Additions and Corrections to the Wellesley Index
December 2004 Edition
Eileen M. Curran
The present collection of Wellesley revisions shows, I hope, the importance of small accretions of information. Only three Wellesley blanks are newly filled: an 1865 article in Temple Bar and two tales that Bentley’s Miscellany pirated in 1840. The latter, known at least a quarter of a century ago, are by Edgar Allan Poe. If their authorship could go unnoticed, one must wonder if other unidentified stories and essays may have been pirated from American publications. New evidence supports some attributions tentatively made in earlier “Additions and Corrections.” Authors of other articles have been re-identified: which Thomas Cooper, for example, could be called “Dr.” and credited with another Temple Bar article? In several instances collaborators are produced or suggested where a single author had previously been identified; occasionally the newly identified co-author proves to be the main writer. The nature and extent of collaboration in 19th-century periodicals needs further study; the examples here do not even touch on some varieties of collaboration.
Some of these additions and corrections fine-tune the text in other ways. There are, for instance, corrections of first names and of birth dates, or questions about these, and a large underlying question: when sources disagree, whose account should we accept? In the absence of other evidence, I usually prefer the writer’s own version (inconsistency may qualify as “other evidence”) while realizing that s/he may be creating a fictional contributor, either overtly on the printed page or privately, in his relations with the publisher or editor or with the non-reading world. How does one decide when a young woman always signs letters as Christabel while the publisher’s clerk writes her name in the ledgers as Christina? Is she creating a romanticized self, with Coleridge’s poem in mind? Or did her father, who fed the fantasies of many readers (he was Mudie, of the lending library), have Coleridge in mind when he named his daughter? I will let her be Christabel, as she either was or wanted to be. Though these may seem petty details, they give us clues about a contributor and a time, and they sometimes provide clues to the authorship of other articles.
Once again, I would like to hear from anyone who can add to these “additions and corrections.” Not “well, it sort of sounds like so and so,” but “A. reprinted it as his in such and such a volume” or “B. identifies it as hers in a letter of such and such a date, to be found in such and such an archive.”
The following abbreviations are used here:
Boase: Frederic Boase, Modern English Biography … of persons who have died between the years 1851-1900. 6 vols. 1892-1912; repr. 1965.
ODNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (on-line).
RLF: Royal Literary Fund Archives. London: World Microfilm Publications, 1984.
Wellesley: The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900, ed. Walter E. Houghton et al. 5 vols. Univ. of Toronto Press, 1966-1989.
Volume 8, July 1840
446 The Irish gentleman and the little Frenchman, 45-48. Edgar Allan Poe. A pirated reprint from Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), 2:183-191, where it is titled “Why the little Frenchman wears his hand in a sling.” See Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Thomas Ollive Mabbott (1978), 2:462-471, which makes the identification.
Volume 8, August 1840
458 The fall of the House of Usher, 158-170. Edgar Allan Poe, of course, but delete “Repr. Tales, 1845,” which suggests that BentM published the story first. Add: A pirated reprint from Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), 1:75-103. See Collected Works, ed. Mabbott, 2:392-422.
Volume 8, October 1840
477 The Duc de l’Omelette, 352-354. Edgar Allan Poe. A pirated reprint from Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), 1:105-110. Collected Works, ed. Mabbott, 2:31-41, makes the identification (though the index fails to catch the reference).
Volume 13, March 1843
810 Anecdotes of the Peninsular War, 268-275. See EMC, VPR 34 (2001), 332, for argument that “Rifleman Harris” (“Mr. Harris” in the Bentley Receipts, BL Add.Ms. 46,651/102) was co-author of this and all later instalments: #s 851, 877, 1013, 1055, 1100, 1163. Expand that to: Benjamin Randell Harris, “as told to” Henry Curling. Not John Harris, as some editors of reprints have claimed. See Part B for evidence.
Volume 15, February 1844
924
The divan (No. ii), 211-218. Albert Smith, perhaps with unidentified
collaborators. To my comments on the
first in this series, #913, in VPR 30
(1997), 320, showing that Smith was a co-author of that, add: In an undated letter to Bentley, evidently
written late Jan. 1844 (Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois), Smith refers to “The divan” and “The
Scattergood family,” both of which began in the Jan. issue, as ongoing features
which he is writing. He sends a “squib”
for Bentley to use; all the installments of “The divan” can be described as
collections of squibs. One of those
here takes the form of a letter “To the Gentlemen of the Divan” (217),
suggesting that these items continue to be collaborations, as #913 was. Also attribute to Smith, possibly with
collaborators, Nos. iii – v, #s 936,
946, 956.
Volume 33, March 1853
2253 My New Year’s Eve, 290-296. Edmund H. Yates. Signed. Add: Possibly revised by Albert R. Smith. Smith to Bentley, note dated "Egyptian Hall Saturday," accompanying a manuscript (Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois): "This is very good. It is by Edmund Yates. Some alterations are required, which I will make, if you will let me have the proofs on Tuesday." This is Yates’s only article in BentM; Smith’s connection with the Egyptian Hall began in March 1852.
Volume 2, October 1859
26 Mommsen’s History of Rome, 195-213. Delete attribution. Add: Albert Watson, with the assistance of Goldwin Smith. Goldwin Smith to George Bentley: “I was not the author of the article on Mommsen’s Rome. It had been arranged that I should write it but I was prevented by illness and it was written by the Revd. A. Watson of Brasenose College though to some extent in concert with me.” (Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois; written from Oxford, where Goldwin Smith was Regius professor of modern history, 1858-66. Dated only “Oct. 25,” almost certainly 1860. Smith, by now recovered from the 1859 illness, declines to translate Mommsen’s book because of the pressure of other work. Since the eventual translation, by William Purdie Dickson, was published early in 1862, it must have been well in hand by late October 1861. Smith reviewed it in the Apr. 1862 Edinburgh Review, ER 2537.) Though Smith does not mention the periodical which published Watson’s review, it seems likely that George Bentley would have looked first for recent articles on Mommsen in a Bentley publication. The Bentley List which Wellesley cites was published over 30 years later, when Bentley may have forgotten the earlier change of plan; Smith’s nearly contemporary statement seems better evidence.
Volume 137, January 1873
2944 The recovery of Jerusalem, 1-38. By Francis R. Conder, not Frances. See Pt. B.
Volume 25, April 1840
572 The two parts of Goethe’s Faust, 90-113. Delete John Stuart Blackie (added in 4:788). Add Author unidentified. Wellesley gave this article to Blackie solely on the basis of two references to FQR #410, by Blackie—but these references never imply common authorship and were probably provided by an editorial hand. Style is not Blackie’s Carlylesque prose, and Blackie was not likely to characterize his own translation of the “Vorspiel auf dem Theater” as “comical” (p.92); even the praise of Blackie’s introduction (p.97) seems unlikely to have been written by Blackie.
Volume 59, May 1859
3850 Wild sports of the Far South, 587-597. Henry Kingsley. Wellesley 4:791 deletes “prob.,” correctly but without evidence. Add: Claimed by Kingsley in application for RLF aid, 3 Feb. 1875 (case 1899).
FM Unidentified contributions
and misidentified contributors
Gostick, Joseph, later Gostwick. He claimed to have contributed 2 or 3 papers to FM between 1840-1843 (RLF case 1454). Wellesley gives him only one article, #1525, in 1841. Did he exaggerate, or was there at least one more?
Volume 73, April 1845
3703 An excursion up the Oronooka (Part III) …. Delete ‘concl.’ See #s 3716, 3726.
Volume 88, March 1850
4483 The cruise of the Frolic, 293-315. W. H. G. Kingston. First publication of the book of the same title was earlier than the U.S. edition cited in Wellesley: London, 1863, by Sampson Low, Son & Marston (RLF case 1747).
NMM Unidentified contributions
and misidentified contributors
Grant, James Gregor. Applying for Royal Literary Fund assistance (case 1736), 8 Jan. 1870, he added: “Tales, Reviews, Essays, in various magazines and newspapers—amongst others, at one period, ‘The new monthly magazine.’” The implication is that “one period” was many years in the past. He was born in 1799, published a novel and contributed to at least one periodical in 1838, and may have contributed even earlier. It is impossible to identify his contribution(s) to NMM.
Kent, (William) Charles. Claimed (RLF case 1892) that NMM had published his “Poems on the Poets during many months” but gave no indication of the year.
Volume 3, May 1833
229 The two great northern
universities [King’s and Marischal Colleges at Aberdeen], 182-191. Delete
J. S. Blackie. Add John Hill Burton. Attrib. by William Hill Leask in his introduction to Neil
N. MacLean, Life at a Northern University,
4th ed. (Aberdeen 1917), xvi n. [citation kindly provided by Stuart
Wallace]. Burton, an Aberdeen native,
was born in the same year as Blackie; they overlapped as students at Marischal
College and both then studied law in Aberdeen.
Both contributed to Tait’s,
according to Wellesley (omitting this article), Blackie first in
Apr. 1834 and Burton in July 1833.
Volume 9, September 1863
343 Dining for the million, 290-297. Charles Thomas Browne. s/ Harold King. In his application for RLF aid (case 1759), 30 March 1868, Browne said that in the last few years he had adopted this nom de plume and intended to continue using it; he referred the RLF Committee “to the Rev. E. Walford late editor of Once a Week” for confirmation of his identity as Harold King. The pseudonym was well-known; other recommenders also mentioned it.
Volume 13, January 1865
492 The Playhouse of Spenchey, 258-263. Frederick Smallfield. Claimed by F. Smallfield in letter to “The Editor of ‘Temple Bar,’” 12 July 1876: “It is about ten years ago that a short article of mine called ‘The Play-house of Spenchey’ found favour with the then editor of ‘Temple Bar’ and a place in its pages” (Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois).
Volume 46, March 1876
1655 The progress of progression, 361-384. Delete Thomas Thornville Cooper and most of evidence. Add Thomas Henry Cooper. The article deals not with travel in the sense that T. Thornville C. travelled to India and China but with the means of travelling even a few miles within England, from the springless coach on rutted roads at the start of the 17th century to horse-drawn carriages on rail ways to steam-driven vehicles. The second half of the article concentrates on contemporary railways—gauge, miles of rail, pilfering problems, etc. As Wellesley notes, Bentley records identify the writer as “Dr. Thomas ----- Cooper.” Thomas Henry Cooper was a surgeon, Fellow of the Royal Colege of Surgeons, and, most significantly, physician to both the Great Western and the Metropolitan Railways. The last 3 pages of this article discuss the physical dangers of railway travel, in conclusion quoting in full the claim “made against a [railway] company by evidently an honest claimant, and which was complied with willingly by the company without demur, upon the facts being verified” (383-384)—by Dr. Cooper, the house physician? (In his 20s, writing as a botanist, T. H. Cooper was guilty of plagiarism; his subsequent medical career seems untarnished.)
Volume 51, December 1877
1830 A cast for a fortune …, 469-492. Anna Kingsford. Additional identification: On 9 Apr. 1877 Edward Maitland, a relative and later a co-author, introduced her (with the story she wanted to publish in Temple Bar) to Bentley as “Mrs. Algernon Kingsford” (Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois); again, see Boase.
Volume 58, March 1880
2050 “A peculiar position,” 363-387. Delete Christina; the story was by Christabel Mudie. Two letters from her (both signed thus in full) to “Mr. Bentley,” dated 24 and 27 February but with no year, discuss the revision and proofs of “my story” and accept Bentley’s offer to publish it in Temple Bar, though she fears that she has “crept into literature by the back door as it were, while other far worthier hands are still knocking hopelessly at the front.” It is “the absolutely ‘first’ production of a girl barely out of her teens,” and she is “particularly anxious my Father should not see” it. She wrote one of the letters from The Limes, Muswell Hill, which was the address of Charles Edward Mudie at least from 1875 through 1884. (Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois; see Pt. B below.) The Temple Bar Authors’ ledger gives “Miss Christina Mudie,” written by a Bentley’s office clerk (BL Add.Ms. 46,564/109). In the absence of evidence calling it into question, I accept a person’s own signature over other versions of the name.
Volume 78, October 1886
2710 Sir Greenhat, 213-226. Amend the present attribution to read: by Svend H. Grundtvig (1824-1883), who published it in his collection of Danish folklore; translated by Jane Mulley. In July 1879 she sent her translation to Bentley, who accepted it in Aug. 1879. In 1880 she called in person at New Burlington Street; in a 5 Jan. 1881 letter to Richard Bentley, she recapitulated her history with the publishing house, concluding that she was “very anxious not to be disappointed of the hope once held out to me of appearing in ‘Temple Bar’” (Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois). In March 1884 Mulley was paid 7 gns. for the translation, which still did not appear for another two and a half years (TBar accounts, BL Add.Ms. 46,564/180). Mulley eventually reprinted her translation in Fairy Tales from Afar translated from the Danish Popular Tales of Svend Grundtvig Author of ‘Ballads of Denmark,’ etc by Jane Mulley (London: Hutchinson, [1900]), 271-294. In a “Prefatory Note” she thanks “the Editor of Temple Bar for permitting me to reprint ‘Sir Greenhat’” (vii). The two printings differ only in Temple Bar’s old man wanting “something that your wife bears about with her beneath her belt” and the later volume’s old man demanding “that if ever your wife has a child it shall be mine.” In both his ignorance of his wife’s pregnancy prompts a laugh; could this touch explain the 7-year gap between Bentley’s acceptance of the tale and its publication?
Volume 117, August 1899
4146 Norman Ramsay, 540-552. George Arthur Sinclair. Delete “prob.” Bentley Corresp., Univ. Illinois, contains 3 letters, dated between 15 Sept. 1898 and 4 May 1899, to “The Editor of Temple Bar,” all discussing this article and signed “George A. Sinclair.” He had written at least 3 previous letters, before May 1898, 29 July 1898, and in Dec. 1898 (none of these survive at either the BL or Illinois) and, as requested, had sent a revised and expanded version of the article. That some of his letters went unanswered for months suggests that he was caught in the editorial confusion consequent on Macmillan’s purchase of Temple Bar; he began the 15 Sept. 1898 letter “I see by the current No. of ‘Temple Bar’ that communications are to be addressed to you c/o Messrs. Macmillan & Co.” See Wellesley 3:389-390 nn.18, 23, for the problem of dating the transfer of editorial duties from Bentley to Macmillan’s people.
[* indicates contributor not in the Wellesley Index.]
Blackie, John Stuart. His first NBR article, #359, appeared in Nov. 1853, not 1883.
Burke, Luke. Add date of birth: 1808. RLF case 1741.
*Cooper, Thomas Henry. 1813-1881. Surgeon. ODNB. TBar #1655.
Cooper, Thomas Thornville. Delete
entry; this Cooper was not a contributor.
Transfer article cited to
Thomas Henry Cooper.
Fullom, Stephen Watson. Delete “1817” in date of birth. Born 11 Apr. 1818. RLF case 1898.
*Grant, James Gregor. 1799-1875. Writer, lecturer, teacher. Boase, RLF. See NMM.
*Harris, Benjamin Randell. Born 1781. British army private 1803-1814; later a London cobbler. A Dorset Rifleman. The Recollections of Benjamin Harris, ed. Eileen Hathaway (Swanage: Shinglepicker Publications, 1995), identifies him on the basis of unpublished as well as published army and civilian records. Collab., BentM #s 810, 851, 877, 1013, 1055, 1100, 1163.
Jackson, Lady Catherine Hannah Charlotte (Elliott). First, when was she born? Wellesley says 1824, Boase gives only date of death without age at death, and ODNB offers 1813/14. We can strike the 1813: she was born in July, died in December 1891, after that year’s birthday. She repeatedly gave 1824 as her birth year (RLF case 1897). Contemporaries commented on the extreme disparity of age between Lady Jackson and Sir George Jackson, who was 70 when they married in March 1856; if she was born in 1824 rather than 1814, she was 31, not 41, at the time. In the absence of other evidence, I would retain Wellesley’s dates. I would, however, replace Wellesley’s “descriptive identifier”; ODNB’s “historian” is to be preferred to “writer on France.” (When Wellesley then identifies G. P. R. James as “novelist, historian,” delete “historian.” ODNB calls him simply “novelist”; at most he was an “historical novelist.”)
King, Harold. Nothing was known about this man because he didn’t exist. Add: a pseudonym used by Charles Thomas Browne; transfer article cited here to Browne. See entry above at TBar #343 for evidence.
Manning, James A. Delete “perhaps”; the BentM contributor is indeed James Alexander Manning, 1803-1875, of the Inner Temple. The handwriting of James A. Manning’s letter to Richard Bentley (BL Add.Ms. 46,652/3) is identical to that of James Alexander Manning’s application for RLF assistance (case 1262). Manning was paid in 2 installments, a year and 2 years before “Cardinal Sins” was finally published; both times others (Mary O’Hara and R. Surtees) collected the payment for him, but he had written the undated letter reminding Bentley of his promise (apparently to pay in advance of publication, contrary to the usual practice).
Meteyard, Eliza. Here we again encounter a frequent problem, identifying the correct birth-year. The Athenæum’s obituary notice claimed that Meteyard was 63 at her death; since her birthday was 21 June and she died on 4 April 1879, this gives a birth date of 1815, not 1816 as found in the old DNB, the new ODNB, and Wellesley. In her five applications for Royal Literary Fund assistance between 1851 and 1868 (case 1269), Meteyard herself invariably said she was born in 1822. Whether or not one believes that women generally lie about their age, RLF applicants, male or female, who did lie were rarely consistent, changing d.o.b. from application to application. Moreover, both DNBs make similar, ascertainable errors. They also move forward Meteyard’s contribution to Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, dating it as 1840 when it actually appeared between Dec. 1843 and Apr. 1844 (Tait #s1579, 1591, 1621; reprinted, as the DNBs note, as Struggles for Fame); no serials in 1840 could be by Meteyard. Does it make any difference? Perhaps. The implication always is that Meteyard began to contribute to periodicals as a very young woman. If she was born in June 1815 or 1816, she was 27 or 28 in 1843, but if she was born in 1822, she was only 21. (In the Meteyard entry both DNBs also misdate the first issue of Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper as 1845 when in fact it first appeared on 18 July 1846, perhaps confusing it with Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, a monthly, which started in January 1845.)
*Mudie, Christabel. Born between 1855 and 1859. Probably daughter of Charles Edward Mudie (1818-1890), of Mudie’s Circulating Library. See TBar #2050 above. Letters in the Bentley Archives show a warm friendship between the Mudies and George Bentley.
Mudie, Christina. Delete and add preceding.
Munnings, James. Add biographical information: Born on 30 Jan. 1844, in Suffolk; educated in a local National School and privately before being apprenticed to a Colchester bookseller. In Jan. 1875, in delicate health, he left for Australia, where two married sisters already lived. He died there early in 1876 (word reached his family in England in June). In 1877 Bentley published a biography of him by his sister, Mrs. Susanna Cottee, who had been with him throughout his last days in Australia. [Letters from John Munnings, a brother, and his mother, Susanna Munnings, to George Bentley, Univ. Illinois.]
Paterson, James, 1823-1894. Delete “journalist” as occupation; add Barrister and writer on law. Add as source: Boase. The British Library on-line catalogue lists more works than does LCCat, cited as Wellesley’s source, but does not list separately the various James Patersons. It usually, but not always, identifies this man as “Paterson, James, Barrister-at-law.” ODNB describes as “journalist and writer” James Paterson 1805-1876, who usually appears in the BL on-line cat. as “Paterson, James, of Edinburgh.”
Siddons, Joachim Heyward. Substitute for present entry: name assumed by Joachim Hayward Stocqueler, q.v., at intervals from 1859 to his death, mainly in the U.S. but at times in Britain, with the claim that he was the illegitimate son of George Siddons, Sarah Siddons’s son. Descendants in the U.S., where a son by his third marriage was a federal judge, retained the name of Siddons. Transfer all articles to Stocqueler.
Stocqueler, Joachim Hayward. Correct dates. Born 21 July 1801 (RLF case 1267; he signed his will on 23 Sept. 1881, adding “80 yrs & 3 mos”). Died 14 March 1886, in Washington D.C., USA, not 1885 in Bath, England (Records of the Office of the Secretary of War: Annual Registers of War Department Civilian Employees RG 107, 1886, p. 155). Journalist, govt. employee, entrepreneur, and inventor in England, India, and U.S. Photocopies of documents kindly provided by Peter S. Gill, his great-greatgrandson.
Taylor, Ida Ashworth. Add dates: 1847 – 13 Oct. 1929. ODNB (Ida Alice Ashworth Taylor).
Taylor, Una Ashworth. Add approximate dates: Born after 1847; died after 1924 and before Oct. 1929. See her Guests & Memories and ODNB entries for her father, Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886), and her older sister, Ida Alice Ashworth Taylor.
*Watson, Albert. 1828-1904. Principal, Brasenose College, Oxford; classical scholar. ODNB. BentQR #26.
NOT-QUITE-WELLESLEY ADDITIONS
Volume 112 (n.s. 4), November 1860
4000 Roman London, 506-513. Eliza Meteyard. Claimed in RLF application, 3 Nov. 1862 (case 1269).
Anne Lohrli, Household Words …
Pp. 136, 146, 216: Browne, or Brown, address Paris. This is Charles Thomas Browne, 1825-1868. Born in Somerset, educated at Trinity College Dublin, a barrister (Inner Temple) and journalist, died in Basingstoke (Boase and Royal Literary Fund case 1759). In his RLF application of 30 March 1868, he claimed the two articles Lohrli cites under Browne of Paris and none of the articles Lohrli lists under other unidentified Brownes.