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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
At intervals, various unpublished articles written by Thomas De Quincey have been unearthed and published. One group which seems never to have received the attention of scholars consists of four articles in manuscript that were part of the collection presented in 1942 to the National Library of Scotland by William Blackwood and Sons. The articles were docketed together with the inscription “four manuscripts of De Quincey, n.d.” and were thus catalogued under that heading.
1 Some of the most important of these discoveries are: “Lessons of the French Revolution,” The Independent (IS Jan. 1914); Horace A. Eaton, ed. Diary of Thomas De Quincey for 1803 (London, 1927); “De Quincey on the French Drama,” More Boohs (Boston, 1939); John E. Wells, “Close Comments upon a Straggling Speech: Wordsworth and De Quincey in Westmorland Politics,” PMLA, lv (1940), 1080–1128; Claude Jones, “Some De Quincey Manuscripts,” ELH, viii (1941), 216–226; Thomas De Quincey's Dr. Johnson and Lord Chesterfield (New York, 1945).
2 Blackwood's Magazine MSS. I wish here to express my thanks to the authorities of the National Library of Scotland for permission to consult these MSS.
3 “I will undertake the review of Captain Gordon's Greek Revolution very willingly: —I shall like it—And you shall have it by the 8th November at furtherest, if that will answer” (Blackwood's MSS.).
4 “I return the MS of the Grecian Art. divided agreeably to my notions, and tied up accordingly in separate parcels. I have indorsed on a blank page (after the final page of the second article) the distribution which this arrangement will cause in point of quantity” (Blackwood's MSS.). The notation, which is on the back of p. 76 of the MS., is:
pp.
For the 2nd art. 38
— —3rd art. 36
viz. from p. 39 to 76—both inclusively
viz. from p. 77 to 112—both Inc.
5 Because the footnote was so lengthy, in later editions of De Quincey's works it was printed as a separate paper. See David Masson, ed. The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey (London 1897), vii, 319–330.
6 I have based my estimate of MS. pages to printed pages on that portion of the review that was published.
7 In “To the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine” De Quincey says: “I send you herewith the most eminent German murder that has been produced for the last 50 years …,” presumably a reference to “The Murder of William Coenen.” He says that the “German murder … kept all the states of the Rhine and the Danube in agitation for 7 years, and even yet, at a distance of 12 years, is the subject of conversation and profound interest.” Since the murder was committed in 1816, the date for the composition of “To the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine” is thus placed at 1828. Moreover, the errors De Quincey mentions on p. 996 of this paper do actually occur in his 1827 article on “Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” The most likely supposition is that both MSS. were submitted to Blackwood in 1828, De Quincey using an account printed earlier for his material on the murder of Coenen. See p. 997 of this paper.
8 Masson, xiii, 53–56.
9 There is little doubt that this is the murder to which De Quincey refers in “To the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine.”
10 His first name is not given.
11 Fonk was sentenced at Friers in June 1822. He made an appeal to the court at Berlin, was denied, after that still had to have his sentence receive the Royal ratification. De Quincey, in the first pages of “The Murder of William Coenen,” says that Fonk's father was still living in 1825, so presumably the account De Quincey used as a source was published between 1825 and 1828. See also n. 7, above.
12 De Quincey MSS. I wish here to express my thanks to the authorities of the J. Pierpont Morgan Library for permission to consult these MSS., and particularly to Dr. George K. Boyce and Dr. Herbert Cahoon for their assistance.
13 “In closing their fourth volume, which is the first under their own management, the Conductors of the London Magazine are reminded naturally and agreeably to themselves of the claim, which is connected by old usage, with such periodic pauses in the progress of literary labours, for a few words of courteous ackowledgment to the Public … as the close of a volume coinciding with the close of their labours for the year 1821 brings with it a necessity for saying something, The Conductors … ” (De Quincey MS.). In reporting a conversation with De Quincey in Nov. 1821, Richard Woodhouse mentions that such a closing address was planned. See The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, ed. Richard Garnett, rptd. from the 1st ed. (London, 1885), p. 199. This ed. has notes of De Quincey's conversations by Richard Woodhouse and other additions.
14 “Letters to a Young Man Whose Education has been neglected” appeared as a series of articles in the Jan., Feb., March, May, and July issues of the London Magazine, but in 1823, not in 1822. “Letters on Transcendental Philosophy” never appeared, at least not under that title.
16 MS. 1670, fol. 114. I wish here to thank the authorities of the National Library of Scotland for permission to consult this MS.
16 (Sept. 1846), pp. 566–579. The footnote, which arises from Kant's ideas about Jupiter, would probably have appeared on p. 569. De Quincey wrote to Tait on 10 Aug. 1846 that if the article were too long “a page might be gained by throwing out the note on Kant” (NLS MS. 1670, fol. 101). The footnote itself is not in MS. but in proof; so perhaps Tait simply omitted it from the article and kept it in his files.