“Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs
as in a dream.
Dimly I could descry the stern black bearded kings
with wolfish eyes,
waiting to see me die.”
From “The Lady of Shallot by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Upon informing a close, and long known friend that I was attempting to read Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King online, that is the attempt to do so online not the reading of Tennyson iself, he remarked his admiration of some beautiful passages from “The Lady of Shallot”.
He had been a purveyor of books in his younger days, and is a collector still.
Deciding to abandon the ethereal (online) copy, I started my search for a more tactile example.
eBay and Abe books are my two preferred sources with Amazon for the newly printed.
I was rather surprised to find a general lack of newly printed works of Tennyson.
It is a shame that such refined creativity is not more widespread in this day and age, but that is true across the board with much of the mainstream creative world.
Both vintage and antique copies, which I found aesthetically pleasing, were well out of my price range.
I desired the edition with the Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale illustrations as they embody the romantic essence of the Gothic Revival period in which Tennyson wrote. That copy was sitting at 300USD.
A complete works edition seemed to be the answer as it would also include the other Arthurian pieces and The Lady of Shallot.
A quick search revealed a generous selection well within my affordability.
Realizing I should need a post 1892 edition, as that was the year Tennyson died and anything earlier would no longer be “complete”, I ran across the 1899 edition from Houghton, Mifflin, and Company.
For 24USD it became mine, via eBay, and I took possession of it two days later.
It is called the “Household Edition” hearkening back to a time when such culture was shared in a home, and is “Illustrated With One Hundred And Twenty Seven Illustrations”. Those illustrations do lack the vitality of Brickdale’s and are mostly what would be called “chocolate box” artwork and pulled from other sources not unique to this edition.
The text is beautifully laid out in a double column each page for 960 pages. Unabridged and not edited, both of which sets my teeth on edge. Editing a finished and published work, in my mind, serves nothing more than an attempt by the editor to connect their name to other’s success. Abridging is a cardinal sin.
The volume is a very good condition and I feel fortunate to have it join the shelves of my library.
If you have not read Tennyson, I would suggest you give him a try.
“I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease aye to dwell.
I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear Soul, for all is well.”
~The Palace of Art
