Berland MS (Donne)
MS and printed copies of poems and prose works by Donne. A quarto collection of six poems by Donne, headed ‘Poems of JD. not printed’, and of prose works by him, neatly written throughout in a single neat predomonantly italic hand (adopting a slightly variant style for the prose), 35 pages; bound with annotated exempla of Donne's Poems (1633) and Juvenilia (1633). c.1630s.
Later inscription ‘Eccl. Cathedr. Norwi.M.91’ [i.e. Norwich Cathedral]. Purchased from John F. Fleming, New York, 22 January 1970, by Abel E. Berland, of Chicago, lawyer and book collector. Christie's, New York, 8 October 2001 (Berland sale), lot 36, with facsimile examples in the sale catalogue.
Recorded in John Donne, exhibition catalogue compiled by Robert S. Pirie (Grolier Club, New York, 1972), p. 8, item 25, and in Peter Beal, ‘More Donne Manuscripts’, John Donne Journal, 6/2 (1987), 213-18 (p. 215, as ‘Privately owned in the U.S.A.’). Briefly discussed in John T. Shawcross, ‘Notes on an Important Volume of Donne's Poetry and Prose’, John Donne Journal, 9, No. 2 (1990), 137-9.
The printed volume as a whole
• DnJ 4159: John Donne, Poems
Printed exempla of Donne's Poems (1633) and Juvenilia (1633), which both bear MS corrections and emendations in a hand different from the MS poems.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 1666.8: John Donne, Infinitati Sacrum. 16 Augusti 1601 Metempsychosis (‘I sing the progresse of a deathlesse soule’)
MS emendations.
First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 293-316. Milgate, Satires, pp. 25-46. Shawcross, No. 158.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 642.8: John Donne, Change (‘Although thy hand and faith, and good workes too’)
MS emendations.
First published, as ‘Elegie III’, in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 82-3 (as ‘Elegie III’). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 19-20. Shawcross, No. 16. Variorum, 2 (2000), p. 198.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 3121.8: John Donne, The Sunne Rising (‘Busie old fools, unruly Sunne’)
MS emendations.
First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 11-12. Gardner, Elegies, pp. 72-3. Shawcross, No. 36.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 606.5: John Donne, The Canonization (‘For Godsake hold your tongue, and let me love’)
MS emendations.
First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 14-15. Gardner, Elegies, pp. 73-5. Shawcross, No. 39.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 1049.8: John Donne, Elegie on the L.C. (‘Sorrow, who to this house scarce knew the way’)
First published, as ‘Elegie VI’, in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 287. Gardner, Elegies, p. 26 (as ‘A Funeral Elegy’). Variorum, 6 (1995), p. 103, as ‘Elegia’.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 2699.5: John Donne, The Relique (‘When my grave is broke up againe’)
MS emendations.
First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 62-3. Gardner, Elegies, pp. 89-90. Shawcross, No. 70.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 872.5: John Donne, The Dampe (‘When I am dead, and Doctors know not why’)
MS emendations.
First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 63-4. Gardner, Elegies, p. 49. Shawcross, No. 71.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 2576.8: John Donne, The Perfume (‘Once, and but once found in thy company’)
MS emendations, filling out printed dashes for censored text.
First published, as ‘Elegie IV’, in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 84-6 (as ‘Elegie IV’). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 7-9. Shawcross, No. 10. Variorum, 2 (2000), pp. 72-3.
[Printed text]
• DnJ 2785.9: John Donne, Satyre II (‘Sir. though (I thank God for it) I do hate’)
MS emendations, filling out printed dashes for censored text.
First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 149-54. Milgate, Satires, pp. 7-10. Shawcross, No. 2.
[MS Poems] ff. 1r-3r
• DnJ 2149.8: John Donne, Loves Progress (‘Who ever loves, if he do not propose’)
Copy, headed ‘Elegie 1 Loves Progresse’.
First published in Wit and Drollery (London, 1661). Poems (London, 1669) (as ‘Elegie XVIII’). Grierson, I, 116-19. (as ‘Elegie XVIII’). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 16-19. Shawcross, No. 20. Variorum, 2 (2000), pp. 301-3.
[MS Poems] ff. 3r-4r
• DnJ 2521.8: John Donne, On his Mistris (‘By our first strange and fatall interview’)
Copy, headed ‘Elegie . 2’, with a sidenote ‘This is in the last 8o impression.’
First published in Poems (1635). Grierson, I, 111-13 (as ‘Elegie XVI’). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 23-4. Shawcross, No. 18. Variorum, 2 (2000), pp. 246-7.
[MS Poems] ff. 4v-6v
• DnJ 398.5: John Donne, The Bracelet (‘Not that in colour it was like thy haire’)
Copy, headed ‘Elegie . 3 .’, with a sidenote ‘This is in the 8o. Edition.’
First published, as ‘Eleg. XII. The Bracelet’, in Poems (1635). Grierson, I, 96-100 (as ‘Elegie XI’). Gardner, Elegies, pp. 1-4. Shawcross, No. 8. Variorum, 2 (2000), pp. 5-7.
[MS Poems] f. 7r-v
• DnJ 224.5: John Donne, ‘As due by many titles I resigne’
Copy, headed ‘Elegie . 4 .’
First published, as ‘Holy Sonnets. I’, in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 322 (as ‘Holy Sonnets. I’). Gardner, Divine Poems, p. 6. Shawcross, No. 162. Variorum, 7 Pt 1 (2005), pp. 5, 11, 21, 103 (in four sequences).
[MS Poems] f. 8r-v
• DnJ 3537.8: John Donne, To the Countesse of Bedford (‘Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith her right’)
Copy, headed ‘Elegie . 5 .’
First published in Poems (1633). Grierson, I, 189-90. Milgate, Satires, pp. 90-1. Shawcross, No. 134.
[MS Poems] f. 9r-v
• DnJ 1815.9: John Donne, A Lecture upon the Shadow (‘Stand still, and I will read to thee’)
Copy, with a sidenote ‘Is in the 8o Edition’.
First published, as ‘Song’, in Poems (1635). Grierson, I, 71-2. Gardner, Elegies, pp. 78-9. Shawcross, No. 30.
[MS Prose] ff. 1r-4v
• DnJ 4081.8: John Donne, Paradoxes and Problems
Copy of eight Problems, numbered XI-XVII and I, headed in another hand ‘Problems, &c. of J.D. not printed.’; ‘1. Probleme’ (‘Why have Bastards best fortune?’) superscribed ‘wanting in the first printed Probleme’.
Eleven Paradoxes and ten Problems first published in Juvenilia: or Certaine Paradoxes and Problemes (London, 1633). Twelve Paradoxes and seventeen Problems published in Paradoxes, Problems, Essayes (London, 1652). Two more Problems published in 1899 and 1927 (see DnJ 4073, DnJ 4089). Twelve Paradoxes and eighteen Problems reprinted in Paradoxes and Problemes by John Donne (London, 1923). Twelve Paradoxes (Nos XI and XII relegated to ‘Dubia’) and nineteen Problems (No. XI by Edward Herbert) edited in Peters.
[MS Prose] ff. 5r-6v
• DnJ 4095.5: John Donne, The True Character of a Dunce
First published in Sir Thomas Overbury, A Wife, 11th impression (London, 1622). Paradoxes, Problems, Essayes (London, 1652). Hayward, pp. 415-17. Peters, pp. 59-62 (among ‘Dubia’). The authorship discussed in Dennis Flynn, ‘Three Unnoticed Companion Essays to Donne's “An Essay of Valour”’, BNYPL, 73 (1969), 424-39.
[MS Prose] ff. 6v-9r
• DnJ 4066.5: John Donne, An Essay of Valour
First published in Sir Thomas Overbury, A Wife, 11th impression (London, 1622). Cottoni Posthuma (London, 1651), as ‘Valour Anatomiz'd in a Fancie by Sir Philip Sidney’. Paradoxes, Problems, Essayes (London, 1652). The Prose Works of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Albert Feuillerat, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1968), III, 308-10 (as Appendix). Hayward, pp. 417-20. Peters, pp. 62-7 (among ‘Dubia’). The authorship discussed in Dennis Flynn, ‘Three Unnoticed Companion Essays to Donne's “An Essay of Valour”’, BNYPL, 73 (1969), 424-39.