Introduction

Summary

The poems in this volume are taken from four manuscripts. Two are held at the Bodleian Libraries, the University of Oxford: the Dobell Folio, MS Eng. poet. c. 42, contains thirty-seven autograph poems plus a section of prose extracts from other writers, generally referred to as the Commonplace Book; a notebook, designated in the twentieth century as ‘Early Notebook’, MS Lat. misc. f. 45, contains five poems by Thomas as well as notes from various sources, probably from his undergraduate days. A third manuscript, Poems of Felicity. Containing Divine Reflections on the Native Objects of an Infant=Ey, Burney MS 392, held at the British Library, St Pancras, London, comprises sixty-two poems. The fourth is in the possession of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, The Ceremonial Law, MS V. a. 70.

The majority of the poems are from Poems of Felicity, which Thomas's brother, Philip, was preparing for publication in print, as indicated by the title page, so that there may be a missing copy text, perhaps folded leaves of poems in Thomas's script, similar to those of the first two gatherings of the Dobell Folio. Of the sixty-two poems, two are by Philip (‘The Dedication’ and ‘The Publisher to the Reader’), and some are repeated from the Dobell Folio but with Philip's changes.

Philip not only designed a title page, indicated ‘Vol. I’, but also wrote a dedicatory poem to the memory of his brother, so that ‘These Holy First=fruits of a Pious Mind … may becom / A Publick good’ (lines 3, 30–31). ‘The Author to the Critical Peruser’ indicates that Thomas himself started to prepare an edition of his poems for publication either in print or manuscript form; and the first two gatherings of the Dobell Folio may be all that remains of it.

Traherne's poetry first brought him attention as a writer, as William Brooke mentions in his account of the discovery of Traherne's manuscripts.