A Critical edition of Tennyson’s poems has long
been an acknowledged want. He has taken his place
among the English Classics, and as a Classic he is,
and will be, studied, seriously and minutely, by many
thousands of his countrymen, both in the present generation
as well as in future ages. As in the works of
his more illustrious brethren, so in his trifles will
become subjects of curious interest, and assume an
importance of which we have no conception now.
Here he will engage the attention of the antiquary,
there of the social historian. Long after his
politics, his ethics, his theology have ceased to be
immediately influential, they will be of immense historical
significance. A consummate artist and a consummate
master of our language, the process by which he achieved
results so memorable can never fail to be of interest,
and of absorbing interest, to critical students.
I must, I fear, claim the indulgence due to one who
attempts, for the first time, a critical edition of
a text so perplexingly voluminous in variants as Tennyson’s.
I can only say that I have spared neither time nor
labour to be accurate and exhaustive. I have myself
collated, or have had collated for me, every edition
recorded in the British Museum Catalogue, and where
that has been deficient I have had recourse to other
public libraries, and to the libraries of private friends.
I am not conscious that I have left any variant unrecorded,
but I should not like to assert that this is the case.
Tennyson was so restlessly indefatigable in his corrections
that there may lurk, in editions of the poems which
I have not seen, other variants; and it is also possible
that, in spite of my vigilance, some may have escaped
me even in the editions which have been collated,
and some may have been made at a date earlier than
the date recorded. But I trust this has not been
the case.
Of the Bibliography I can say no more than that I
have done my utmost to make it complete, and that
it is very much fuller than any which has hitherto
appeared. That it is exhaustive I dare not promise.
With regard to the Notes and Commentaries, I have
spared no pains to explain everything which seemed
to need explanation. There are, I think, only
two points which I have not been able to clear up,
namely, the name of the friend to whom the ‘Palace
of Art’ was addressed, and the name of the friend
to whom the ‘Verses after Reading a Life and
Letters’ were addressed. I have consulted
every one who would be likely to throw light on the
subject, including the poet’s surviving sister,
many of his friends, and the present Lord Tennyson,
but without success; so the names, if they were not
those of some imaginary person, appear to be irrecoverable.
The Prize Poem, ‘Timbuctoo’, as well as
the poems which were temporarily or finally suppressed
in the volumes published in 1830 and 1832 have been
printed in the Appendix: those which were subsequently
incorporated in his Works, in large type; those which
he never reprinted, in small.
