‘The author of Granby' on a Grand Tour: Thomas Henry Lister (1800-1842) in Weimar
in 1826 and his unpublished correspondence with Ottilie von Goethe.
Thomas Henry Lister's first novel Granby[1] was published in 1826, with its faithful portrayal of so called
English ‘high life', it is essentially a love story of, at first, a mis-matched
pair, which is woven upon a backdrop of an obscure inheritance claim, and which
ends in the recognition of Granby’s recovered nobility and his eventual
legitimate claim. It was widely
celebrated and enthusiastically received, according to Thomas
Carlyle, writing a few years later, Lister's ‘fashionable' or ‘silver-fork'
novel had provided a vivid literary depiction of a "state of society"
that was previously unknown, and thus contributed to a defining moment in
English literature:
"His tale of Granby
opened to the general view that state of society to which the highest alone
could aspire. The smoothness, the glozing[2], and the polish of his
characters- the novelty of his scenes, and their construction on exclusive
principles-were felt at once. Reality became the order of the day."
Walter Scott on reading Granby approved of it, he found it
"well-written, but overlaboured", and placed Lister's novel as part
of the fashionable literary genre "…one of the class that aspire to
describe the actual current of society, whose colours are so evanescent that it
is difficult to fix them on the canvas." Scott found it
"overlaboured" in the sense that
he thought there was "too much attempt to put the reader exactly up
to the thoughts and sentiments of the parties." A fascinating remark from
an author who had created the historical novel and what appears to be his apparent distaste for
vivid contemporaneity[3], he added
that to depict this ‘actual state of society' was a task better undertaken by women writers (he explicitly named the works of Maria Edgeworth, Susan Ferrier[4]
and Jane Austen). He thought they were much better at "portraits of
real society" [5].
Lister too thought the same and expounded on this in a letter to Ottilie von
Goethe (October 16, 1826). There had been a very enthusiastic review in the Edinburgh Review, by Sydney Smith, who
clearly had difficulty putting the novel down, and he even compared it in parts
to Scott. It would appear that the novel was
actually published late 1825, as a review had already appeared in the December
edition of The Literary gazette[6], and, probably buoyed with its success and remuneration from one of the
leading publishing oligarchs, Henry Colburn[7], who no doubt wanted
more from him, went on a Grand Tour in 1826 together with his travelling
companion, Thomas Atherton Powys, 3rd Baron Lilford[8] (1801-1861). Although
Lister had indeed "attained considerable literary celebrity" after Granby, as the Gentlemen's Magazine wrote in his obituary from 1842; the ‘canon'
hereafter has since declared Lister to have been only a ‘minor novelist', and a
‘second-rate writer', and subsequently a full biography has never been written
of him.
In the most authoritative entry in the
revised Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography[9] written by Professor
Donald Dawes, the details of what he actually did following his initial
schooling at Westminster and then going up to Trinity College, Cambridge, which
he left before getting his degree sometime in 1821 are almost completely
unknown. One would like to think that his only mention in the Creevey papers
with what sounds like a fairly regular seat in an unnamed literary salon[10] in 1823, was the
period when he was busily gathering up material for the faithful delineation of
all of the characters in his novel. There is no mention in the ODNB of Lister's tour of Germany,
Austria and Italy[11] that lasted for well
over a year during the years 1826/27. His tour of Germany where he stayed in
Weimar, Jena, Leipzig, Dresden and Munich- or any further details of any of the
people he came into contact with has thus not yet been documented. In Granby, the character Lady Harriet
Duncan, a high blue, who in the form of a Roman
a clef, is supposedly modelled in part on the poet and novelist Lady
Charlotte Lamb[12]( the former requited
lover of Lord Byron, who had had an affair with him in 1812, the "furious
Sappho" as he called her); is at one point in an impressive erratic
display of literary learning with references to works by E.T.A. Hoffmann,
Amalie von Imhof, and Adelbert von Chamisso, amongst others, says to the
clearly overwhelmed dandaical figure Trebeck:
"Well,
and do you know German? You must learn it if you do not; and read Goëthe in the
original."
Although Lady Harriet Duncan is presumed
to have been Lady Charlotte Lamb, another literary figure that Lister knew well
was Lady Jane Davy, wife of the Chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, President of the
Royal Society, who had met Goethe in 1824 and was unquestionably fluent in German[13]. She was also Walter
Scott's „affectionate Scotch Cousin & faithful friend", and had
accompanied him on his Tour of the
Hebrides, and wrote to Scott about her stay in Weimar and meeting with
Goethe:
"The
parts of Germany I visited were new to me; & I saw both some fine Towns
& exquisitely romantic scenery.
Dresden & its Gallery, Prague & its Palaces, were well worth the
trouble I took to visit them. The days, three,
I spent with Goethe at Weimar, were such as to make even a less interesting
Tour worth peculiar recollection. At 76
the Author of Faust is full of vigour
of conversation, & courtesy of manner; & if it seems uncivil to talk of
age to poetic ears, I may soften the harsh subject, by assuring you beauty both
of person & countenance, nay of features remain in this Northern Apollo, to
a degree coming near to that immortality of youth, you Sons of the Lyre, should
all possess for our gratification. He
selected yourself & Lord Byron as his most favourite Authors;…. "[14]
Scott had described her character minutely
‘warts and all', and their own relationship in his later published Journal, he spoke of her there, despite her
minor character flaws, as unquestionably "a leader of literary
fashion" and remarked on her "distinguished place in the literary
society of the Metropolis" besides her husband acknowledging that she was
not of a scientific bent.[15] It was remarkable that
Lister procured from Lady Davy a letter of introduction in May 1826, that was addressed
to Goethe's daughter-in-law, Ottilie von Goethe, which, although clearly it
would not have been the first port of call for Lister and Baron Lilford on
their journey, but it is only in Weimar that both of them appear on the map as
it were. Lady Davy had written to Ottilie in an impressive German:
„Mr Lister wünscht | sehr natürlich
und innig, den grossen Dichter, & den gelehrten Riesen Deutschlands zu
kennen. Ich bitte sie, ihn und seinen Gefährten Lord Lilford zu empfangen mit
der herzlichen Gnade sie haben gewöhnlich gegen die Englische gebraucht."[16]
[Mr Lister most naturally and earnestly,
wishes to be acquainted with the great poet and the learned giants of Germany.
I would ask you to receive him and his fellow traveller Lord Lilford with the
heartfelt grace that you have always shown to the English.]
What actually transpired when they were in
Weimar in 1826 from June 27th-29th[17] has up to now only
been noted on the very margins of Goethe scholarship, even the major biographies
of Ottilie fail to mention Lister or their subsequent correspondence, and there
has never been an account of the people they actually went on to meet in Weimar
and Jena. The existence of Lady Davy’s introductory letter and fifteen of
Lister's letters to Ottilie von Goethe, held at the Goethe-Schiller-Archive,[18] which span the period
1826 -1834[36] throws some considerable light on this visit and essential facts
concerning the Grand Tour that was undertaken,
the correspondence documents their subsequent friendship, and provides
us with further details of that intimate network of Anglo-German literary
relations in Weimar, the so called ‘English colony’[19], throughout the 1820s
and 1830s ―Lister, like Carlyle and Thackeray would also contribute to the
Weimarer journal Chaos (1829-1832)
and, indeed, the very opening letter from Ottilie under the pseudonym Henry
Daventry is a humorous parody of the fashionable world with comparisons between
Weimar and London and Brighton.[20] Some of Lady Davy's correspondence with
Ottilie, and the actual letter of recommendation that Lister must have
presented Ottilie still survive in Weimar[21]. Lister's letters most
importantly extend our scanty biographical knowledge of him, a writer, who has
been somewhat unfairly neglected as an English novelist, besides his novels Granby (1826), Herbert Lacy (1827) and Arlington
(1832)[22] and his play Epicharis that was performed with great
success at Drury Lane theatre in London in 1829, that we discover were all
promptly sent to Weimar, Lister was also a regular contributor to the Edinburgh Review and the Foreign Quarterly Review both journals
that Goethe was familiar with and it was in the February 1826 edition of the Edinburgh Review that had published an
article on Lister's Granby from
Sydney Smith. When he arrived there they had not yet read it. Lister abandoned
the novel in 1832; became an historian, sitting on a number of governmental commissions,
and lastly as England's first appointed Registrar General, ultimately
responsible for the 1841 population census.[23]
The correspondence with Ottilie has
remained unpublished, despite one of the great figures of German studies in
Britain, Leonard Willoughby, urging as early as 1914 that the wider
correspondence of Englishmen in Weimar with Ottilie von Goethe ought to be
published as a project within the purview? of the English Goethe Society[24]. [The GSA also
contains an entry by Lister and Lilford in the Stammbuch[25] or album,
belonging to Ottilie's sister, Ulrike von Pogwisch (1798-1875); from Lister on
the 29th June and strangely one from Baron Lilford from the previous
day[26].There is also a letter
from Lilford to Ottilie.]
It must have been of particular importance
for him to visit Weimar, as we know that he presented to Ottilie- from an
apparent arsenal of letters- an introductory letter from, Lady Jane Davy[1], the wife of the
Chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, who had previously met Goethe and Ottilie in September
1824.[2] It is clear from the
introduction that she wrote that she intended Lister, to apologise on her
behalf for her ‘long silence' with Ottilie in matters of correspondence.
"Ich lasse doch der Beredsamkeit meiner jungere & berühmten
Landesmanns, mein langes stillschweigen zu entschuldigen, nicht ohne hoffnung
in der Gutherzigkeit meiner Richterinnen."[I will allow the eloquence of my younger & famous countryman to
apologise for my long silence, hoping for the kind-heartedness of my judge][3] Her silence would have been a period of some
six months as she thanks Ottilie for her letter from November last (i.e.
November 1825) and reveals that the promised books from Goethe that she had
spoken of, she had not yet received and asks her when they had been dispatched
to England and who was supposed to have brought them:
„Ihr Brief in November war mir ein
grosser vergnügen; und das Geschenk das sie hatten mir gesprochen von dein
Herrn Goethe, hat von dieser Seit, meine sehnsucht immer erregt. Dieser bücher
sind nocht noch bei mir; & ich darf ihnen bitten mir zu wann sie waren nach
England gesandt & wer hat sie mir zu bringen unternommen? „[4]
We presume that Lady Davy had also spoken
to Lister about this matter if she had entrusted him with delivering any form of
apology to Ottilie for her not replying since. In this remarkably well written
German letter, illustrating a further aspect of Lady Davy's unquestionable
linguistic talents, in what is perhaps an example of typically feminine banter
to Ottilie, that after the success of Lister's first novel in England, which
had been "extraordinarily
fashionable", she was impressed
with him that after the reception of Granby
"Es ist ausserordentlich nach der mode gewesen; und es scheint mir, dass
seinen Kopf hat wunderlich ausgehalten gegen dem schmeichelden
Weihrauch."[ [Granby] is extraordinarily fashionable; and it
appears to me that his head has magnificently resisted all the adulatory
incense][5]. Although Lister only
made a brief three-day visit to Weimar, he continued an interesting
correspondence with Ottilie and came to regard her as a friend, which was also
confirmed by his wife Lady Theresa writing to Ottilie. Writing to her in 1830
he had said "I have ever felt that I might regard you as a friend who would
take a kind and lively interest in whatever might be most conducive to my
happiness."[6] His correspondence
with her is further proof of Ottilie's widely acknowledged role as "his
Britannic Majesty's Consul in Weimar" in Weimar, the phrase stems from
Thackeray[7], and her close
connections (liasons, translation collaborations, affairs, etc.) with any
number of English literary figures such as Chevalier J. H. Laurence, Charles
James Lever, Des Voueux and William Makepiece Thackeray etc. Given her role in
the Haus Goethe, her proximity to
Goethe and her caring for him in his remaining years, they provide us with
interesting material including Lister's writing to her on topical dramatical
and political matters in England, that she must have mediated to him[8]. Further, Ottilie's
interest in all things Irish has been acknowledged, Lister's writings in the Edinburgh Review on Irish literature,
and his work on the government commission represent a possible avenue of
mediation. Ottilie had given Lister's Granby
to Goethe for him to read when it arrived in Weimar (see later).
However, despite the April review of
Granby in the Edinburgh Review on his
arrival both Ottilie and Goethe were not familiar with the novel, and Lister
arranged to have it sent to Weimar very quickly. Writing to her shortly after
he left Weimar from Dresden (July 5th
1826) he announced:
"I
hope at length to be enabled to fulfill my promise & present you with a
copy of my book. I tried without success to obtain it at Leipisic, & was
there told that I might possibly find it here at the Arnoldische Buchhandlung
in the Alt.markt. Here however I am again disappointed but they have engaged to
get it for me from England & to forward it to you, which they think they
can do so in the course of a month- I have made them give me a
duplicate receipt which I send enclosed to you, that they may have no pretence
for failing in their engagement. If they do not send it to you I hope you will
have the kindness to write to tell me, & I will take care that a copy shall
be forwarded to you by some means or other."[9]
It appears that when Granby arrived in
Weimar Ottilie read it and then quickly gave the copy he sent to Goethe to
read. From the outset impressed with her
English conversation, he desired her very much as a female critic, without
doubt she was one of the most outstanding European ‘high blue's' or woman of
letters or literary fashion, and he continually pressed her for her own (as
well as Goethe's) literary criticisms of his novels and his play. The
correspondence shows that he persisted tenaciously(nagged)with this request,
Ottilie had at first written to him threatening not to do so, Lister replied
from Munich in October 1826:"Your letter intimates that you mean to
withold them; but this is a threat which I trust you will not fully
execute."[10] When she
first met him, as a well-known passionate and acknowledged admirer of Byron's
works like her father-in-law[11], she found his views
on Byron, as Lister himself characterised it to her, as "heretical",
and his subsequent detailed criticism of Byron- which is one of the more
fascinating aspects of the correspondence between them- is documented in two
letters to her, clearly provided a fascinating material and basis for them to
argue about[12]He found Byron... The
correspondence also reveals aspects that must have made it of considerable
topical interest in the Haus Goethes
- in his letter to Ottilie from (London Oct. 20 1829) he contrasted the
reception of his own play Epicharis
in London with Byron's Marino Faliero.
A few days later in Weimar the publisher Murray visited Weimar and told Goethe
he had Byron's letter with his dedication to Goethe that Byron had originally
prefaced Marino Faliero, Lister's
review in the Edinburgh Review from
April 1830 of Delavigne's Marino Faliero.
Similarly the fact that Lister included glowing panegyrics of Goethe in his
letters to Ottilie, or his comparison of Goethe's Mephistopheles with Byron's
Lucifer, we are sure that she informed and shared the content with him as well.
A further direct and topical connection to Goethe would have been Lister's
critical article in the Edinburgh Review
from March 1831 on the poet John Edmund Reade's (1800-1870) "Cain the Wanderer. A vision of Heaven,
Darkness and other Poems (1829)"[13] Reade had sent Goethe
his work and Goethe had replied to Reade.
It is clear that Ottilie valued Lister as
a friend, and the fact that she sent him copies, before enlisting him as a
contributor to the multi-lingual Weimarer periodical Chaos:
"I
wish I knew which of the contributions are by [torn-yoursel]f or M. de Göethe- Perhaps you can tell me. You are
very good to send me a copy in spite of the regulation that only they who write
for it are privileged to secure one. But you tell me that if I had been less
dilatory in answering your last letter you would have preferred to accept me as
a contributor, by which I assure you I should have been much flattered and
would have very gladly offered my mite."
This was a clear indication of his
importance to her, and his ultimately belonging to that exclusive group, the
"Chaotic Menge"[14] as Samuel
Naylor(1809-1865) a friend of Henry Crabb Robinson (also a friend of
Thackeray's in Cambridge)- who fell in love with her when he visited Weimar and
actually proposed to Ottilie[15]- she requested that
all her letters to him be burnt[16], once described all of
those "imps" who had contributed to the periodical.
We know that on Friday June 29th
armed with letters of introduction from Ottilie both of them travelled from
Weimar to Jena (about 12 miles/20 kilometres) to visit Karl Ludwig von Knebel
(30.11.1744 - 23.2.1834), the translator of Lucretius, and Joanna Schopenhauer
(1766-1838), the celebrated salon dame, writer, novelist and mother of the
philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who had originally presented his doctoral
dissertation at the university of Jena in 1813.
On the 28th June Ottilie wrote some remarkable words-almost a
kind of laddish weather forecast- to her girlfriend Adele Schopenhauer- and we
presume this was what accompanied the letter of introduction to her mother:
" Lady Davy empfahl mir beide
Herren sehr angelegentlich, doch kannte sie nur den Letztern, doch an Lord
Lilford hat die Natur seine Weltsitte und ich weiss nicht was alles für ernst
und neckende Gracien, so viel Sendschreiben und Empfehlungsbriefe an die sämtliche
Frauenwelt mitgeben, ohne dass es den Männern gelingen konnte sie deshalb zu
tadeln, dass es [144] ihm wohl überall wohl gehen wird….[….] Lord Lilford, der
freundlichste Sommertag, reich an Blumen und Früchten und Sonnenschein[the friendliest Sommer day, rich in flowers,
fruit and sunshine ], und Mr. Lister, ein Herbstmorgen, der zuweilen den
Täuschenden Schein des Frühlings anzunehmen strebt[an Autumnal morning that at times strives to acquire the deceptive
appearance of Spring ], bringen Dir diese Worte. Man wird von der Jugend des Letzteren
manchmal verlockt zu glauben, als sei Mai, doch kömmt man näher, so sind, was
lebensfrohe Blüthen schienen, nur die röthlichen Blätter des Herbstes, und
alles, was Rosen und Sonnenblümen war, sind in der Nähe betrachtet nur Astern.[Of the youth of [Lister], sometimes one is tempted to believe [of Mr
Lister] as if it is May, and yet if one gets a little closer, the living joy of
blossom appears to be only the red leaves of Autumn, and everything that was
roses and sunflowers, looked at up close, are really only Asters. [The name
Aster comes from the Greek ἀστήρ (astér),meaning “star”, referring to the flower
head(wiki)] , or, star-wort (Cucullia asteris) Astern-Braunmoench, or Astern-Moench;
any of various plants having star-shaped flowers or flower heads?] "[17]
These words of Ottilie to her close
girlfriend Adele, she wrote to her that Lady Jane Davy, had, we presume
introductory letters recommended to her both of the men "sehr angelegentlich"[earnestly recommended], although she
only knew Lister. Ottilie wasn't sure about Lilford. But mention was made of
Lister's novel:
"….Mr. Lister ist nach Lady
Davys Brief der Verfasser eines Romans “Granby”,
der großen Beifall in England gefunden, und sie wundert sich sogar, daβ sein
Kopf dem Weihrauch hat wiederstehen können; mir ist immer als fänge sein Herz
leise einen Klagegesang mit, der wohl die Lob=Hymnen mag übertönt haben.― Sie
gehen nach Italien und werden Sterling sehen; endlich Menschen, wo man diesen
Wunsch hegen kann.“
The remark of Lady Davy that Ottilie
repeats to Adele, “und sie wundert sich sogar, daβ sein Kopf dem Weihrauch hat wiederstehen können" [ and she is surprised that his head could
resist all of the incense] is not exactly correct omitting the two
adjectives, Lady Davy had said „und es scheint mir, dass seinen Kopf hat
wunderlich ausgehalten gegen dem schmeichelden Weihrauch."[and it appears to me that his head has magnificently resisted all of the adulatory incense ] illustrates the
tremendous reception that Granby had
gotten in England, helped on by Colburn's notorious so called ‘puffing engine'
the concerted actions of his extremely well funded ‘Publicity Department' she
was surprised that all the success from the publication of this novel, "hadn't gone to his head " and that
he had remained somewhat indifferent towards it. Ottilie's own observations
about Lister are rather strange too, "it
is as if his heart had softly caught a light dirge (or lament), and that the
hymns of praise may have very well drowned themselves out". This
indicates that the topic of his novel had certainly arisen in conversation and
yet he was rather nonplussed about it?
She was unsure about him; his attitude was as if it was feigned, she
expected from him a little more but he was only prepared to give her so much,
it's as if he recoiled from her natural gestures of warmth and openness. How
else is one to understand the sentiment of at first seeing ‘sunshine' and yet
closer up, what she saw as a kind of fabricated or deliberately hoisted
coldness? Perhaps Lister was embarrassed at Ottilie's natural warmth and in
Weimar he had expected a stricter code or sense of decorum; perhaps, and this
might be a strong reason, he was a little taken aback by her facial injury from
her accident which must have been very apparent when they first met. Ottilie
had had a riding accident and had been dragged by a horse on the 28th April
1826 that had left her with a serious wound to the nose, it was broken and her
lips had to be stitched up. Lister would
have seen her disfigurement when he met her, indeed, she had written to Adele
Schopenhauer in the same letter announcing Lister and Lilford in Jena:
"Die Wunde auf der Nase ist
noch nicht zu, und es sind ein paar ziemlich grosse Knochensplitter
herausgegangen…. "[18][The
wound to the nose hasn't yet healed up; and quite a few large splinters of bone
have come out]
Conversation with such a suffering person
is sometimes difficult for an interlocutor, particularly if the person is
heavily bandaged, it must be said that even Goethe avoided her at first “weil
er sich von der Gemütsbewegungen beim Anblick ihrer Wunden fürchtete.”[19] although he had
written to Charles Sterling the day after Lister and Lilford had left Weimar
for Jena and had spoken of Ottilie's “fortdauender
Besserung [continual improvement ]”[20] this, some 8 weeks
after the accident. Lady Jane Davy wrote
to Ottilie (April 17th 1827) after Des Voueux had visited her with all the news
from Weimar and presents to her from Goethe, about how thankful she was that
Ottilie had shown such hospitality to her "countrymen", and their
"ehrenvolle Aufnahme!" and left it in her hands to thank her
Father-in-law" In ihrer Händen lasse es ich meine Dankbarkeit
ausgedrückten ihrem Herrn Schwiegevater." She was moved to have heard
about her "fall", and remarks on how brave and generous she was to
have carried out such a reception of the "strangers" and admired her
for doing so whilst she was clearly suffering:
„Es thut mir leid, ihrer stürze zu
hören, aber auch bewundre ich mich, dass sie so großmütig und,
<unweiblich?> waren, die fremden in diesem so leidenden Zustande zu
empfangen[21]."
A few months later, back in England, Lister also
raised the subject of her health as it was then:
"I
shall hope to be assured that M.de Goethe & yourself are now enjoying
better health than when I had the pleasure of seeing you- Pray present my best
complts to M. de Goethe & to all those of your circle whom I had the honour
of knowing"[22]
Many of Lister's characters in his novel Granby, as he described them knew how to
"cloack" or artfully disguise their emotions, Carlyle in his
description of Granby speaks of
"the glozing" and the polished nature
of the delineation of his characters; the idea of distinguishing between
the "inward" and "outer sentiment" was always present,
sometimes not only apparent to the characters themselves but to Lister in his
own narrative, and it is not surprising that Lister wanted Ottilie to read his
novel and set about immediately to facilitate that as soon as he arrived in
Leipzig. The novel was his calling card, and he was convinced that it would
tell Ottilie and Goethe more about him than he could have possibly revealed to
them about his person in their brief encounter, or, for that matter what she
would have obtained from Lady Davy's introductory letter to her that had
nevertheless "earnestly recommended him" in Weimar and had told of
the great success his novel had had in England.
In fact he was probably the most successful
living English novelist[23]
that she or Goethe would meet in the late 1820s; Thackeray's literary fame
occurs much later. It is fair to say
that the love story in Granby between
the main character Henry Granby and Caroline Jermyn, is characterized from the
outset by dissimilitude and feigned deception, or what we would nowadays call
‘playing hard to get'; so too in his later novel Herbert Stacy in the love story between Herbert Stacy and Agnes
Morton, is stealthily and expertly spun out, indeed the Nabakov-like cunning in
what is to all extents and purposes a ‘normal' friendly letter to Agnes, the
object of his desire, is dramatically pounced upon and exposed by the mother to
be actually perfidious and scheming and as a result she breaks off any future
contact between the two of them. The subterfuge and deliberate strategy of
Herbert to make himself increasingly attractive to Agnes is a masterly
psychological description, as are the skilfully constructed letters, including
that of the old Generals. Ottilie, who flirted constantly and with many
Englishmen, could clearly see that there was more to Lister than met her eye,
but it would seem that she could not get as close to him as she wished. As Irene Hardach-Pinke has written:
"Ottilie wusste, wie schnell
sie sich verliebte. Sie brauchte sich nur mit einem jungen Engländer allein in
einem Raum aufzuhalten, mit ihm über Literatur zu reden oder gemeinsam einen
Text zu übersetzen, und schon war es um sie geschehen. Die Kraft der Worte und
Bilder, die betörende englische Sprache, und wenn dann noch Lord Byron ins
Spiel kam, glaubte sie wieder einmal, der großen Leidenschaft zu begegnen, nach
der sie sich so sehr sehnte."[24]
They certainly talked about Byron, as she
found him ‚heretical'. Did he resemble a Byronic hero? Well if the only
existing portrait of him is anything to go by, yes.
[1] Lady Jane Davy [née Kerr](1780-1855), the wife
of the Chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, and the centre of a literary circle/salon in Edinburgh,
"She accompanied [Walter] Scott on his tour of the Western Isles in
1810."; "a vivacious correspondence with Scott and Sydney Smith among
others"; It was said that she was the model of Corinne from Frau de Staël her friend. She had visited Goethe in
1824 (See Goethe's Tagebuch entry in:
Thierfelder, Goethe und seine
ausländischen Besucher: (1932), S.58;
John Hennig, Goethe's Europakunde:
Goethes kenntnise des nicht deutschspraechigen Europas (Rodopi, 1987, p.84) Clearly Ottilie had had a good relationship
with Lady Davy, on Sir Humphrey Davy's death in Geneva, after abruptly leaving
Rome in 1829, Soret had written a lengthy descriptive passage: "Sollte
Frau von Goethe an Lady Davy schreiben wollen, so wird sie den Brief am besten
nach Genf richten…."Zehn Jahre bei
Goethe: Erinnerungen an Weimars klassische Zeit, 1822-1832(Georg Olms Verlag, 1929), S. 316. See Sophie
Forgan, ‘Davy , Jane, Lady Davy (1780-1855)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press,
2004; online edn, May 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7315,
accessed 31 Jan 2015] It is possible that the following letter held at the GSA
is in fact this same introductory letter: (Signatur
GSA 40/III,1,4 Brief(e)von Davy, Jane an Goethe, Ottilie von geb. von Pogwisch
1824-1827, oD, 4
Stück, 8 Blatt ), (Signatur
GSA 40/XXI,3,5 Brief(e) von Goethe, Ottilie von geb. von Pogwisch an Davy
(Lady)
oD, 1 Stück, 1
Blatt )(Konzept
(Signatur GSA 28/275 Brief(e) von Davy, Jane, geb. Kerr, verw. Apreece an
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang oD, 1 Stück, 2 Blatt)
[2] Whereas afterwards the authors Charles James
Lever (1806-1872) visit to Weimar in 1829 or William Thackeray (1811-1863) in
Weimar in 1830/31, Thackeray's extended visit has been well documented See S.
S. Prawer, Breeches and Metaphysics:
Thackeray's German Discourse (Oxford, 1997) and some of his correspondence
with Ottilie von Goethe has actually been published. In Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair (1847) scenes from Weimar
life are depicted in a number of chapters. It is well known that chapters LXII
& LXIII and the description of German life in „Pumpernickel" was his
humorous depiction of Weimar life in his novel "Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero"(1847) See John K.
Mathison, "The German Sections of Vanity Fair", in: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 18,
December 1963, pp.233-246, and George J. Worth, "More on the German
Sections of Vanity Fair", in: NCF,
Vol. 19, No. 4 (Mar., 1965), pp. 402-404; "Thackeray's Lehrlingszeit im
Weimar", in: Neuphilologische
Monatsschrift, IX, (1939), pp.111-114.
[3] GSA 40/III,1,4 Brief(e)von Davy, Jane an
Goethe, Ottilie von geb. von Pogwisch 1824-1827, oD, 4 Stück, 8 Blatt.(Briefe
Nr. 2 May 15. 1826,
26 Park Street [i.e. Grovesnor Square])
[8] For
example Ottilie an Goethe [19 Juni 1825], op. cit., Bd. 28, S.142-43.,
directing him what to read, etc.
[11] Ottilie's fascination for Byron; See also
Caroline Franklin The Female Romantics:
Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists and Byronism (New York and Oxford:
Routledge, 2013) and review by Anna Camilleri, in: The Byron Journal, Vol. 42, Number 1, 2014, pp. 71-73
[12] In
these two letters we also hear some of the sentiments which were to accompany
the publication of ‘The poetical works of
Lord Byron: with copious illustrative notes, and a memoir of his life".
This memoir, we think published after his death, was written by Lister.
[13] Art. V. - 1. Cain the Wanderer, and other
Poems. 8vo. London: 1830. 2. The Revolt of the Angels, and the Fall from
Paradise. An Epic Drama. By Edmund Reade, Esq., Author of Cain the Wanderer. 8
vo. London: 1830, Edinburgh Review,
vol. 53, 1831,pp.105-119 "Reade's Poems" (Vol. 53 (March 1831).)
[15] According to Ruth Rathmeyer„der wohl
unbedeutendste aller englischen Studenten, die Weimars Plaster betreten
haben"Ottilie von Goethe. Eine Biographie (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag) S.169.
[16] "before you have read it burn this",
we read in a letter of Ottilie's to Samuel Naylor (1809-1865), Ottilie demanded
that his letters be returned. On Naylor's correspondence see Vivian (2008/9),
S.56f, and Vivian (2010), S. 98f.
[17] Schriften
der Goethe-Gesellschaft, Bd.28, (Weimar: 1913) Ottilie an Adele
Schopenhauer (Weimar, den 28. Juni 1825), S.143.
[20] On Friday 30th June 1826 Goethe wrote a letter
to Ottilie's Irish admirer, Charles Sterling, about Ottilie's accident: „die
schon acht Wochen leidet, aber bey fortdauender Besserung einer baldigen
Genesung entgegen sieht….[….]"(Goethes
Leben von Tag zu Tag, Bd. VII 1821-1827, S.633.)
[21] Refers to her riding accident where she broke
her nose and the reception of Lister and Lilford in Weimar some weeks later,
and the introductory letter to Ottilie that she had given Lister.
[23] Henry Crabb Robinson, John Lawrence?
[24] Ottilie herself, according to ….. used a
strategy of talking
about her admirers to other men; this is mentioned in Lister's Arlington (1832), and pursued by Miss
Julia Saville to make Lord Arlington more interested in her, who although
‘flirting' remained faithful to his Alice Mortimer, and disappointed Lady Crawford
who had expected "a fascination, an
enchainment, a difficulty of tearing himself away"(p.163). Lady Crawford
intended to invite Arlington again , but this time with other young men present
in the circle: "for men ever admire women more when they know that they
are admired by others; and she thought that if he could not be lured, he might
be stimulated into suitorship by the spirit of emulation" Arlington, I, xxiii, p.164: Such a
stratagem evokes Cressida's advice, "Men desire the thing ungained more
than it is" and it is therefore no surprise that Lister uses wishes to
play before the reader the image of the conversation between Angelo and
Isabella from Shakespeare's Measure for
Measure[ Scene iv. A room in Angelo's house]: as a title quote for the next
chapter a quote from Isabella to set the next scene "[Nay]-Call us ten times frail,/ For we
are soft as our complexions are,/ And credulous to soft prints." Chap. XXIV, p.164.
[1] John Manners (1721-1770)‚ Marquis of Granby‚ served
in Cumberland's army against the Young Pretender. He became the commander in
chief of the British contingent in Germany during the Seven Years' War (from
1759); commander in chief of the forces‚ 1766.
[2] Gloze, glozing "specious or deceptive
talk or action"; "To give a deceptively attractive appearance
to" "to colour, gild, gloss (over), sugarcoat, varnish, veneer,
whitewash." To paper over, to put a good face on. [C13: from Old French glosser to comment]?
[3] Richard Cronin argues that "In its
insistent contemporaneity and in its concentration on the ephemeral,
silver-fork fiction is a reaction against
the historical novel, and in particular the novel as practiced by Scott. And
yet the fashionable novel cannot quite free itself from Scott's influence. The
novelists retain, but in a new form, the historical sense that Scott had made
central to fiction. They became the historians of the
contemporary"(Cronin, op. cit.p. 39)
[4] Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1782-1854), novelist; she visited Sir Walter
Scott, 1811, 1829, and 1831; and published three novels ‘Marriage,’1818, ‘The
inheritance,’1824, and ‘Destiny,’1831. (cf. CDNB, p.429; )
[5] "Reading at intervals a novel called Granby; one
of that very difficult class which aspires to describe the actual current of
society, whose colours are so evanescent that it is difficult to fix them on
the canvas. It is well written, but over-laboured- too much attempt to put the
reader exactly up to the thoughts and sentiments of the parties. The women do
this better: Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen have all had their portraits of real
society, far superior to anything man, vain man, has produced of the like
nature."The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, vol. 1, p.164.[see below] (vgl.
Vastly differing same quote in, Memoirs
of the Life of Sir Walter Scott. By J. G. Lockhart, Esq. His son-in-law and
literary executor. In Four Volumes.(Paris, Baudry's European Library,
1838)Vol. 4, p.37.
See Frauengestalten
Weimar-Jena um 1800, (2009), S.175. Lister himself shared this belief in a
letter to Ottilie. In his entry in his Journal, for April 22nd 1828, Scott
wrote that "We went to Lady Davy's in the evening , where there was a
fashionable party." The following day he dined there again and remarked on
"several other fashionable folks". The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, From the
Original Manuscript at Abbotsford. Ed. by David Douglas ([Edinburgh, 1890]CUP, 2013),
vol. 2, p.165
[6] And
the Gazette was already being quoted in Advertisements
& Notices under "Interesting Works' just published by Henry
Colburn "2. GRANBY, a Novel. In 3 vols. Post 8vo. Price 27s."One of
the pleasantest novels we have had occasion to commend for a very long
time"-Literary Gazette."in:. The Examiner (London, England),
Sunday, December 18, 1825; Issue 932. ; „The work announced under the name of
Granby, is, we hear, descriptive of scenes in high life; and, like its
predecessors, Tremaine and Matilda, written by a Gentleman of rank." In
the column ‘THE MIRROR OF FASHION'in: The Morning Chronicle (London, England),
Monday, November 28, 1825; Issue 17538, p.1
[7] See
John Sutherland, Henry Colburn Publisher, in: Publishing history, 19, 1986,
pp.59-; perhaps Lister's celebrity is attributable to Colburn's astonishing
‘Puffing techniques' and his ‘Publicity Department' or ‘puffing engine'. Caryle
spoke of "huge subterranean, puffing bellows"(Carylyle, Selected Wrritings (1971), p.66.)
employed by mechanically aided ‘Literature' in his article originally published
in the Edinburgh Review, Sign of the
Times (1829)
[8] Thomas Atherton Powys, 3rd Baron Lilford
(1801-1861), had only recently inherited his title from Thomas Powys, 2nd
Baron Lilford, on 04. 07. 1825.
[9] Donald Hawes, ‘Lister, Thomas Henry
(1800-1842)', Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2012
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16768, accessed 18 Oct 2014]
[11] Regarding his Italian tour from November 1826
until June 1827 there is a short mention of him in a work by Marguerite
Gardiner (aka Countess of Blessington) The
Idler in Italy as he was in Pisa: "Mr. Lister, the author of
"Granby," has come here for a few days. He is a very gentlemanly,
well-informed young man, of peculiarly mild manners, and with a good taste for
the fine arts. We went to Leghorn yesterday: a large party, consisting of the
Duchesse de Guiche, Mr. Lister, Mr. Wilkie[the painter Sir David Wilkie], and
our own family. A portion of our party went on board Admiral Codrington's ship
which was in the harbour; and returned much gratified by the inspection of
it."The Idler in Italy, Vol. II,
18, pp.497-8.
[12] See
"Lady Caroline Lamb (nee Ponsonby) (1785-1828"in: Romanticism. An Anthology. Second
Edition. Edited by Duncan Wu (Blackwell: Oxford and Massachusetts, 1998),
pp.648-658; also Romantic Women Poets: An
Anthology. Edited by Duncan Wu (Blackwell, 1997),pp.479-88; Appropriating
Byron: Lady Caroline Lamb's A New Canto", in The Wordsworth Circle, 26
(1995), 140-6; Paul Douglass, "What Lord Byron Learned from Lady Caroline
Lamb"(2005) pdf online San Jose State
University, Department of English and Comparative Literature ; "Evil genius? Whore? Procuress?
Crazy Jane?" ; and his Lady Caroline
Lamb: A Biography by Paul Douglass (2004) See also Clara Tuite,
"Tainted Love and Romantic Literary Celebrity", in: ELH,
Vol. 74, No.1, Spring 2007, pp. 59-88; Leigh Wetherall Dickson (Northumbria University),
"The Construction of a Reputation for Madness: The Case Study of Lady
Caroline Lamb", pdf online in: Working With English:
Medieval and Modern Language, Literature and Drama 2 (2005-2006): 27-46;
[13] Her
correspondence with Ottilie von Goethe is written in an impressive German;
although she loved Germany, mentioning her predilection for Italy, she even
quotes Goethe in German: "aber meine Wunsche und meine Verlangen sind
immer nach Italien gerichtet, „das Land
wo die Citrone" &c"( GSA 40/III,1,4 Brief(e)von Davy, Jane an
Goethe, Ottilie von geb. von Pogwisch 1824-1827, oD, 4 Stück, 8 Blatt.) Briefe
Nr. 2 May 15. 1826.
[14] Lady Jane Davy (nee Kerr, olim Apreece) to Walter Scott, Rome Palazzo Valdambrini,
March 31st 1825. [held at the National Library of Scotland]
published online; http://www.davy-letters.org.uk/?s=(List of Letters Humphry Davy and his
Circle. This website has been funded by the British Academy,
the Wellcome Trust, the British Society for the History of Science, and the
Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry. It is the first stage in the
publication of the first ever edition of the Collected Letters of Humphry Davy
and his Circle, edited by a team of Davy scholars.)
[15] See
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, From the
Original Manuscript at Abbotsford. Ed. by David Douglas ([Edinburgh,
1890]CUP, 2013), vol. 1, p.107 (February 7, 1826)
[17] In
the Jahrbuch der Sammlung Kippenberg,
Bd. 3,1974, S.98, they have mistakenly ‘1825'. See here about J.P. Parry, S.
96.
[18] GSA
Weimar, 40/X, 2, 15 Brief (e) von Lister, Thomas Henry an Goethe, Ottilie von
geb. von Pogwisch 1826-1834, oD, 15 Stück, 30 Blatt, 1 Couvert.
[20] It
went through a total of 70 editions and appeared between September 1829 until
February 1832.
1824-1827,
oD, 4 Stück, 8 Blatt.
[22] Reviewed in the Edinburgh Review; October 1, 1832, p. 146-156 ‘Mr. Lister's
Arlington' (EBSCOhost American periodicals!)
[23] Surprisingly, a biography of Lister has never
been undertaken. The Harcourt papers in the Bodleian Library contain
correspondence with his wife and her family, 1830, 1834 MS. Harcourt 632, fols.
5-28.; and in the Victoria and Albert Museum Library the correspondence with
his publisher Colburn is present. The Macvey Napier letters in the British Library
(Add. MSS 34614-34622) surely contain much more than the two letters to Napier
that were published in the selected correspondence (1879)?
[24] According to L. Willoughby, the German Anglist
Heinrich Mutschmann (1884-1955), University College Nottingham, had obtained
from the English Goethe Society the ‚Auftrag‘, to edit the unpublished
correspondence between Ottilie von Goethe and „her English friends", it
was hindered due to the outbreak of the First World War, so that this
‘Vorhaben‘ 100 years later amounts to a research desiderate (Forschungsdesideraten). See Willoughby, L.
A.: Samuel Naylor and ‘Reynard the Fox'.
A Study in Anglo-German literary Relations. London [et al.] 1914, p. 3. I
have drawn attention to this research desiderat in my article on the English
editor of Chaos, James Patrick Parry,
Vivian (2009), p.56/57.
[25] Signatur GSA 40/N 38 Stammbuch von Ulrike von
Pogwisch 1820 - 1831, 88 Blatt [Bl. 41 29.06.1826, 1 Blatt Lister, Thomas Henry
Weimar (Ausstellungsort) Incipit: Lady,
must the trouble lay ... ; and
one from Lilford, [Bl 42 28.06.1826, 1 Blatt Lilford (?) Weimar
(Ausstellungsort) Incipit: Lady I thank
You! You act good ...] Ulrike has responded in French to both entries;
[26] It
would have amused both Ottilie and Ulrike to know later that in his novel Granby the celebrated character of
Trebeck, had declined to write "something clever and original" for
Lady Harriet Duncan's album, after she had tried to find a particular
inscription that she had noted down after visiting the burial ground of Pe're la Chaise in Paris: "I have
not yet discovered any genius for extempore effusions" says Trebeck and
promised her instead "I shall be happy to leave you an impromptu in my
will, if you will not object to that mode of receiving it? To which she replied:
"Oh, I shall like it ten times better; there will be something so new in a
posthumous impromptu."(Granby,
vol. 1, p.147)
