poet-soul has felt, and we see that love meant with him a dream of happiness while present, a dream of regret and a sense of frustration when passed away, but not that it inspired him to action or made his ideals more impersonal, or gave his aspirations wings to escape from the desolate haunts of sorrow and despondency and vague half-real hopes. Therefore, it is not so much that Love was the soul of his genius, as that his genius lived and had its being in the shadow of Love" (*Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study*, 408–10).

12 Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887) was a close friend of Rossetti and Sharp. After Marston's early death, Sharp edited and wrote introductory *Memoirs* to Marston's *For a Song's Sake and Other Stories* (London: Walter Scott, 1887) and *Song Tide* (London: Walter Scott, 1888). See note to Sharp's April 22, 1880 letter to Swinburne.

13 Watts-Dunton (1832–1914), a poet, critic, and novelist, was a close friend of Rossetti. Theodore Watts (1832–1914) became Theodore Watts-Dunton in 1898. In 1879, he and Swinburne took up residence at The Pines, Putney, where they lived until Swinburne's death in 1909. Watts-Dunton's publications include: *The Coming of Love* (1898), *Aylwin* (1899), *Rossetti and Charles Wells* (1908), *The Poetry of the Renascence of Wonder* (1916), *Vesprie Towers* (1916), and *Old Familiar Faces* (1916).

14 Moncure D. Conway's "William Kingdon Clifford" was tenth in the "Leaders of Modern Thought" series in *Modern Thought*, II (Feb. 1, 1880), 293–99. Clifford (1845–1879) was a mathematician, philosopher, and expert in classical and literary studies. His interest in Christian scholastic dogma was dispelled by his study of Darwin and Herbert Spencer. He was a follower of Berkeley and Hume and radically opposed the Hegelians. His posthumously published works include: *Lectures and Essays*, ed. F. Pollock and L. Stephen (1879), *Common Sense of the Exact Sciences*, ed. & partly written by Karl Pearson (1885), and several mathematical studies.

15 Dr. James Martineau (1805–1900) was a Unitarian minister, a respected theologian, and a Professor of Philosophy in Manchester New College, the seminary in which he had been educated. He was the younger brother of the essayist and novelist, Harriet Martineau. His principal works are: *Religion as Affected by Modern Materialism* (1874), *Modern Materialism* (1876), *Hours of Thought on Sacred Things* (last series, 1876; 2nd series, 1879), *Ideal Substitutes for God Considered* (1879).

16 This letter precedes an undated letter to Rossetti in the *Memoir* (40–41) which responds to Rossetti's criticism of Sharp's sonnets.

17 Philip Bourke Marston.

18 Thomas Henry Hall Caine (1853–1931), who later became a popular novelist, was a close companion of Rossetti in 1881 and 1882. Rossetti had suggested Sharp submit one or two sonnets for publication in Caine's *Sonnets of Three Centuries* (1882). Although Rossetti found fault in Sharp's first effort, two sonnets eventually passed muster and were included in the volume. Caine's *Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti* and Sharp's *Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study* appeared in late 1882 following Rossetti's death in April. Richard Le Gallienne (*Romantic Nineties*, 1951, p. 20) recalled Oscar Wilde saying: "Whenever a great man dies, Hall Caine and William Sharp go in with the undertakers." To be sure, both writers were anxious to capitalize on their close relationship with Rossetti, but both books contain useful information.

19 William Michael Rossetti (1829–1919) was Dante Gabriel Rossetti's brother. His wife, Emma Lucy (1843–1894), was the daughter of the painter Ford Madox Brown, and she was also a painter. William Michael was educated at King's College School, London, and entered the Excise Office in 1845. His publications include *Lives of Famous Poets* (1878), *The Life of Keats* (1887), *Dante G. Rossetti as Designer and Writer* (1895), *Memoir of Dante G. Rossetti* (1895), and *Some Reminiscences* (1906). He edited works by the pre-Raphaelites, the romantic poets, and Chaucer's *Troylus and Criseyde*.

20 This letter was transcribed and published in *The Sexual Tensions of William Sharp* by Terry L. Meyers (New York: Peter Lang, 1996). Meyers states that arrangements were made for Phillip Marston to take Sharp to meet Swinburne at his home in Putney, probably in June, 1880. Meyers also reproduces a previously unpublished poem that accompanied this letter: "To Mr. A. C. Swinburne." The manuscript poem is housed in the Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin where its authorship was previously unknown. This transcription of the letters is from a photocopy of the manuscript.

21 Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887), the son of John Westland Marston, a wellknown man of letters, was blinded at the age of three by the administration of belladonna in an effort to cure scarlet fever. He began writing poetry at an early age and published his first volume (*Song-Tide and Other Poems*, 1871) when he was twenty-one; his second (*All in All: Poems and Sonnets*, 1875) four years later; and a third (*Wind Voices*) in 1883. By then he had become a favored member of the circle of young men around Dante Gabriel Rossetti who introduced him to William Sharp in 1880. The two men became fast friends. Following Marston's death Sharp published a selection of his poems with an introductory *Memoir* in his Canterbury Poets Series (*Song-Tide: Poems and Lyrics of Love's Joy and Sorrow*) and a collection of his short stories containing the same *Memoir* (*For a Song's Sake and Other Stories*). Both were issued by the Walter Scott firm in 1888.

22 Robert Edward Francillon (1851–1919), a novelist and journalist, married Rosamund Barnett, the daughter of the musical composer, John Barnett. Between 1872 and 1894 he was on the staff of the *Globe*. He belonged to a Pre-Raphaelite group which met at the home of Dr. Westland Marston, a dramatist and father of Philip B. Marston, where Rossetti and Swinburne, as well as Richard Garnett, William Morris, and Arthur O'Shaughnessy were often entertained. His works include: *Earl's Dene* (1870), *Olympia* (1874), *A Dog and His Shadow* (1876), *Queen Cophetua* (1880), *Gods and Heroes, or The Kingdom of Jupiter* (1892), *Jack Doyle's Daughter* (1894), and *Mid-Victorian Memories* (1914).

23 Julian Hawthorne (1846–1934), son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a novelist, journalist, historical writer, and biographer. He lived in London between 1874 and 1881. His publications include: *Saxon Studies* (1874), *Gath* (1875), *Archibald Malmaison* (1878), *Sebastian Strome* (1879), *Dust* (1882), *Fortune's Fool* (1883), *Biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne* (1885), *History of Oregon* (1888), and *Shapes That Pass: Memories and Meditations* (1928).

24 David Christie Murray (1847–1907), a novelist and journalist, wrote some thirty loosely plotted novels, many drawn from his experience as a reporter. His works include: *A Life's Atonement* (1879), *Joseph's Coat* (1881), *Val Strange* (1882), *By the Gate of the Sea* (1883), *Rainbow Gold* (1885), *Aunt Rachel* (1886), *Autobiography: A Novelist's Notebook* (1887), and *Recollections* (1908).

25 Published in *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood* (1882), this poem was the subject of an exchange of correspondence between Sharp and Violet Paget ("Vernon Lee") on the appropriate subject matter of poetry.

26 Rossetti's written response to these two poems — "Motherhood" and "The Dead Bridegroom" — is contained in a letter from Rossetti to Sharp dated January 1881 (*Memoir* 44).

27 Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton (1845–1907) was a poet-novelist and the halfbrother of Violet Paget who published under the pseudonym "Vernon Lee." In 1873 he was incapacitated by a nervous disease that kept him bed-ridden and completely dependent on his mother and half-sister until 1893–94 when, following his mother's death, he made an unexpected and complete recovery. He traveled to America in 1898 where he married the novelist, Annie E. Holdsworth, and returned with her to his mother's villa outside Florence. In later life, Eugene Lee-Hamilton and Violet Paget were almost entirely estranged. His works include *Poems and Transcripts* (1878); *Gods, Saints, and Men* (1880); *The New Medusa* (1882); *Apollo and Marsyas* (1884); *Imaginary Sonnets* (1888); *The Fountain of Youth* (1891); *Sonnets of the Wingless Hours* (1894) *The Lord of the Dark Red Star* (1903); *Dramatic Sonnets, Poems, and Ballads*, edited by William Sharp for the Canterbury Poets series in 1903; *The Romance of the Fountain* (1905); and *Mimma Bella* (1908).

28 Probably *Gods, Saints, and Men*.

29 Frederic James Shields (1833–1911), a painter and illustrator influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, was a friend of Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, John Ruskin, William Holman Hunt, and Edward Burne-Jones. His most important work, begun in 1889 and finished a few months before his death, was a pictorial decoration of the walls in the Chapel of the Ascension on Bayswater Road in London.

30 Shortly after Sharp settled in London in the late spring of 1878, Alexander Elder, the father of Adelaide and John Elder, found him a position in the City of Melbourne Bank where he was bound as a clerk for three years. His banking career ended in August, 1891, when it became clear to him and his employers that he was unsuited to the work (*Memoir* 27, 53–54).

31 Auguste Comte (1789–1857) attempted to transform philosophy into religion by substituting the worship of humanity for the worship of God. His principal works include *Cours de philosophie positive* (1830–42), *Catéchisme positiviste* (1852), *Système de politique positive* (1851–54), *Calendrier positiviste* (1849).

32 Published in Sharp's first volume of poems, *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood* (1882).

33 Brackets as written. The ballad was probably "The Son of Allen" which Sharp included in *Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy* (London: Walter Scott, 1889).

34 Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844–1881) was the author of four volumes of poetry. A brother-in-law of Philip Bourke Marston, he was employed in the British Museum's Department of History. He died on Sunday, January 30, 1881, which dates this letter Thursday, February 3.

35 Probably "The Son of Allan."

36 Philip Bourke Marston.

37 Olivia Narney [Singleton] Garnett (d. 1903) was the wife of Richard Garnett (1835–1906), author and Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum where he worked from 1851–1899. Her husband, considered "the ideal librarian," published extensively in both verse and prose and is best known for *Relics of Shelley* (1862) and *The Twilight of the Gods* (1903). She was also the mother of Edward Garnett (1868–1937). A well-known author and dramatist, he published *A Censured Play: The Breaking Point* (1907); *Turgenef* (1917); and *Papa's War* (1919). He was married to Constance (Black) Garnett (1862–1946), the highly-regarded translator of major Russian novelists.

38 This letter was sent to Elizabeth Sharp while she was in Italy during the early months of 1881.

39 Joaquin Miller (1841–1913) was the pseudonym of Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, "The Byron of Oregon." A horse thief, Portland lawyer, pony-express messenger, and newspaper editor, Miller fascinated the English who considered him "the frontier poet." His works include: *Specimens* (1868), *Joaquin, et al.* (1860), *Pacific Poems* (1890), *Songs of the Sierra* (1877), a Mormon play called *The Danites of the Sierras* (1877), an autobiographical *Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History* (1873), and *Memorie and Rime* (1884).

40 Published in *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood* (1882). Eugene Lee-Hamilton and Violet Paget saw the poem in manuscript. Elizabeth probably showed it to them while she was in Italy.

41 This poem was never published (see *Memoir 45*).

42 Eugene Lee-Hamilton's first book of poems, *Poems and Transcripts* (1878).

43 Published in *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood* (1882).

44 Violet Paget (1856–1937), daughter of Matilda [Adams] Lee-Hamilton Paget and Henry Ferguson Paget and half-sister of Eugene Lee-Hamilton, was a prolific writer of fiction and works of history, philosophy, and sociology. She chose the pseudonym Vernon Lee, at the start of her career. Vernon reflects her desire to be taken seriously as a "male" writer, and "Lee" the influence of her older half-brother on her intellectual development. It was widely known in literary circles that Vernon Lee was Violet Paget. Her major works include *Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy* (1880), a pioneering work that brought to light the spontaneous national movement that developed in the music and drama of eighteenth-century Italy; *Euphorion* (1884); its sequel; *Renaissance Fancies and Studie*s (1895); *Genius Loci* (1899); and *The Spirit of Rome* (1906).

45 Agnes Mary Frances Robinson (1857–1944) was the daughter of George Robinson, a London banker who was well known in the literary world of the eighties and nineties. He frequently entertained such luminaries as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Moore, and Thomas Hardy. Agnes began writing poetry at an early age and published her first book of poetry, *A Handfull of Honeysuckle*, in 1878 when she was twenty-one. That was followed by *The Crowned Hippolytus of Euripides: With New Poems* in 1881. In 1882 she married James Darmesteter, a well-known French orientalist, and moved to France. Her third book of poetry, *An Italian Garden: A Book of Songs*, appeared in 1886. After Darmesteter died in 1894, she married Emile Duclaux, Director of the Pasteur Institute. Her *Collected Poems* were published in 1901, and she continued writing poetry, much of it influenced by the horrors of both World Wars, until her death in 1944.

46 "Hand and Soul," a prose tale by D. G. Rossetti published in *The Germ* in January 1849, tells the story of a painting called "Figura Mistica di Chiaro dell'Erma." The tale describes a young man obsessed with art who imitates others to win the fame he so passionately desires. The allegory is centered on the figure of a lady who appears in a vision and instructs the young artist to paint her, saying "I am an image, Chiaro, of thine own soul within thee."

47 See March 10,1881 letter to Eugene Lee-Hamilton.

48 The reference is to a controversy over an article, "The Fleshly School of Poetry," which Robert Buchanan published under the pseudonym Thomas Maitland in the *Contemporary Review (*October, 1871). Exploiting a Victorian taboo on open sexuality, Buchanan launched a prudish attack on the "fleshly" treatment of physical passion in Pre-Raphaelite art, denouncing Swinburne and Rossetti for their degenerative influence on public morals. In a pamphlet called "Under the Microscope," Swinburne defended himself with an outburst of pornographic invective expressed in pseudo-Biblical language. Rossetti, in "The Stealthy School of Criticism" (*Athenaeum*, Dec., 1871), answered Buchanan's charge of "fleshliness": In my poetry "All the passionate and just delights of the body are declared — somewhat figuratively it is true, but unmistakable — to be as naught if not ennobled by the concurrence of the soul at all times."

49 Published in 1874.

50 Harry Buxton Forman (1842–1917), known for his painstaking editions of Keats and Shelley, worked for forty-seven years in the postal service and was an early advocate of a post office library, later becoming its secretary. He knew and supported Rossetti, Morris, and Meredith. His early works include: *Our Living Poets* (1871), the book Sharp refers to here, and *Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Her Scarcer Books* (1876). In 1887, in association with a London commodity broker and book collector Thomas James Wise, Forman began publishing what turned out many years later to be forged early editions of British writers. For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry\_Buxton\_Forman

51 Emerson's "The Poet."

52 There is no record of its publication.

53 *Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy* (1880).

54 Sharp did not make his first trip to Italy until 1883 (*Memoir* 78–79). E. A. S. was in Italy in early 1881 (*Memoir* 44–49).

55 This edition has not been identified.

56 Christina G. Rossetti's *Poems* (1872). Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Her works include *Goblin Market and Other Poems* (1862) and *A Pageant* (1881). She also wrote nursery rhymes like *Sing Song* (1872), and children's tales such as *Speaking Likenesses* (1874). For the last 20 years of her life she produced mostly works with religious themes. These very popular books include *Called to Be Saints* (1881) and *The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse* (1892).

57 *Light of Asia* was not written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton but by Sir Edwin Arnold. The full title is *The Light of Asia; or, The Great Renunciation — Mahabhinishkramana, Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama … as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist* (1879). In it, Arnold attempted "by the medium of an imaginary Buddhist votary to depict the life and character and indicate the philosophy of that noble hero and reformer, Prince Gautama of India, founder of Buddhism." It appeared in 1879 and was an immediate success, going through numerous editions in England and America. Arnold's other volumes of poetry: *Indian Song of Songs* (1875), *Pearls of the Faith* (1883), *With Sadi in the Garden* (1888), *Potiphar's Wife* (1892), *Adzuma, or The Japanese Wife* (1893), and *Indian Poetry* (1904), https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin\_Arnold

58 Sharp seems to be saying that the Tauchnitz edition [*Poems*, ed. with a Memoir of the author by Franz Huffer (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1873)] is cheaper than the paper edition.

59 Not published.

60 "The Wandering Jew" was not published.

61 Vernon Lee, "A Dialogue on Contemporary Morality," *Contemporary Review*, XXXVIV (1881), 682–707. As Sharp proceeds to indicate, Cyril, in this dialogue, was intended to be Sharp, while Baldwin speaks for Violet Paget.

62 "Spring Wind" was published in Sharp's first collection of poetry, *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood* (1882) and in T. Hall Caine's *Sonnets of Three Centuries* (1882). "A Poet's Greeting to a Brother Poet" was probably not published.

63 Sir Joseph Noel Paton (1821–1901) was a Scottish artist, illustrator and sculptor. He was also a poet who had a deep interest in, and knowledge of, Scottish folklore and Celtic legends. Most of his life was spent in Scotland, but he studied briefly at the Royal Academy in London in 1843 where he met John Everett Millais who asked him to join the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The invitation to be an official member of the Brotherhood was turned down by Paton although he painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style. Noel Paton's parents were damask designers and weavers, William and Elizabeth Sharp descended from three generations of muslin manufacturers, and the two families were close friends. Noel Paton played an important role in Sharp's establishment as a writer. He provided the introduction to Danial Gabriel Rossetti, who accepted him into his circle of fellow writers and painters. He was responsible for a letter Sharp received when he was desperately short of money in early 1883. The letter was from an unknown friend who had known his grandfather. In his own words, "He had heard from Sir Noel Paton that I was inclined to the study of literature and art. He therefore enclosed a cheque for two hundred pounds, which I was to spend in going to Italy to pursue my artistic studies" (*Memoir* 78–79). Sharp went to Italy that spring and immersed himself in the study of Italian Renaissance painters in Florence and Rome, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Joseph\_Noel\_Paton

64 This refers to either *Poems* or *Ballads and Sonnets*, both published in London by Ellis and White in 1881. With the exception of four new poems in *Poems*, both volumes were comprised of previously printed works.

65 Dinah Maria Mulock (1826–1887), the author of *John Halifax, Gentleman* (1854), married George Lillie Craik in 1864. Sir Noel Paton was a close friend of the Craiks, and he provided Sharp an introduction in 1880. Mrs. Craik was the godmother of Philip Bourke Marston who became a good friend of Sharp after Rossetti introduced them. According to Elizabeth Sharp, Mrs. Craik "had a house in Kent, at Shortlands, and to it she on several occasions invited the two young poets" [Sharp and Marston]. E. A. S. described one such visit in the summer of 1880 during which Sharp contracted a cold that led to rheumatic fever (*Memoir* 41–42).

66 Since Rossetti had multiple paintings titled Beatrice it is difficult to determine which Sharp refers to here. It is, however, most likely Beata Beatrix (1864), which, along with Dante's Dream, Sharp considered Rossetti's finest painting. Rossetti's paintings are marvelously reproduced and discussed in the Rossetti Archive: "The Rossetti Archive facilitates the scholarly study of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painter, designer, writer, and translator who was, according to both John Ruskin and Walter Pater, the most important and original artistic force in the second half of the nineteenth century in Great Britain." http://www. rossettiarchive.org/index.html

67 Dr. Westland Marston (1819–1890), the father of Sharp's friend Philip Bourke Marston, was a poetic dramatist, a member of the Dickens circle, editor of the *National Magazine* in 1837, and a poetry critic for *The Athenaeum* after 1863. His works include *The Patrician's Daughter* (1842), *Strathmore* (1849), *Anne Blake* (1853), *A Life's Ransom* (1857), *A Hard Struggle* (1858), *Donna Diana* (1863), *The Favorite of Fortune* (1866), *Life for Life* (1869), and *Broken Spells* (1873).

68 Possibly the wife of Viscount Stratford Canning, Stratford de Redcliffe (1786–1880). An important diplomat, he served for a time as ambassador in Constantinople. Lady Stratford (de Redcliffe) was born c.1807 and survived her husband's death.

69 A portion of this letter appears in the *Memoir* (55–57).

70 Sir Noel Paton.

71 Philip Bourke Marston.

72 Rossetti created three paintings titled Dante's Dream. The first is a watercolor from 1855, and the second, to which Sharp is referring here, is an oil from 1871. It is, according to Sharp's book on Rossetti, the artist's largest painting, and its full title is Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice. It can be seen here: https://www.wikiart.org/en/dante-gabriel-rossetti/dante-s-dream The third Dante's Dream is an oil from 1878.

73 Sir Noel Paton.

74 Raphael's Sistine Madonna (1513), which is at the Gemaldegalerie in Dresden.

75 Frederick James Shields.

76 Noel Paton's sister, Amelia Robertson Paton (1820–1904), was a portrait painter and sculptor. Her early works consisted mainly of portraits of family and friends, but her professional career flourished after she married, at age fortytwo, David Octavius Hill (1802–1870), an Edinburgh landscape painter who was the first to use photography as an aid to painting. A highly respected sculptor, Paton was deeply involved in the artistic and intellectual life of Edinburgh. She sculpted busts of many Scottish dignitaries and created the statue of David Livingston in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, and that of Robert Burns in Dumfries. The Paton and Sharp families were friends, and Elizabeth and Amelia were especially close, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia\_Robertson\_Hill

77 Probably *The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley*, edited by Mary Shelley and published by Edward Moxon (London: 1839).

78 Either *Poems* or *Ballads and Sonnets*.

79 Marcus Bourne Huish (1843–1921) was an English barrister, writer and art dealer. He edited *The Art Journal* from 1881 to 1893, and he was the Director of the Fine Art Society at the time of this letter. Sharp had a temporary position at the Society's gallery in New Bond Street. He was hired for just six months "to form a section dealing with old German and English Engravings and Etchings," and he lost that position when the Society decided not to form the section. Had he been successful in urging Rossetti to agree to an exhibition in the gallery, he may well have been hired on a more permanent basis to organize that exhibit.

80 Frederick James Shields (1833–1911) was a British artist, illustrator and designer closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites.

81 Recognized artists whose works were exhibited in the Fine Art Society Gallery: William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), Samuel Prout (1783–1852), John Everett Millais (1829–1896), and Samuel Palmer (1805–1881).

82 George Frederick Watts (1817–1904) and Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898).

## Chapter 2

1 This letter was written from Birchington, Kent, where Rossetti died on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1882.

2 Although he never finished it, Rossetti returned to work on his "Joan of Arc" during a short period of recovery shortly before his death in 1882.

3 Robert Farquharson Sharp (1864–1945) was Elizabeth Sharp's brother and thus both a first cousin and brother-in-law of William Sharp, whose literary executor he became upon Elizabeth's death in 1932. He served in the Department of Printed Books in the British Museum from 1888 until 1929. His published works include *Dictionary of English Authors* (1897), *Makers of Music* (1898), *Reader's Guide to Everyman's Library* (1932), *Short Biographical Dictionary of Foreign Literature* (1933), and translations of Hugo, Bjornson, and Ibsen. On February 5, 1937, he read an essay entitled "I Remember William Sharp" on the BBC.

4 In the *Memoir* (63), this letter is misdated 1883.

5 This sonnet was not published until Mrs. Sharp printed it in the *Memoir*. Two other sonnets addressed to D. G. Rossetti appear in the section entitled "Sonnets, 1882–1886" in the *Selected Writings of William Sharp*, Uniform Edition Arranged by Mrs. William Sharp, Volume One, *Poems by William Sharp* (London: William Heinemann, 1912).

6 William Bell Scott (1811–1890), was a Scottish artist in oils and watercolors. He was also a poet and art teacher, and his posthumously published reminiscences give a chatty and often vivid picture of life in the circle of the Pre-Raphaelites; he was especially close to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His publications include *Poems* (1854), *William Blake: Etchings from his Works* (1878), and *The Little Masters* (1880).

7 Edward Dowden (1843–1913), an Irish poet, essayist, biographer, and literary critic, was a Professor at Trinity College Dublin from 1892 until his death. He gave the Taylor Lectures at Oxford in 1889 and the Clark Lectures at Cambridge between 1892 and 1896. He is best known for his Shakespeare criticism and his two-volume *Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley* (1886). Among his publications are *Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art* (1875), *Poems* (1876), *Introduction to Shakespeare* (1893), *Essays: Modern and Elizabethan* (1910), and *Poems* (1914).

8 For more information about Dowden, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Edward\_Dowden.

9 Notice by Theodore Watts (later Watts-Dunton) of Sharp's first book of poetry — *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood* — which was published by Elliot Stock in Spring 1882.

#### 10 *Yorkshire Post*.

11 A poet and essayist, James Thomson (1834–1882) was the author of "City of Dreadful Night" (1874) and a volume of that title which followed in 1880, in addition to *Essays and Phantasies* (1881), and *Satires and Profanities* (1884). In 1840 his father became paralyzed and his mother died in 1842. In 1853 the girl that he loved, Matilda Weller, died suddenly. Additionally, his insomnia, dipsomania, melancholia, poverty, alcoholism, and eventual homelessness are some of the "miseries" to which Sharp refers. He collapsed at Philip Bourke Marston's on June 1st and died on June 3rd.

12 Date from postcard on envelope.

13 Philip Bourke Marston.

14 James Thomson.

15 Sharp began his book on Rossetti (*Daniel Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study*) in June 1882 within two months of Rossetti's death in April. It was published in December by Macmillan. The book was well-received and established Sharp's reputation as a critic. He later considered it a too-hasty project by a young man whose "judgement" was "immature" (*Memoir* 63–72).

16 Caine's *Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti* was published by Elliot Stock in fall 1882.

17 A journalist and novelist, William Tirebuch (1854–1900) was a friend of Hall Caine who lived in Liverpool. After a period of writing for the *Liverpool Mail* and the *Yorkshire Post*, he devoted himself to writing novels. He was the first to get a book about Rossetti into print after Rossetti died (*Dante Gabriel Rossetti,*  1882). Hall Caine and William Sharp were writing books on Rossetti in 1882, and each hoped to be the first to publish. It turned out that Tirebuch's book "was a slim essay on Rossetti's art with little about his life. It came out on June, 1882, and William [Rossetti] dismissed it as of no importance as the writer had not known Rossetti personally and was himself unknown." See *Hall Caine. Portrait of a Victorian Romancer* by Vivien Allen (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 151–52.

18 This work became *Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study*.

19 *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood*.

20 For images of the Rossetti paintings identified in this letter, consult the Rossetti Archive: http://www.rossettiarchive.org/index.html

21 I.e. watercolour.

22 "Found" is a famous unfinished painting by Rossetti.

23 Frederick Startridge Ellis (1830–1901 was a bookseller, author, and publisher (Ellis and White) who brought out works by William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and became their close friend.

24 Date from postmark, and addressed to Ellis at Hill House, Epsom. Sharp wrote this card on the 25th, a Thursday, after returning from seeing Ellis' Rossetti paintings in Epsom.

25 Philip Bourke Marston.

26 Mathilde Blind (1841–1896) was a German-born poet, translator, and friend of the Rossetti family. Her works include *The Ascent of Man*; *The Heather on Fire*; *Dramas in Miniature*; *Poems of the Open Air*; *Tarantella: A Romance* (1885); *Madame Roland* (1886); and *George Eliot* (1888).

27 This incomplete letter is taken from a summary which was transcribed by a Manx Museum staff member.

28 The "'unsold drawings" by D. G. Rossetti were sold at Christie's in 1883. The reference is to the "Supplementary Catalogue" Sharp included in his book on Rossetti.

29 On October 23, Sharp told W. M. Rossetti he would be going to Hampshire for a fortnight or more. This letter indicates he was staying in Northbrook House in Micheldever which was the country home of the Cairds. The Sharps stayed there frequently at the invitation of Mona Caird, a good friend of Elizabeth Sharp since their school days, who became a well-known advocate of women's rights. (See note to Sharp letter to Caird dated early 1880.) Built in the eighteenth century, Northbrook House is now a grade II listed building. The date of the letter is established by its reference to the proofs, which Sharp expected in a few days, of the wood-engraving of D. G. Rossetti's design which surrounds the sonnet he wrote about the sonnet. Sharp told Dowden on December 10, 1882 that Christina Rossetti and her mother had made the design containing the sonnet available to him for publication as the frontispiece for his study of Rossetti.

30 *The New Medusa and Other Poems* (1882). The book Sharp received from Richard Garnett was *Selected Letters of Shelley* with an introduction by Garnett which was published by Kegan Paul in 1882.

31 *Sonnets of Three Centuries: A Selection*, ed. T. H. Caine (1882).

32 *Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study*.

33 Frederick Langbridge (1849–1922) was a clergyman who lived for many years in Limerick. He wrote poems, plays, novels, and books for children.

#### 34 *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood*.

35 India ink is a simple black or colored ink once widely used for writing and printing.

36 In 1883 there were exhibitions of Rossetti's art at both the Royal Academy's Burlington House and the Burlington Fine Arts Club. The latter was offered as a supplementary and concurrent exhibition due to the supposed shortcomings of the Royal Academy's exhibition. The Royal Academy exhibit opened in December 1882, and the Burlington Club's opened on January 13, 1883. The *London Times* responded favorably to both: "the two Rossetti exhibitions now open will be remembered for a long time to come. They have dispelled more than one prejudice, and thrown a new light on the origin of a movement which has played an important part in the development of English art and of the external surroundings of English life" (January 15, 1883, p. 8).

37 For many years an imposing residence in Piccadilly, Burlington House was sold in 1854 to the British government for £140,000. The Royal Society occupied part of the house in 1857. The Royal Academy of Art moved to the main block in 1867 on a 999-year lease with rent of £1 per year. It soon became and remains a prestigious art school and a major art gallery. The Burlington Fine Arts Club was established in 1866 and occupied (until its demise in 1952) imposing quarters at 17 Savile Row. In addition to providing gallery space for exhibitions, it was a men's club for artists and art patrons. Daniel Gabriel Rossetti was a member as were James McNeill Whistler, John Ruskin, and William Michael Rossetti.

38 Sharp's four-month visit to Italy, which began in late February 1883, was made possible by the gift of 200 pounds from a friend of his grandfather who heard from Sir Noel Paton that Sharp was "inclined to the study of literature and art" (*Memoir* 78). Of all the letters Sharp wrote to his fiancé from Italy, only those she printed in the *Memoir* survive since she destroyed toward the end of her life all the letters she had received from him and most of those he received from others. That was a sad loss because the letters and fragments that survive contain the responses of a perceptive young man, heavily imbued with the work of the British Pre-Raphaelites, to the paintings, murals, and statuary of the Italian Renaissance. Not long after he returned to England, Sharp became the London art critic for the *Glasgow Herald*, a position he later turned over to his wife. Both William and Elizabeth Sharp attended not only the major art exhibits in London, but also for many years the annual Spring Salons in Paris. They wrote extensively about the art they observed there in the late 1880s and 1890s, a period in which the experimental work of French artists dominated the international art world.

39 The Brancaccio Chapel of the Santa Maria del Carmine is a landmark of Florentine art. Its frescoes were painted by Masolino, beginning in 1424, and by his pupil Masaccio, who worked until his death in 1428 at the age of 27. They were completed by Filippino Lippi in the 1480s. Many of the scenes are among Masaccio's masterpieces, and many artists of the 1400s and 1500s came to the chapel to sketch and discover how Masaccio achieved his dramatic effects.

40 Mrs. Smillie, Elizabeth Sharp's aunt, had a villa on the outskirts of Florence.

41 Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée) (1839–1909) was well known on the continent as well as in England and America for her stories and criticism. Her mother, Susan Sutton, was English, and her father, Louis Reme, French. When she was not traveling, she lived and worked at her Villa Farinola outside Florence. She wrote glamorous, unreal, but extremely popular stories. Among her most successful books were: *Held in Bondage* (1863), *Chandos* (1866), and *Under Two Flags* (1867).

42 William Wetmore Story (1819–1895) was an American sculptor, poet, and novelist who moved permanently to Rome in 1850. See note to Sharp's July 15, 1890 letter to Story. John Rollin Tilton (1828–1888), a close friend of Story, was a landscape painter who worked chiefly in watercolors. Also an American, he settled in Rome in 1852 and remained for the rest of his life.

43 Arthur Lemon (1850–1912) was a British painter who spent his early years in Rome and was, for ten years, a cowboy in California, where he painted Indians and wildlife.

44 John Arthur Lomax (1857–1923) studied in Munich and did his major work in Manchester and London.

45 Mrs. Smillie.

46 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi Sodoma (1477–1549) was a Lombard painter who worked at Monte Oliveto from 1505 to 1508, continuing the frescoes, "*Scenes of the Life of St. Benedict* that were begun by Luca Signorelli (1450–1523), an Umbrian painter and a pupil and collaborator of Piero della Francesca. Signorelli's "Legend of St. Benedict," a work known for its anatomical detail, its foreshortening, and its conveyance of pathos, was probably painted at Monte Oliveto in 1497.

47 Sharp wrote "The Tides of Venice" before he visited Italy. It was published in *The Human Inheritance; The New Hope; Motherhood*.

48 John Addington Symonds (1840–1893) settled in Switzerland in 1877 and remained there until his death, with regular trips to Italy, especially Venice. He and Sharp developed a warm friendship, and Symonds encouraged Sharp's literary pursuits throughout the eighties.

49 William Dean Howells (1837–1920), a novelist, poet, and essayist, was a subeditor of *The Atlantic Monthly* under James T. Fields and editor-in-chief from 1872 until 1881. He wrote the "Editor's Study" column for *Harper's Monthly* from 1886 to 1891 when he left to edit *Cosmopolitan* for a year. He returned to *Harper's* in 1900 and wrote the "Editor's Easy Chair" until his death. Howells was the U.S. Consul in Venice from 1861 until 1865, and he returned frequently for visits. His works include: *Poems* (1873), *A Modern Instance* (1882), *The Rise of Silas Lapham* (1885), *Modern Italian Poets* (1887), *A Hazard of New Fortunes* (1890), *Literature and Life* (1902), *Years of My Youth* (1916), and *The Leatherwood God* (1916).

50 William Michael Rossetti married Emma Lucy Brown, the daughter of Ford Maddox Brown, in 1874.

51 E. A. S. confirms that Venice, where he enjoyed the "frequent companionship of John Addington Symonds" and long hours in the gondola, was the "crowning pleasure" of Sharp's Italian sojourn. He stayed there through May, spent June in the Ardennes with Elizabeth and her mother, and returned to London briefly in July before going on to Scotland to stay with his mother and sister at Innellan on the Clyde (*Memoir* 93).

52 Sharp is probably referring to the second of the two sales described by Oswald Doughty: "On July 5th [1882] and the two following days, the sale of Rossetti's household effects took place at Cheyne Walk. To William's [William Michael Rossetti] pleased surprise it produced, together with some of the pictures sold privately, about three thousand pounds… . It chanced to be Gabriel's birthday, May 12, 1883, when the remaining paintings were sold at Christie's for about the same sum as the household sale had realized; the total thus raised, almost six thousand pounds, proved sufficient to pay Rossetti's debts and even leave a small balance in hand." Oswald Doughty, *Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A Victorian Romantic* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), 674.

53 Elizabeth Sharp in her *Memoir* states the portmanteau was lost when Sharp was returning to London from Innellan. This letter makes clear that it was lost on his way from London to Innellan to stay with his Mother & sisters. It was found about a month after its loss with its contents, according to E. A. S., "in a soaked sodden condition, but still legible and serviceable." Elizabeth reported that his search for the portmanteau in the wet & cold of Scotland caused him to become ill with rheumatic fever which attacked his heart when he returned to London in September (*Memoir* 94).

54 Although the enclosed poem is dated September 18, 1883, this letter was written in mid-to late-November. Sharp was "feeling better" after becoming seriously ill with rheumatic fever upon his return from Scotland in September. He is glad Caine was feeling better and that Sandown suits him. Caine went to live in a cottage near Sandown on the Isle of Wight at the end of October, 1883 (Vivien Allen, *Hall Caine, Portrait of a Victorian Romancer*).

55 *Wind Voices* (London: Stock, 1883).

56 Sharp accepted Dinah Maria Craik's offer and spent March and April in her Dover house: 9 Hubert Terrace. He told Caine in a letter dated February 11, 1884 that he would be coming up from Dover each "Saty. till Monday — tho' not to Thorngate Road." He probably spent at least some weekends in London with Elizabeth at her parent's house, 72 Inverness Terrace, from which he could attend art exhibits on Saturday and keep up his reviewing for the *Glasgow Herald*. When he left Dover in early May, he crossed to Paris and stayed there until May 20. In October 1884, Mrs. Craik lent her Dover house to the Sharps for a portion of their honeymoon.

57 Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton (1803–1873) was a prolific novelist, poet, critic, and Member of Parliament. His novels include *Pelham* (1828), *The Last Days of Pompeii*, 3 vol. (1834), *King Arthur* (1848), and *The Caxtons*, 3 vol. (1849). In 1883 his son, (Edward) Robert Bulwer-Lytton (1831–1891), a diplomat and poet, published *The Life, Letters and Literary Remains* of his father. The two volumes covered the period 1803–1832. There were no subsequent volumes. Lytton's wife, Lady Rosina (Doyle Wheeler) Bulwer-Lytton, who was Irish, was also a novelist. They separated after about six years of marriage (1827–1836). In 1839 she published a novel called *Cheveley, or the Man of Honour*, in which her husband was cast as the villain.

58 Agnes Mary Frances Robinson (1857–1944). See note to Sharp's March 1881 letter to Violet Paget.

59 One of these books would have been his second volume of poems, *Earth's Voices, etc.* (1884).

60 *The Poetical Works of John Keats*, ed. H. Buxton Forman (1884).

61 Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

62 *The New Medusa, and Other Poems*.

63 *New Arcadia, and Other Poems* (London: Ellis and White, 1884).

64 Published in 1884.

65 *All in All: Poems and Sonnets* (1875).

66 Elizabeth Sharp.

67 Philip H. Caldron was born in France in 1833, went to England in his early boyhood, and began the study of art in London in 1850. He is best known for his painting "The Day of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew" (1863).

68 *Earth's Voices: Transcripts from Nature: Sospitra and Other Poems* (London: Elliott Stock) was published in June 1884.

69 Philip Bourke Marston.

70 The identity of this "Romance" is uncertain. Sharp's first published piece of prose fiction was "Jack Noel's Legacy: A Story for Boys" which appeared serially in *Young Folks' Papers,* 8 (London: James Henderson & Co., Ltd.) in 1886.

71 Walter Pater (1839–1894).

72 I have been unable to identify Mr. Parsons.

73 Probably either Sharp's first volume of poetry, *The Human Inheritance*, or his second, *Earth's Voices*. If the latter, this letter would date after June 1884 when *Earth's Voices* was published.

74 Date from postmark on accompanying envelope. The letter was posted on Wednesday, February 13, 1884.

75 "Sospitra" appeared in Sharp's second volume of poetry *Earth's Voices*.

76 Sharp did add "A Fragment" to the title of "A Record" when it was published in *Earth's Voices*.

77 George MacDonald (1824–1905) was a poet, novelist, and fantasy writer. His reputation lies mostly in his fairy tales, examples of which are contained in *Dealings with Fairies* (1867), *The Princess and the Goblin* (1872), and *Lilith* (1895).

78 The home of E. A. S.'s parents with whom she lived.

79 "9 Herbert Terrace" was Dinah Maria Craik's house in Dover. On hearing of Sharp's serious illness and his need to be away from London in the winter of 1884, Mrs. Craik offered him the use of her Dover house. (See Sharp's letter to D. G. Rossetti of July 28, 1881.) In October 1884, she lent her Dover house to the Sharps for a portion of their honeymoon.

80 Although this letter is dated 10 April in the *Memoir*, Sharp's 26 April letter to Dowden (below) clearly states that he will be in Paris from 5 May until 20 May. This letter was therefore written on 10 May or thereabouts.

81 Paul Charles Joseph Bourget (1852–1935), a conservative French Catholic, wrote novels, short stories, plays, poetry, criticism and travel books. He was the author of *Essais de Psychologie* (1883), *André Cornélis* (1887), *Le Disciple* (1889), and *Un Divorce* (1904).

82 Emile Hennequin (1858–1888) was a literary critic and the author of *Edgar Allan Poe* (1885), *La Critique Scientifique* (1888), and *Etudes de Critique Scientifique* (1890).

83 Madame Blavatsky (1831–1891) was Helena P. Hahn until she married General Nicephore Blavatsky (whom she left within the first year of marriage). Born in Ekaterionslav, Russia, she traveled through Europe and the Mideast between 1848 to 1873. She first visited Paris in March 1873 and later that year went to America where she founded the Theosophical Society and became an American citizen. From America she went to India in 1878 and returned to Europe in February 1884. Subsequently, she spent a good deal of time in England, but continued her travels until her death in London in 1891. Her special brand of spiritualism — with elements of eastern religions and of the Kabbalah — was very attractive to young artists and intellectuals, chief among them W. B. Yeats, in the eighties and nineties.

84 Eugène Müntz (1845–1902) was a historian of French art. Sharp's reference is to his *Raphaël, sa vie, son oeuvre, son temps* (1881).

85 Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897) and Emile Zola (1840–1902) were eminent French novelists.

86 Joseph Antoine Milsand (1817–1886) was a French critic and philosopher whose works include a book on Ruskin, *L'Esthetique Anglaise* (1864).

87 François Coppée (1842–1908) and Frederic Mistral (1830–1914) were poets, while Jean Richepin (1849–1926), a popular figure in the "Latin Quarter" of Paris, was a poet, novelist, and dramatist.

88 Adolphe William Bouguereau (1825–1905) was born at La Rochelle, studied art in Paris, and became a decorative painter, best known for his "The Body of St. Cecilia Borne to the Catacombs." FernandAnne-Piestre Cormon (1845–1924), also an artist, was a professor at L'École des Beaux Arts. Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898) painted in a traditional manner though his works have imaginative power and complexity. Jules Breton (1827–1906) was a French poet who became a member of L'Académie des Beaux Arts in 1886.

89 Maurice Guillaume Guizot (1833–1892), a literary scholar, was appointed acting professor of the Department of French Language and Modern Literature at the Collège de France and, in 1874, was named to the Chair of Germanic Language and Literature at the same university. In 1882 he published a partial translation of Macaulay's essays on history and literature.

90 *Earth's Voices.*

91 James Cotton (1869–1916) became editor of *The Academy* in 1881.

92 This pitiful letter is postmarked June 16, 1884, a Monday. It is written in a nearly illegible scrawl that demonstrates the pain Sharp was experiencing as he wrote. See the introduction to this section.

93 "& bedroom damp" is written in the margin here.

94 Eric Sutherland Robertson who shared rooms with Caine and served as best man at Sharp's wedding on October 31, 1884. He edited the "Great Writers" series for Walter Scott, for which he wrote the *Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow* (1887). He was also the author of *The Dreams of Christ, and Other Verses* (1891), *From Alleys and Valleys* (1918), and *The Limits of Unbelief; or Faith Without Miracles* (1920). In the spring of 1887 Robertson assumed the chair of Literature and Logic at the University of Lahore. Upon leaving London, he had to vacate his position as editor of the "Literary Chair" in *The Young Folk's Paper*. He suggested William Sharp succeed him as Editor, and that position provided the Sharps with a modest steady income for three years. Sharp was asking Caine if he could sleep in Robertson's bed in the quarters they shared in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Caine had another house in Hampstead, perhaps unknown to Sharp, where he sent Sharp to be cared for by Mary Chandler and her maid. See the introduction to this section for more details.

95 When Sharp spent the night at Caine's Hampstead house in June, he saw that Mary Chandler was pregnant with Caine's child. As it happened, Mary had given birth to a son on 15 August 1884, and Caine had named him not Abel, but Ralph Hall Caine. Caine registered the birth on 15 September as the son of Thomas Henry Hall Caine, journalist, and Mary Alice Caine, formerly Chandler. Caine considered himself married to Mary, though he was not. They married in 1886 and enjoyed a long life together.

## Chapter 3

1 *Apollo and Marsyas, and Other Poems* (London: Eliot Stock, 1884).

2 Theodore Watts' review appeared in the issue of December 13, 1884, 764 ff.

3 This undated letter was enclosed with Sharp's 5 January letter to Eugene Lee– Hamilton.

4 *Miss Brown* (1884) was Violet Paget's first attempt at a novel. Peter Gunn, in *Vernon Lee: Violet Paget, 1856–1935* (1964), notes: 'Ouida, who had experience in these matters, remarked that it showed signs of having been written at a gallop" (p. 99).

5 The essays collected in *Euphorion* (1884) were written by Paget over several years, and many were published earlier in periodicals.

6 Having run serially in the *Liverpool Mercury* in the fall of 1884, *Shadow of a Crime*, Caine's first novel, was published by Chatto & Windus in late February 1885 and went through several editions. Well reviewed and widely read, this book launched Caine's forty-year career as a popular romantic novelist.

7 Sharp's friend and fellow Walter Scott editor Eric Robertson shared lodgings with Hall Caine in London.

8 Sharp was writing a review of Walter Pater's *Marius the Epicurean* for *The Athenaeum*. It appeared as the lead review in the 28 February issue (pp. 271–73). Though *Athenaeum* reviews were unsigned, Sharp sent a copy to Pater in the hope of ingratiating himself with the well-known Oxford don.

9 See note to Sharp's 22 May 1882 letter to Dowden.

10 *Songs, Poems, and Sonnets of William Shakespeare*, ed. by William Sharp (Walter Scott: London, 1885).

11 Dowden's *Sonnets by William Shakespeare* (London: C. K. Paul & Co.) was published in 1881.

12 John Cordy Jeaffreson (1831–1901) was the author of *The Real Shelley, New Views of the Poet's Life*, 2 vols. (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1885). Among his other books are *Novels and Novelists, From Elizabeth to Victoria* (1858), *A Book About Lawyers* (1866), and *The Real Lord Byron* (1883).

13 This MS poem is on a single sheet in the British Library.

14 Born at Ballyshannon in Donegal, William Allingham (1824–1889) was a friend of Tennyson, and associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. He edited *Fraser's*  *Magazine* from 1874–1879. He was the author of *Poems* (1850), *Day & Night Songs* (1854), *Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland* (1864), *Irish Songs and Poems* (1888), and a posthumous volume entitled *Varieties in Prose* (1893).

15 Wilfred Scawen Blunt (1840–1922), poet, traveler, and explorer, served in the British diplomatic service from 1858–1870. Later he became an opponent of British imperialism and supported Egyptian, Indian, and Irish nationalist movements. In Ireland he was arrested and imprisoned for two months. His publications include *Love Sonnets of Proteus* (1881), *Future of Islam* (1882), *Ideas About India* (1885), *Griselda: A Society Novel in Rhymed Verse* (1893), and *My Diaries* (1919–1920).

16 James Ashcroft Noble (1844–1896) was a writer and critic and editor of *The Athenaeum.* Among his publications are *Morality in English Fiction* (1886), *Impressions and Memories* (1895), *The Poets and the Poetry of the Century* (1903).

17 Date from postmark on envelope.

18 All eventually appeared in the order listed here in Sharp's *Sonnets of this Century*.

19 Published by Walter Scott in the Canterbury Poets Series in December 1895.

20 See W. S. letter to W. B. Scott 22 April 1882, fn.

21 Date from postmark.

22 Robert Perceval Graves was a friend and biographer of Sir William Hamilton. He was the recipient of Hamilton's voluminous papers and letters upon the latter's death. Graves wrote the 2040-page *Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Including Selections from His Poems, Correspondence, and Miscellaneous Writings,* 3 vol. (1882–1889; addendum, 1891)*.*

23 Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–1865) was an important mathematician who also wrote poetry. He was friends with both Wordsworth and Coleridge. In 1827, while still an undergraduate, he was named Andrews Professor of astronomy at Trinity College in Dublin. He was the author of *General Method in Dynamics* (1834), *Lectures on Quaternions* (1853) and *The Elements of Quaternions* (1866).

24 Sharp was referring to the papers of Joseph Severn which were given to him by Severn's son Walter on the condition that he write a biography of the artist and diplomat who nursed Keats in his last illness in Rome. Elizabeth dated the occasion of this understanding as the early Spring of 1889 or 1890, but this letter shows it was much earlier, perhaps in the Spring of 1885. Elizabeth describes the occasion as follows: "'We spent a week-end in Surrey with some old friends of my mother, Sir Walter and Lady Hughes, and one morning Mr. Walter Severn, the painter, walked over to luncheon. He spoke about my husband's *Life of Rossetti*, then of the quantity of unpublished MSS he and his family had written by and relating to his father, Joseph Severn, the friend of Keats.' Finally, he proposed that his listener should take over the MSS, put them in form and write a Life of Severn, with, as the special point of literary interest, his father's devoted friendship with and care of the dying poet." Working on the Severn papers and life, according to Elizabeth, brought Sharp "into pleasant relationship not only with Mr. Walter Severn, and with Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn, but also with Ruskin, who he visited later at Coniston." (*Memoir* 168–69)

25 Sharp did not finish the Severn book until August 1891, and it was published (Sampson Low & Co.) in February, 1892.

26 Wilfrid Meynell (1852–1948) was a newspaper publisher and editor and the husband of Alice Meynell (1847–1922) a writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet. After marrying in 1877, the Meynells settled in Kensington and became the proprietors and editors of such magazines as *The Pen*, the *Weekly Register*, and *Merry England*.

27 This novel, here called *False Lights*, ran serially in *The People's Friend* as "The Deathless Hate." In 1888 it was published in three volumes as *The Sport of Chance* (London: Hurst and Blackett, Ltd.). See *Memoir* (121–29) for a discussion of its reception. Sharp began writing the work in the fall of 1885 and submitted it to *The People's Friend* for a contest. He did not win the prize of 100£, but the editor accepted it and published it serially beginning in early 1887.

28 It was changed to "A Deathless Hate." See previous note.

29 Sharp believed his serial novel would start running in *The People's Friend* in the Spring of 1886. It did not begin until early 1887.

30 George F. Ferris, *Great Musical Composers: German, French and Italian*, ed. with an introduction by Mrs. W. Sharp, The Camelot Classics (London: Walter Scott, 1887).

31 Frederick Langbridge, *Sent Back by the Angels, and Other Ballad of Home Life* (London: Simpkin & Co., 1886).

32 *Sonnets of this Century*, edited and arranged, with a critical introduction on the sonnet by William Sharp (London: Walter Scott, 1886). It was published on 6 January 1886; thus the date of this letter. The book proved to be very popular, and was reprinted several times before Sharp made some revisions during the summer and fall of 1886 for a new edition. Sharp was hired by the Scott firm to prepare the anthology and later to revise it so he did not share in the book's long term financial success. He told Dowden (3 February 1886), however, that the publishers had "behaved very decently," to him, implying his satisfaction with the payment he received for the book from the Scott firm.

33 Of this letter and the two sonnets, Elizabeth Sharp wrote: "The opening of the new year 1886 — from which we hoped much — was unpropitious. A wet winter and long hours of work told heavily on my husband, whose illhealth was increased by the enforced silence of his 'second self'" (*Memoir* 124). By "second self" she meant his frame of mind in which he could focus on his creative writing. This letter and the sonnets were written in a state of dejection resulting from these circumstances. Soon after writing this letter, Sharp became seriously ill.

#### 34 *Sonnets of this Century*.

35 Nothing came of Caine's plan to collaborate with Robert Buchanan on a dramatization of *The Shadow of a Crime*. The latter was published serially in the *Liverpool Mercury* in the fall of 1884 and in book form by Chatto & Windus (London) in February, 1885. See Vivien Allen's *Hall Caine, Portrait of a Victorian* (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).

36 The date "15–2–1886" is written at the top of the first page of the MS letter in another hand. It may have been taken from the postmark of the letter's envelope, and it is probably correct since only 100 copies were printed of the first edition of *Sonnets of This Century*. The hundred copies disappeared quickly and more were printed (reissued) very quickly. As subsequent letters demonstrate, Theodore Watts was assisting Sharp in preparing a revised second edition that appeared in fall, 1886.

37 J. E. Pfeiffer (d. 1889) was a German merchant who lived in London. He married Emily Jane (Davis) Pfeiffer (1827–1890) in 1853. She was a poet who prided herself on her ability as a sonneteer. Her many publications include *Glan Alarch* (1877), *The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock* (1884), and *Woman and Work* (1888), for which she collected periodical articles on the social position of women.

38 Date from postmark on envelope. The absence of letters between February and August 1886 is due to Sharp's serious illness. See introduction to this section and *Memoir*, 125ff.

39 Sharp had asked Watts to read the proofs of a revised edition of *Sonnets of This Century*. Page 314 of the second edition contains the notes to Swinburne's sonnets, and pages 320ff contain the notes to Watts' sonnets. A letter from Watts to Sharp in the *Memoir* (114–15) dated January 8, 1886 indicates Watts wanted to change the order of printing of his five sonnets in the first edition. He sent the revised sequence directly to the printer, but it was too late to make the change since the book was published on January 6. The order was changed in the second and subsequent editions. Watts was especially concerned about his contributions and Swinburne's to the Sonnets volume and about what Sharp said about them in his notes. Sharp was grateful for Watts' input.

40 The publication of the revised edition was delayed until December.

41 *Kidnapped; being the adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751* (London: Cassell & Co., 1886).

42 Frederick William Robinson (1830–1901) wrote an enormous number of popular novels now forgotten.

43 Watts worked on this novel and discussed it with his friends for many years, and it was finally published — by Hurst and Blackett, London — in October 1898.

44 Sharp was ill during the early months of 1886 and contacted scarlet fever and phlebitis in the spring. That was followed by a life-threatening case of rheumatic fever. After ten straight weeks in bed, he was well enough in August to go with Elizabeth to Micheldever in Kent where the Cairds had lent them their house — Northbrook — for six weeks. There in the peace and warm sunshine Sharp recovered, but his heart was permanently damaged by this long bout of illness. He was only thirty years old at this time, and he was unable to work for most of the year. The Sharps were saved from financial ruin only by a "substantial check" from Alfred Austin who asked that it be repaid not to him but to "someone else who stood in need" (*Memoir* 125–26).

45 The Great Writers Series that Eric Robertson edited for Walter Scott.

46 No volume on either Borrow or Rossetti appeared in the Great Writers Series. Sharp's volume on Shelley was number 11 in the series, and was published in fall 1887.

47 For more about Mrs. D. O. Hill (Amelia Robertson Paton) see note to Sharp's letter to D. G. Rossetti dated September 22,1881.

48 Ford had been hired to paint twelve frescoes for the Great Hall of the recently completed Manchester Town Hall. He invited the Sharps to come to Manchester to see the eight frescoes he had completed in the hope their visit would produce a favorable review in the *Glasgow Herald*.

49 James Stanley Little (1856–1940) was a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction. The son of Thomas Little, of Woodville, Forest Hill, London, and John Cockerell's daughter Lilla, he married the Viscountess Fanny Maude Therese de la Blache, and they had a daughter and a son. He lived variously in France, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium as well as in England; at the time of his death he resided in Cichele, Parkstone, Dorset. He and Sharp became close personal friends during the late eighties. In the eighties he published *What Is Art?* (1884), *My Royal Father: A Story for Women* (1886), and *Doubt* (1888).

50 The Shelley Society sponsored a performance of Shelley's *Hellas* in London in October, 1886. Few notable people attended, and the event resulted in a grave financial loss to the Shelley Society [Sylva Norman, *The Flight of the Skylark, The Development of Shelley's Reputation* (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), 269–70)].

51 At the first meeting of the Shelley Society, on March 10, 1886, at University College, London, the Reverend Stopford Brooke substituted for W. M. Rossetti as the principal speaker. His audience consisted of about a hundred members of the Society. Before its dissolution in 1895 from lack of funds, the Shelley Society produced a few of Shelley's plays (*Hellas* among them) and printed several of his works. The Society's notebooks are largely a record of its internal politics (see Sylva Norman, *The Flight of the Skylark*, p. 268).

52 Oliver Madox Brown (1855–1874), the son of Ford Madox Brown, was a painter and writer. He published his first prose story, "Gabriel Denver," in 1873 and died the following year, at age 19, of blood poisoning after an attack of gout. He was a close friend of Philip Bourke Marston who published an article about him in *Scribner's Monthly*, 12 (1876), 425–28.

53 Sharp's next volume of poems was *Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy* (London: Walter Scott, 1888).

54 Envelope postmarked November 27. Friday was November 26.

55 *The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley*, 2 vols (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co, 1886).

56 Sharp's *The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley* (London: Walter Scott) was published in 1887. It includes, following a table of contents, a single page "Note" which reads in part: "A special acknowledgment of indebtedness is due to Professor Edward Dowden, whose two comprehensive volumes on Shelley form the completest and most reliable record extant, and at the same time constitute the worthiest monument wherewith the poet's memory has yet been honored."

## Chapter 4

1 *The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley*, Great Writers Series (London: Walter Scott, 1887).

2 I am indebted to Professor Terry Meyers for dating this letter.

3 *What Is Art* (1884). Seems to have been privately printed.

4 Richard Le Gallienne (1866–1947) went to London in 1889 to act as Literary Secretary for Wilson Barrett, an actor-manager who wrote a successful play, *The Sign of the Cross* (1895). There Le Gallienne became a frequent contributor to *The Yellow Book* and — along with Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson, Arthur Symons, and W. B. Yeats, among others — an original member of the Rhymer's club. Though ten years younger than Sharp, they became good friends. In the course of his life, Le Gallienne wrote nearly ninety books. Among them are twelve published in the 1890s: *George Meredith: Some Characteristics* (1890), *The Book-Bills of Narcissus* (1891), *English Poems* (1892), *The Religion of a Literary Man* (1893), *Robert Louis Stevenson: An Elegy and Other Poems* (1895), *Quest of the Golden Girl* (a novel, 1896), *Prose Fancies* (1896), *Retrospective Reviews* (1896), *Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam* (1897), *If I Were God* (1897), *The Romance Of Zion Chapel* (1898), *In Praise of Bishop Valentine* (1898). After several visits to America, Le Gallienne settled there in 1903. In 1927, he began to visit Paris for long periods of time, and he moved permanently to France in 1930. See Richard Whittington-Egan and Geoffrey Smerdon's *The Quest of the Golden Boy: The Life and Letters of Richard Le Gallienne* (1962).

5 "Rossetti in Prose and Verse," *National and English Review* (formerly *The National Review*), 9 (March 1887), pp. 111–24. Sharp's footnote (pp. 122–23) reads as follows: "One of these [sonnets] may now be quoted with exceptional propriety. Since this article was written, Mr. Philip Bourke Marston — a wellknown poet and Rossetti's most ardent disciple — died suddenly, though after prolonged ill-health, at the early age of thirty-six. [Marston died on February 14, 1887.] As many will know, Mr. Marston was afflicted from childhood with blindness. Rossetti had for him a sincere regard: and in the collected works appears the following sonnet, which has hitherto been printed only in a critical biography of the older poet. The names of Mr. Marston's three books of poetry are *Song-Tide*, *All-in-All*, and *Wind Voices*." Sharp then reproduced Rossetti's sonnet: "To Philip Bourke Marston."

#### 6 Editor of *The Academy*.

7 Sir Frank Thomas Marzials (1840–1912) succeeded Eric S. Robertson as editor of the Great Writers series for the Walter Scott firm. Marzials wrote the volumes on Dickens and Hugo and co-authored the volume on Thackeray (with Herman Charles Merivale). Eric Robertson, mentioned in the next sentence, was a close friend of Sharp's. (See note to Sharp's letter to Hall Caine dated 15 June 1884.) He had recently gone to India to occupy a chair of Literature and Logic at the University of Lahore (*Memoir* 127).

8 Probably a brother of Elizabeth A. Sharp.

9 May Clarissa Gillington's *Byron's Poems* was published by Elliot Stock in 1892. In addition to poetry, she wrote several books for children, as did her sister Alice E. Gillington.

10 Two more printings of this successful anthology appeared in 1886 and a second edition was published in 1887, which included a sonnet by May Gillington and the following note by Sharp: "A Miss Gillington has written and published some poetry of very considerable promise, for the most part as yet marked by a certain immaturity. A passion for the sea is manifest throughout her verse" (p. 289).

11 Richard Garnett, *Life of Thomas Carlyle*, Great Writers Series (London: Walter Scott, 1887).

12 An anthology of poems about the sea arranged by Elizabeth A. Sharp for the Canterbury Poets Series (London: Walter Scott, 1887).

13 The reference here is to Garnett's *Io in Egypt and Other Poems*, which was published in 1859. It was revised with additions and published as *Poems* in 1893.

14 Sharp's *Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley* was published as number 11 in the Great Writers Series (London: Walter Scott) in the autumn of 1887.

15 The Royal Jubilee Exhibition of 1887 was held in Manchester, England, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria's reign. It was opened by Princess Alexandra, wife of Edward, Prince of Wales, on 3 May 1887, and remained open for 166 days, during which there were 4.5 million paying visitors, 74,600 in one day alone. All manner of merchandize and crafts were exhibited in a huge hall, including paintings Sharp would review for the *Glasgow Herald*.

16 Philip Bourke Marston died after a prolonged illness on February 14, 1887 at the age of thirty-six. See note to Sharp's letter to Swinburne dated April 22, 1880.

17 Date from postmark.

18 Printed on stationary and crossed out: New Athenaeum Club, | 26, Suffolk Street, | Pall Mall.

19 Edward Dowden, "Victorian Literature," *The Fortnightly Review*, vol. 47, June, 1887, pp. 835–67.

20 After taking his B.A. from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1881, John Stuart Verschoyle (1853–1915) was appointed curate of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Marylebone, London in 1882. He entered enthusiastically into the city's intellectual and social life. He began functioning as associate editor of the *The Fortnightly Review* under the editorship of his friend Frank Harris in 1886, where he made most of the decisions and did most of the editing of the highly regarded publication. He left London in 1891 to serve as a Rector first in Suffolk and then in Somerset where he died in Taunton in 1915. After moving from London, he returned frequently and remained a well-known and respected figure in the city's literary and political circles.

21 Edward Silsbee was a sea captain from Massachusetts and an admirer of Shelley's poetry. "Many acquaintances called him 'Shelley mad' … Richard Garnett, however, considered this maritime eccentric the best critic of Shelley he had heard" (Robert Gittings & Jo Manton, *Claire Clairmont and the Shelleys 1798–1879*, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, 235). Silsbee visited Claire Clairmont (see following note) in Italy in 1872 determined to gain access to her Shelley papers. Unable to purchase them, he moved into her apartment to read and study them. His efforts to obtain the papers, and the determination of Clairmont's niece, Paula, to marry Silsbee were described to Henry James by Eugene Lee-Hamilton. James drew upon the incident for his novella *The Aspern Papers* (1888) (Gittings, 236).

22 Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (1798–1879), who called herself Claire, was a stepdaughter of William Godwin and step-sister of Mary Godwin. When Shelley and Mary Godwin eloped, Claire accompanied them to the continent and remained with them throughout their excursion. That brought her in contact with Byron, of course, and their ensuing relationship produced a daughter, Allegra (1817– 1822), who died of typhus after Byron assumed responsibility for her and placed her in a convent school. Clairmont traveled widely in Europe and became fluent in five languages. She lived in Russia, Germany, and France, before settling in Florence in 1870. She "contemplated writing a book to illustrate, from the lives of Shelley and Byron, the dangers and evils resulting from erroneous opinions on the subject of the relations between the sexes" (*DNB).*

23 See note to Sharp's April 28 letter to Ford Maddox Brown.

24 Ellen Louise Chandler Moulton (1835–1908), a writer of poetry, fiction, and children's stories, was married to the journalist and publisher William U. Moulton (d. 1898), who was also the editor of a weekly paper in Boston. She was prominent in literary and cultural circles in Boston, where she lived, and in Europe where she spent many summers. Her works include *Juno Clifford* (1855), *Bed-Time Stories* (1873), *Poems* (1877), *Swallow Flights* (1878), *Miss Eyre from Boston, and Others* (1889), and *At the Wind's Will* (1899).

25 Tentative date from blurred postmark.

26 See note to Sharp's April 28 letter to Ford Maddox Brown.

27 Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887), the son of John Westland Marston, a well-known man of letters, was blinded at the age of three by the administration of belladonna in an effort to cure scarlet fever. He began writing poetry at an early age and published his first volume (*Song-Tide and Other Poems,* 1871) when he was twenty-one.; his second (*All in All,* 1875) four years later; and a third (*Wind Voices)* in 1883*.* By then he had became a favored member of the circle of young men around Dante Gabriel Rossetti who introduced him to William Sharp in 1880. The two men became fast friends. Following Marston's death Sharp published a selection of his poems with an introductory *Memoir* in his Canterbury Poets Series (*Song-Tide: Poems and Lyrics of Love's Joy and Sorrow)* and a collection of his short stories (*For a Song's Sake and Other Stories)*. Both were issued by the Walter Scott firm in 1888.

28 "Obertoun, | Dumbartonshire" is printed on the stationary and crossed out.

29 Caine's *The Deemster: A Romance in Three Volumes* was published by Chatto & Windus in London in November 1887. The book was very successful in English (52 editions by 1921), and it was translated into nine foreign languages. Sharp is proposing the sheets be sold to Appleton's, for whom Sharp served as an agent in these matters, and published simultaneously in the United States in order to establish U.S. copyright.

30 The October 1887 number of the *Century Magazine* contained an article by Edmund Clarence Stedman (see the "Life" section preceding Sharp's letters of 1889) on the younger generation of British poets, which was then published as a supplement to the thirteenth (*Jubilee*) edition of his *Victorian Poets,* the first edition of which, published in 1875, introduced the name "Victorian Poets" to define the British poets writing during Victoria's reign. He mentioned Sharp in the article in a section on Colonial Poets because of the Australian poems in Sharp's first volume of poetry, *The Human Inheritance.* According to Elizabeth, Sharp wrote a letter to inform Stedman he was not a Colonial, but a Scot." She reproduced one sentence of Sharp's letter to Stedman on page 129 of the *Memoir* and four more on page 150 (as given above). She must have had the entire letter along with many others her husband wrote to Stedman, but I have not located it. In his generous reply, quoted partially by Elizabeth, Stedman said he would mention Sharp preceding the section on Colonials in the forthcoming edition of *Victorian Poets* and would also mention Sharp's Rossetti book. These letters initiated a long friendship between Sharp and Stedman (*Memoir* 129).

31 *Epipsychidion*, ed. by S. A. Brooke, A. C. Swinburne and R. A. Potts, was published by the Shelley Society in 1887. The bibliography in Sharp's biography of Shelley, published in the fall of 1887, gives a date of 1886 for this work.

32 George Leon Little (1862–1941) was a landscape and portrait painter and the brother of J. S. Little. He painted the portrait of Ryder Haggard in 1886.

33 Probably Joseph William Gleeson White (1851–1898) who edited *Ballads and Rondeaus*; *Chants Royal*; *Sestinas*; *Villanelles*; *Etc.* for Walter Scott (Canterbury Poets) in 1887 and *Book-Song: An Anthology of Poems from Books of Modern Authors* for Elliot Stock in 1893. In 1896 and 1897 he served with C. H. Shannon as editor of *The Pageant*.

34 Next to this paragraph, Sharp wrote in the margin: "Our house, larger & better than the one at West Kensington, is only ,60."

35 Caine's popular novel *The Deemster* (see note to Sharp's 1 September 1887 letter to Caine) was christened by *Punch* "The Boomster," and that name came to be applied also to its author as his fame grew, fed in part by his talent for selfpublicity. [Vivien Allen, *Hall Caine*, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997, p. 188]. *The Deemster* was successfully adapted to the stage in 1888 by Wilson Barrett, where it was titled *Ben-my-Chree*, and the play was revived several times over the next twenty years.

36 This novel was published by Hurst and Blackett, Ltd in late 1887 or early 1888 after running serially in *The People's Friend* (in Dundee) under the title *A Deathless Hate*. The dedication to the three volume set: To | Theodore Watts | Poet-Romanticist-critic | These Pages | are | Affectionately Inscribed.

37 Unable to identify.

38 Alfred H. Miles (1848–1929) compiled and edited *Poets and Poetry of the Century*, nine volumes of which were published by Hutchinson between 1891 and 1894. Several were reprinted in later years.

39 The letter was written in early 1888 after the Sharps moved from West Kensington to South Hampstead. Richard Garnett's *Emerson* and *Carlyle* were both published in 1887 by Walter Scott in the Great Writers series.

40 Le Gallienne's *My Ladies' Sonnets and Other "Vain and Amatorious" Verses, with Some of Graver Mood* (Liverpool: privately printed, 1887). For Le Gallienne see note to Sharp's late February 1887 letter.

41 Although Mrs. Sharp states they took the house at 17a Goldhurst Terrace in the spring of 1887 (*Memoir* 141), this letter and Sharp's use of the Talgarth address in October 1887 indicate the move did not take place until early January 1888.

42 One hundred and four volumes appeared in the Canterbury Poets series

between 1884 and 1922. Sharp became general editor of the series in 1885 and served until the early nineties.

43 Vol. XXIII, 943–59.

44 *Under the Banner of St. James: A Romance of the Discovery of the Pacific* (London: James Henderson and Sons, Ltd, 1887). Published serially in *Young Folks Paper*  (XXI, 891–907) in 1887.

45 *Jack Noel's Legacy: A Story for Boys* (London: James Henderson & Sons, Ltd., 1887). Published serially in *Young Folks Paper* in 1886.

46 Alexander Anderson (1845–1909), a Scottish poet, started his working life at a quarry, and then he became a surfaceman, or navvy, on the Glasgow and South-Western Railway. During the sixteen years he worked as a surfaceman he read and studied and taught himself French, acquired a knowledge of German, Italian and Spanish, and wrote poetry, some of which was published under the pseudonym Surfaceman. He served as Assistant Librarian at Edinburgh University from 1880 to1883 and again from 1886 to1905. From 1883 to 1886 he was Secretary of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. While still a surfaceman, he translated several poems of Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) from German. His poetry reflects his wide travels in Scotland: *A Song of Labour and other Poems* (1873), *The Two Angels and other Poems* (1875), *Songs of the Rail* (1878), and *Ballads and Sonnets* (1899). He also wrote many poems for children. His *Later Poems* was published posthumously in 1912.

47 Sharp's request must have been turned down as there is no record of his giving the proposed lectures.

48 This letter was probably written after Sharp's return from reviewing the Paris Salon in April.

49 Philip Bourke Marston's *Wind-Voices*, published by Stock in 1884.

50 Le Gallienne's review of Philip Bourke Marston's *Song-Tides: Poems and Lyrics of Love's Joy and Sorrow*, edited with an introductory *Memoir* by William Sharp (London: Walter Scott, 1888) appeared in *The Academy*, 33 (May 19, 1888), 337–38.

51 Sharp's *Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy* was published in the spring of 1888.

52 The Sharps lived at Wescam from January 1888 to Summer, 1890. The letter was probably written in early May, after Sharp returned from his annual trip to Paris.

53 Sir Noel Paton.

54 See note to early May, 1888 letter to Le Gallienne.

55 Whitsuntide fell on May 20th in 1888.

56 Philip Bourke Marston.

57 Of this visit, Elizabeth Sharp recalled that Meredith and Sharp would have long conversations in the day, and at night Meredith would read to them from his novels: "The reader's enjoyment seemed as great as that of his audience, and it interested me to hear how closely his own methods of conversation resembled, in wittiness and brilliance, those of the characters in his novels" (*Memoir* 145).

58 See letter to Le Gallienne dated 22 May 1887.

59 Charles Grant Blairfinde Allen (1848–1899) was born in Canada and educated in France and in England where he graduated from Merton College, Oxford, in 1870. In his mid-twenties he became a professor at Queen's College in Jamaica. He left his professorship in 1876 and returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing and gained a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. He published 30 novels and numerous other writings, including scientific articles praising Charles Darwin and advocating the theory of evolution. He sometimes used pen names such as "Cecil Power," "A. J. Arbuthnot Wilson," "Martin Leach Warborough," and as "Olive Pratt Rayner" he published a short novel entitled *The Type-writer Girl*. His best-known work, *The Woman Who Did*, published under his own name in 1895, created a firestorm as it main character was an independent woman who refused marriage and produced a child. His unconventional views on marriage were shared by Mona Caird and Elizabeth and William Sharp.

60 James Cotton, editor of the *Academ.*

61 The Wednesday after the Sharp's visit to Meredith at Box Hill was 23 May 1888 (*Memoir* 145).

62 E. A. S. identifies the novel as *One of Our Conquerors*, which was not published until 1891 (*Memoir* 145). Two of Meredith's novels were published in 1890: *The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper* and *The Tale of Chloe: An Episode in the History of Beau Beamish*.

63 The opening night of *Ben-my-Chree*, the adaptation of Hall Caine's *The Deemster*, was on May 17, 1888. See note to Sharp's fall 1887 letter to Hall Caine.

64 Norman Maccoll (1843–1905) was editor of *The Athenaeum*. His publications include *Greek Sceptics from Pyrrho to Sextus* (1869), *Select Plays of Calderon* (1888), and *The Exemplary Novel of Cervantes* (1902).

65 I have been unable to identify Mr. Osborne.

66 The main letterhead of this stationery reads (left) Walter Scott, Publisher; (center) The Canterbury Poets, General Editor, William Sharp; and (right) 24 Warwick Lane, London, E.C. Below that at left is William Sharp and the return address.

67 Although this letter is written on 46, Talgarth Road stationery with the old address crossed out and the Wescam address written over it, it appears to postdate the letter of May 22, which mentions Le Gallienne's anticipated trip to London and promises to send Le Gallienne a copy of *Romantic Ballads* in a few days.

68 Sharp's brackets. Graham R. Tomson was the pseudonym for Rosamund Tomson (1860–1911), wife of J. Arthur Tomson. See note to Sharp's Fall 1888 letter to Richard Garnett.

69 Elizabeth Sharp stated (*Memoir* 140) that Walter Pater was one of the Sharps' frequent guests at their "Sunday informal evening gatherings" at Wescam. He came "during his Oxford vacation" in 1888 and at other times in 1888–90.

70 *Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy* (London: Walter Scott, 1888).

71 Date from postmark.

72 Morayshire lies northwest of Aberdeen in Scotland. Roxburghshire lies south west of Edinburgh.

73 John Nichol (1833–1894) was Regius Professor of English Language and Literature at Glasgow University from 1862–1889. Sharp studied with him during his two years at Glasgow University — 1871–73 — and retained his valued friendship for many years. William Minto (1845–1893) was Professor of Logic and English at the University of Aberdeen.

74 Richard Garnett's *Twilight of the Gods and other Tales* was published in 1888 (London: T. Fisher Unwin). An "augmented" edition was issued in 1903 (London and New York: John Lane).

75 Henry Van der Weyde (1838–1924) was a Dutch-born English painter and photographer. His family emigrated to the United States in 1850, and he served in the American Civil War. He emigrated to England in 1870, and set up his photographic studio at 182 Regent Street in London in 1877. That year he became the first photographer to install and take portraits by electric light. He photographed many wealthy and well-known people, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Henry\_Van\_der\_Weyde

76 Andrew Chatto (1841–1913) was the principal in Chatto & Windus, a London firm that published works by many well-known writers in the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mrs. Caird was Mona Caird, a lifelong friend of Elizabeth Sharp.

77 The romance became eventually *The Children of Tomorrow* (London: Chatto & Windus, 1890).

78 *Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy* was privately printed for Sharp by Walter Scott in 1888.

79 Graham R. Tomson (1860–1911), ed., *Greek Anthology*, trans. by Garnett and others (London: Walter Scott, 1889). Born Rosamund Marriott Watson, Graham R. Tomson married at nineteen George Francis Armytage (1853–1921), a wealthy Australian with whom she had two daughters. In 1884 she published anonymously *Tares* (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trübner), a volume of melancholy lyrics about love's transience with epigraphs from François Villon and D. G. Rossetti. In late 1884 she began a relationship with the painter Arthur Tomson (1859–1905), started calling herself Graham R. Tomson, divorced Armytage, and in 1887 married Tomson. In 1889 she successfully published under the pseudonym *The Bird-Bride: A Volume of Ballads and Sonnets* (London: Longmans, 1889), a volume aligned with aestheticism and with New Women movement in its exploration of marriage alternatives. Her *A Summer Night* (London: Methuen, 1891) aligned her with the decadents in its impressionism and representation of female desire. By 1892, she had become poetry critic for *The Academy*, art critic for *The Morning Leader*, President of the Literary Ladies, and the editor of *Sylvia's Journal*. In June 1894 she left Arthur Tomson and moved in with H. B. Marriott Watson (1863–1921). Tomson divorced her in 1895, but she never remarried. Her *Vespertilia, and Other Verses* was published in 1895 by John Lane at The Bodley Head. Though *Vespertilia* appeared under the signature of Graham R. Tomson, its author had renamed herself Rosamund Marriott Watson. Her reputation declined after *Vespertilia*, and she died at the age of 51 in 1911. She had counted Algernon Swinburne, William Morris, Christina Rossetti, and D. G. Rossetti among her early influences and, among her friends, Oscar Wilde, John Lane, W. E. Henley, Katharine Tynan, Alice Meynell, Violet Hunt, Elizabeth Pennell, and William Sharp. I am indebted to Linda K. Hughes for this information. See her *Graham R.: Rosamund Marriott Watson, Woman of Letters* (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), and biographies in *The Yellow Nineties Online*, http://1890s.ca/Contact\_Us.aspx

80 Mathilde Blind. See note to Sharp ltr. to Watts of July 22, 1882.

81 Garnett's *Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales*.

82 Sharp's *Life of Heinrich Heine* was published (London: Walter Scott) in the Great Writers Series in fall 1888. Garnett wrote to Sharp on November 11, 1888 (*Memoir* 143–44) to say he had finished reading it and to congratulate him on the work.

83 Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) was a South African novelist, political critic, and feminist. She had published *The Story of an African Farm: A Novel in Two Volumes* under the pseudonym "Ralph Iron" in 1883. Schreiner also wrote *Woman and Labor* (1911), *From Man to Man* (1926), and *Undine* (1928).

84 *The North Wales Express* was a weekly English language newspaper published in Caernarfon, Wales and edited by Robert Williams. A full-column and very positive review of Sharp's *Life of Heine* appeared anonymously in the issue of November 16, 1888.

### Chapter 5

1 This letter is included in a collection of letters to Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909), who edited the *Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine* from 1881 until his death in 1909, and to Robert Underwood Johnson (1853–1937), who worked on the magazine under Gilder and served as editor from 1909–1913. A notation in the upper-left corner of the manuscript "ansd. 2/17/89" is in the same handwriting as similar notations on later letters addressed personally to Gilder. Gilder's editorship began when the Century Publishing Company bought out the Scribner interest in *Scribner's Monthly* (1870–1881) and renamed the magazine *The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine*. By 1885 the *Century* had a huge circulation (over 200,000), but it began to decline in the nineties as its rising interest in feminism turned away many of its male readers. Also, the new photo-engraving techniques used by the competing ten- and fifteen-cent periodicals took its toll. Gilder's publications include *The New Day* (1875), *The Poet and His Master* (1878), *Lyrics and Other Poems* (1885), *Lincoln's Genius for Expression* (1909), and *Grover Cleveland: A Record of Friendship* (1910). Following his editorship of the Century, Johnson established the Hall of Fame at New York University and directed it from 1919 until 1937. In 1920 and 1921, he served as Ambassador to Italy. His works include *Poems* (published in 1902, enlarged in 1908, 1919, and 1931) and his Memoirs, *Remembered Yesterdays* (1923).

2 The novel was published as *Children of Tomorrow: A Romance* (London: Chatto & Windus) in April 1889. It was issued in the United States in 1890 by F. F. Lovell & Company.

3 A letter Sharp wrote to the Roberts Brothers Publishing Company in Boston has nearly identical wording. The third company that received a similar letter may have been F. F. Lovell and Company, which published the novel in the United States.

4 James Marshall Stoddart (1845–1921), who Sharp met when he visited Philadelphia in 1892, began editing *Lippincott's Magazine* in 1889, succeeding William Shepherd Walsh who was the editor when this letter arrived.

5 Sir George Brisbane Douglas (1856–1935), a Baronet, was a Scottish poet and a lecturer. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, he combined the running of a large country estate with his literary and academic endeavors. The family seat was Springwood House, Kelso, in the Scottish Borders. His publications include *Poems* (1880), *The New Border Tales* (1892), *Diversions of a Country Gentleman* (1902), and *The Pageant of the Bruce* (1911).

6 Mrs. Hill was the sister of Sir Noel Paton. See note to Sharp's letter to D. G. Rossetti of September 22, 1881.

7 James Mavor (1854–1925) was a social activist who lived in Glasgow and participated in several socialist organizations including the Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation, and the Socialist League. In 1894, George Bernard Shaw named a lead characters in his play Candida James Mavor Morell. In 1888 and 1889, Mavor edited *The Scottish Art Review* and in January through June 1890 that periodical's short-lived successor, *The Art Review*, which was published by Walter Scott through the good offices of William Sharp. In 1892 Mavor was appointed Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toronto where he chaired the Political Science Department until he retired in 1923. He was active in establishing the Toronto Art Gallery and the Royal Ontario Museum, and he wrote government reports on immigration, wheat production, workmen's compensation, as well as an *Economic History of Russia*.

8 A letter to Elizabeth Sharp from Mrs. Hill dated February 4, 1889 indicates she was sculpting a medallion of William Sharp, thus his sitting to her from 3 till 4.30. She hoped to get the medallion cast the week of February 4. Either she was still working on it in mid-February or she was sculpting a bust of Sharp, as she was wont to do of people she thought famous or special. Writing to her friend Elizabeth, addressed as Lilly, on the 4th, she was still under the spell of Sharp though he had gone: "I see so much of the growth of the Spirit in him, or expansion of Soul, I cannot put words upon it but you know the feeling of being in the presence of a Being from a higher Sphere?" This letter is in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

9 Sir Patrick Geddes (1854–1932) was a man of many talents and interests. He established the Outlook Tower at the head of Edinburgh's High Street with its camera obscura and oversaw the building of Ramsay Gardens, a group of flats, artists' studios, and a student residence hall near the Outlook Tower. He was the central figure in the Scottish contingent of the Celtic Revival that began in the 1890s. Although Sharp was unable to meet him during this visit to Edinburgh, they met soon after and in 1895 Geddes named Sharp the Literary Editor of his Celtic-oriented publishing firm, Patrick Geddes & Colleagues. Geddes went on to gain respect and fame as a city planner.

10 T. C. Martin, unknown friend of Mavor, perhaps the editor of *The Leader*.

11 Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852–1936), an illustrator, painter and embroiderer, was a prominent member of the Arts and Crafts movement. Joseph Thomson (1858–1894) was an explorer of Africa and a rival to Henry Morgan Stanley. Illness plagued his explorations, forced him to return permanently to England, and caused his early death. His best known book was *Through Masai Land* (1885). John Miller Gray (1850–1894) was an art critic and the first curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Sharp lamented his premature death in a letter to Watts-Dunton of October 11, 1894.

12 Hall Caine's *The Good Old Times* was produced by Wilson Barrett at the Princess's Theatre in Oxford Street in February 1889. Barrett (1846–1904) was an actor, dramatist, novelist, and theater manager. His plays include *Now-a-Days* (1889), *Pharaoh* (1892), and *The Sign of the Cross* (1896). Barrett adapted several Caine novels for the stage, among them *Ben-my-Chree* (from *The Deemster*) (1888), *The Manxman* (1894), and *The Bondman* (1893).

13 Sharp's third volume of poems, Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy, was published by the Walter Scott firm in 1888. Its sales exceeded expectations, and a revised edition was issued in late February 1889.

14 Norman MacColl (1843–1904) a native of Edinburgh, was a graduate of Downing College, Cambridge, where he excelled in classics and came to know Charles Dilke, proprietor of the *Athenæum*. In 1871 Dilke appointed him editor of the magazine for which Watts (later Watts-Dunton) served as Literary Editor. See Sharp's letter to Watts of 23 May 1888.

15 This incomplete letter is reproduced from a transcription/summary made by a staff member at the Manx Museum.

16 Sharp is referring to Caine's play *Good Old Times*, which was running in London.

17 The Manx's transcribed summary indicates this is Douglas Sladen, but Sharp was surely referring to Sir George Douglas with whom he was staying in Scotland when he wrote to Watts about Caine's play on 16 February 1889.

18 "Barrett's features were cast in a classic mould and his presence was manly and graceful. Hence his predilection for classical impersonations … [H]is method of acting was usually stilted. In melodrama he presented heroic fortitude with effect. His dramas made no pretense to literature. They aimed at stage effect and boldly picturesque characterization without logical sequence or psychological consistency" (*DNB*, Supplement 1901–1911, p. 103).

19 Although lacking a salutation, this letter is from the Mavor Collection in the University of Toronto Library and was addressed to Mavor.

20 Henry Muhrman, an important impressionist painter best known as a watercolorist, was born in Cincinnati in 1854. He trained there and in Munich and died in Meissen, Germany, in 1916.

21 This reference dates the fragment as sometime in March 1889.

22 Date from postmark on envelope. Sharp became a candidate for this position in the spring of 1889, but withdrew his candidacy before the election after consulting with his doctor (*Memoir* 149).

23 Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911) was a New England essayist, poet, biographer, historian, Unitarian minister, and abolitionist. He was also, notably, colonel of the first black regiment in the Union army from 1862–64 as well as the "discoverer" of Emily Dickinson. His publications include *Harvard Memorial Biographies* (1866), his only novel, *Malbone* (1869), *Young Folks History of the United States* (1875), and *Carlyle's Laugh and Other Surprises* (1904).

#### 24 *The Afternoon Landscape: Poems and Translations* (1889).

25 *American Sonnets*, selected and edited and with an "Introductory Note" by William Sharp published by Walter Scott in May 1889. Sharp dedicated it to E. C. Stedman, "the Foremost American Critic," who helped in the selection process.

#### 26 *Afternoon Landscape*.

27 John Stuart Verschoyle (1853–1915) was a member of an aristocratic Ireland family who received his B.A. from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1881 and was appointed Curate of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Marylebone in 1882. In London he became a friend and supporter of Frank Harris and secured for him the editorship of the *London Evening News* in 1883 and of *The Fortnightly Review* in 1886. Verschoyle assisted Harris in his editing and became formally an assistant editor of *The Fortnightly Review* in 1889. While living in London between 1882 and 1891, he made many friends in the literary and political worlds. After he left the city to take up Rectorships in Suffolk and Somerset, he maintained a London residence where he continued to entertain many luminaries. Sharp here expresses hope that Verschoyle will arrange a mention or review of his *Children of Tomorrow* in *The Fortnightly*.

28 The Sharp's leaving for Paris on Friday May 5 establishes the approximate date of this letter.

29 Probably Le Gallienne's second book of poetry, *Volumes in Folio* (1889).

30A painting by George Leon Little (1862–1941), J. Stanley's brother.

31 James Sutherland Cotton, editor of *The Academy*.

32 This letter from Elizabeth Sharp to Mavor establishes her as the author of "Sculpture at the Salon," which appeared unsigned [pp. 13–14] immediately following her husband's unsigned [pp. 12–13] review of the Salon paintings in the June 1888 edition of *The Scottish Art Review*.

33The letter must have been written in late May after the Sharps returned from Paris. Sharp's *Children of Tomorrow*, referenced in the postscript, was published about May 10, 1889.

34 Several words are obscured and illegible at this point.

35 William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) was a poet and critic who edited *The Magazine of Art* from 1882 to 1886 and *The London*, a society paper, from 1887 to 1889, when he became editor of the *Scots Observer*, an Edinburgh journal of the arts and current events. He continued in that position when the magazine was transferred to London and re-titled the *National Observer* in 1890. He resigned that editorship in 1894.  A robust, outspoken conservative sympathetic to the growing imperialism of the time, Henley was not well regarded by William Sharp and his circle of friends. Among his publications are *Book of Verse* (1880), *Views and Reviews* (1890), *Poems* (1901), and *In Hospital* (1901).

36 A landscape painter, Arthur Tomson (1858–1905) was introduced to the Sharps by Andrew Lang in the mid-1880s and through them he met his second wife, Agnes Hastings, a childhood friend of Elizabeth Sharp's. The Tomsons remained close friends of the Sharps.

37 Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847–1900), cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson, was a painter and art critic for *The Pall Mall Gazette*. He wrote *The Art of Velasquez* (1895), *Peter Paul Rubens* (1898), and *Velasquez* (1899).

38 Perhaps one of Sharp's two books published in 1889: *Children of Tomorrow* by Chatto & Windus in April and the anthology of *American Sonnets* by Walter Scott in the Canterbury Series.

39 Since there was only one Sunday 23rd in 1889, the letter dates early June, 1889.

40 Frank Dempster Sherman (1860–1916) was a poet, architect, mathematician, and genealogist. His publications include *Madrigals and Catches* (1887), *New Waggings of Old Tales* (1888), *Little-Folk Lyrics* (1892), and *A Southern Flight* (1905). Date from postmark.

41 Date from postmark.

#### 42 *Children of Tomorrow*.

43 *The Athenaeum* notice appeared in the issue of 13 July 1889. I have not located the review in *Public Opinion*.

44 The first edition was published in 1888 and the second in 1889, both by Walter Scott. A "Postscript to the Second Edition" indicates the edition contained one or two textual variations from the original readings and a new short lyric, "The Isle of Lost Dreams."

45 Probably *Miss Eyre from Boston, and Others* (1889).

46 Scollard (1860–1932) graduated from Hamilton College in 1881, studied at Harvard and Cambridge Universities, and served as Professor of English Literature at Hamilton College from 1888–96. He published many volumes of poetry, among them *Pictures in Song*, 1884; *With Reed and Lyre*, 1886; *Old and New World Lyrics*, 1888; and *Ballads, Patriotic and Romantic*, 1916.

47 Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908), banker, poet, and critic, was born in Hartford, Connecticut. After opening his own brokerage office in New York in 1864, he became known as the "banker-poet" and exercised considerable influence over the American literary establishment in the eighties and nineties. He became William Sharp's best friend in the United States, and Sharp's letters to him became increasingly intimate. Their relationship became that of a father and son sharing their most intimate experiences in coded language. Excepting the few letters or portions of letters Elizabeth used in the *Memoir*, we have only Sharp's side of the correspondence, but Stedman's is often reflected in Sharp's responses. Stedman produced many books, among them *Poems Lyrical and Idyllic* (1860), *Poetical Works* (1875), *Victorian Poets* (1875), *Hawthorne and Other Poems* (1877), *Lyrics and Idylls: With Other Poems* (1879), *Poems Now First Collected* (1894), and *A Victorian Anthology* (1895).

48 Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (1860–1945), a writer of poetry and fiction, was a professor of English Literature at King's College, Windsor, Nova Scotia, between 1885 and 1895. His works include *Orion and Other Poems* (1880), *In Divers Tones* (1886), *New York Nocturnes, and Other Poems* (1898), *Barbara Ladd* (1902), *The Heart That Knows* (1906), *The Vagrant of Time* (1927), and *Selected Poems* (1936).

49 Bracketed sections are Elizabeth's paraphrases.

50 James Wilberforce Longley (1849–1945), a judge and historian born in Paradise, Nova Scotia, edited *The Halifax Chronicle* and served as Attorney General of Canada between 1884 and 1896. He was the author of two biographies: *Joseph Howe* (1904) and *Sir Charles Tupper* (1916).

51 William Bliss Carman (1861–1929), a cousin of Charles G. D. Roberts, was a Canadian literary journalist, editorialist, and poet. He worked for various magazines, including the *New York Independent* (1890–92) and the *Atlantic Monthly*. After 1889, he spent the rest of his life in the U.S.A., although he was a frequent visitor to Canada. His reputation rests on his first collection of poems, *Low Tide on Grand Pré* (1893). His other works include *Behind the Arras: A Book of the Unseen* (1895), *Ballads of Lost Haven: A Book of the Sea* (1897), *By the Aurelian Wall, and Other Elegies* (1898), *April Airs* (1916), *Later Poems* (1921), *Ballads and Lyrics* (1923), *Far Horizon* (1925), *Wild Garden* (1929), and *Sanctuary* (1929).

52 Having traveled from St. John to the St. Lawrence River via the St. John River and overland to Rivière du Loup, Sharp made a side excursion up the Saguenay River for 100 miles to Ha! Ha! Bay before proceeding up the St. Lawrence to Montreal.

53 George Stewart (1848–1906) was an accomplished and celebrated editor and writer. In Saint John, New Brunswick, he founded and edited *Stewart's Literary Quarterly Magazine* from 1867 to 1872. In 1879 he went to Quebec where he edited the *Daily Chronicle* until 1896. A voluminous writer, his chief works are *Canada Under the Administration of the Earl of Dufferin* (1878) and *The Story of the Great Fire in St. John, New Brunswick* (1877). *The New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia*, w3.stu.ca/stu/sites/nble/index.aspx

54 Sir James MacPherson Le Moine (1825–1912), a charter member of the Royal Society of Canada, was an antiquarian and the author of *Maple Leaves*, 6 vol. (1863–1906), a collection of short sketches on the general and local history and legends of Canada. The site of a Huron village established in 1697, Lorette is now Loretteville, a suburb of Quebec.

55 Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen (1814–1900) was the father of Sharp's good friend Grant Allen. A clergyman of the Irish Church, J. A. Allen emigrated to Canada in 1840 where he married Catharine Ann Grant, the daughter of Charles William Grant, 5th Baron de Longueuil, a title created by Louis XIV in 1700, and the only title in Canada that is officially recognized. The Reverend Allen became the first Anglican minister of Holy Trinity Church on Wolfe Island, near Kingston, Ontario where Grant Allen was born in 1848. Allen was living in Alwington, an area of Kingston and the name of the great house in that area where Allen probably lived.

56 The accompanying note reads: THE NOOK. | HORSHAM ROAD.| DORKING. | July 27. | My Dear Father, | Just a line to introduce our very good friend William Sharp, whom you probably know as the author of a life of Rossetti, and of many graceful poems. He is his own best credential. If you like him half as much as we do, you will welcome him well. In haste (for we're just off) | Yours affectionately. | Grant.

57 Sherburne Hardy (1847–1930), a civil engineer, editor, novelist, poet, and later a diplomat, was a Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College. He edited *Cosmopolitan* for two years, 1893–95. His works include *Francesca of Rimini* (1878), *But Yet a Woman* (1878), *The Wind of Destiny* (1886), *Passe Rose* (1889), *Aurélie* (1912), and *Things Remembered* (1923).

58 John Henry Wright (1852–1908), a distinguished classical scholar and student of educational problems, left Johns Hopkins to become Professor of Greek at Harvard in 1887. Justin Winsor (1831–1897), a librarian and historian, was superintendent of the Boston Public Library from 1868 until 1877 when he became librarian at Harvard. His works include *Bibliography of the Original*  *Quartos* and *Folios of Shakespeare* (1876) and (as editor), the *Narrative and Critical History of America* (1884–89), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin\_Winsor.

59 Arthur Sherburne Hardy.

60 Sharp first met William Dean Howells in Venice in 1883 (see letter dated 10 May 1883 to Elizabeth Sharp). See Chapter 2, note 49.

61 The Stedmans lived at 44 East 26th Street; Sharp probably arrived there on Tuesday September 17 as indicated in the previous letter to Stedman.

62 Henry Mills Alden (1836–1919) was managing editor of *Harper's Weekly* from 1863 to 1869 and then editor of *Harper's Magazine* until his death in 1919. His works include *God in His World* (1890) and *Magazine Writing and the New Literature* (1908). For more about Alden, see note to Sharp's letter to E. A. S. dated late September 1889.

63 Henry C. Bowen (1813–1896) a principal in the firm of Bowen and McNamee, wholesale dealers in silk, was one of the publishers of the *New York Independent*, a weekly religious journal, from 1848 to 1896 and edited the magazine from 1870 until 1896. Sharp published in the *Independent* between 1889 and 1893.

64 Richard Henry Stoddard (1825–1903), a poet, editor, and critic, was opposed to literary pretense and "Bohemianism."  His works include *Poems* (1851), *Songs of Summer* (1857), *Abraham Lincoln: A Horatian Ode* (1865), *The Book of the East* (1867), and *The Lion's Cub* (1890).

65 Thomas Allibone Janvier (1849–1913), a native of New Orleans, worked in Philadelphia as a journalist with the *Times*, the *Evening Bulletin*, and the *Press* between 1871 and 1880. There he met and married in 1879 Catharine Ann Drinker (1841–1922), a member of the distinguished Drinker family. (She was an aunt and the namesake of the twentieth-century novelist Catherine Drinker Bowen.) For three years, starting in 1880, the Janviers traveled in Colorado, New Mexico, and Mexico. In 1883, they settled in New York's Greenwich Village, where they lived for a decade. In 1893, they began spending winters in Provence, stopping in London briefly while in transit. After this first meeting in 1889, the Janviers became close friends of both Sharps. "Mrs. Janvier was the first person on either side of the Atlantic to penetrate Sharp's disguise as Fiona Macleod, and she received a letter [from Sharp on Jan. 5, 1895] admitting the identity" (*Dictionary of American Biography*, vol. V., pp. 613–14). Thomas Janvier's publications include *Color Studies* (1885); *The Mexican Guide* (1886); *The Aztec Treasure House* (1890); *Stories of Old New Spain* (1891); *Embassy to Provence* (1893); *In Old New York* (1894); *In Great Waters* (1901); *Henry Hudson* (1909); and *From the South of France* (1912).

66 Charles DeKay (1848–1935), an essayist and poet, was an editorial writer for the *New York Times*. His works include *The Bohemian: A Tragedy of Modern Life* (1878), *Hesperus, and Other Poems* (1880), *The Vision of Nimrod* (1881), *The Vision of Esther* (1882), and *Bird Gods* (1898).

67 This letter was written before Sharp sailed on the "Sierra" from New York to Liverpool, post-dated, and given to a florist to deliver with flowers to Stedman on October 8th, Stedman's birthday (see next letter).

68 Arthur Stedman was Edmund Clarence Stedman's son.

69 Sir Alfred East (1849–1913) was named to the Royal Academy in 1899. His paintings were widely displayed in Europe and the United States. He also wrote *The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Color* (1906).

70 Thomas Robert Macquoid (1820–1912) was a prolific watercolorist and illustrator for, among other publications, the *Graphic and Illustrated London News*. His wife Katherine Sarah Macquoid (1824–1917) was an equally well-known travel writer and novelist. "1889" is written in pencil on the letter. Mid-October 1889 is a reasonable date since Sharp had just returned from the United States and Canada where he had been entertained by Roberts.

71 See note to November 6 card to Kineton Parkes (following).

72 Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge (1831–1905), an editor and children's writer, published adult fiction in *The Atlantic Monthly*, *Harper's Magazin*e, and *The Century*. In 1870 she became an associate editor of Hearth and Home, and from 1873 until her death, she edited the juvenile magazine, *St. Nicholas*. Her works include *Hans Brinker: or, The Silver Skates* (1865), *A Few Friends and How They Amused Themselves* (1869), *Rhymes and Jingle*s (1874), *Along the Way* (1879, republished in 1904 as *Poems and Verses*), *Donald and Dorothy* (1883), *When Life is Young* (1894), and T*he Land of Pluck* (1894).

73 The date stamped on the postcard looks like 8/89, but Sharp was on his way to America on that date. Shortly after returning from the United States in mid- October, he went to Cologne to meet his wife, who had been staying with Mona Caird at Veldes in the Carpathian Alps during her husband's absence. The card's probable date is 6 November 1889, the day he also sent a card to Robert Underwood Johnson, which he dated and in which he says he had just returned from Germany. W. Kineton Parkes (1865–1938), a novelist and critic, edited *Comus* from November 1888 to October 1889. He also edited *The Library Review* in 1893–1894. His works include *Shelley's Faith: Its Development and Relativity* (1888), *The Pre-Raphaelite Movement* (1889), *The Painter Poets*, ed. for the Canterbury Poets Series (1890), *Love a la Mode: A Study in Episodes* (1907), *Potiphar's Wife* (1908), *The Altar of Moloch* (1911), *The Money Hunt: A Comedy of*

#### *Country Houses* (1914), *Hardware* (1914), and *The Art of Carved Sculpture* (1931).

74 Mavor's response appears at the bottom of the telegram: "Glad to have poem Browning." Mavor was the editor of *The Scottish Art Review* and its shortlived successor, *The Art Review*, which appeared monthly from January to July 1890. Sharp's long elegiac poem (twelve stanzas) on Browning appeared in the February number of *The Art Review*. For more on Mavor, see note to Sharp's February 10, 1889 letter to him.

75 Shortly after Robert Browning died on December 12, 1889, Sharp agreed to write a biography of Browning for Walter Scott's Great Writers Series. Sharp's poem "In Memoriam: Robert Browning," appeared in the January 1890 issue of *Belford's Magazine*, a periodical published by Belford, Clarke, & Co. in Chicago.

76 For Henry Bowen, see note to late September 1889 letter to Elizabeth Sharp.