Sothebyʼs Sale of Ruskin Manuscripts and Library, 1931

Lot 27 found a ready buyer in Charles E. Goodspeed (1867–1950). He acquired, not just “one or two more manuscripts” (Dearden, Ruskin, Bembridge, and Brantwood, 138), but the seven bound volumes of manuscript in lot 27, as well as the substantial lots 17, 25, 28, 29, and 31—the latter consisting of manuscripts dating from the late 1850s through the 1880s, as well as autograph letters, the entire purchase totaling £150. He wanted, but did not obtain, lot 30 (Oxford lectures, which would have complemented items in lots 28 and 29); and he missed out on Keats‐related materials in lots 18, 23, and 26b (telegram, B. F. Stevens & Brown to Goodspeed, 21 May 1931, and telegram, B. F. Stevens & Brown to Goodspeed, 19 May 1931, in Stevens, B. F., and Brown. Letters, telegrams, and other materials to Charles Goodspeed). The purchase is consistent with Goodspeedʼs strategy of pursuing materials related especially to the earlier and later Ruskin, which invited less competition than did materials related to the familiar central core of Ruskinʼs work, Modern Painters, Seven Lamps, and Stones.

Whereas Goodspeed had been able to re‐sell most of his acquistions from the 1930 Sothebyʼs sale to Yale almost immediately, in 1931 apparently a first option to Yale resulted in the sale of only two items (see Goodspeed, the 1931 Acquisitions, and Yale University Library). Accordingly, Goodspeed prepared a catalogue, Goodspeedʼs Book Shop, A Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, and Manuscripts by John Ruskin; To which is added a description of Ruskinʼs Celestial Globe and of a few Books from his Library at Brantwood (undated, but J. S. Dearden believes it was issued and a copy sent to J. H. Whitehouse “either late in 1931 or early in 1932” [Dearden, Ruskin, Bembridge, and Brantwood, 138]).

The catalogue was not only handsomely designed and printed, and generously illustrated with reproductions of drawings, photographs, and manuscripts; it was also a worthy scholarly achievement. The 1931 Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, described the lots sketchily and in briefest terms, making no effort to reference Collingwoodʼs “Preliminary Note on the Original MSS. of the Poems”—a basic scholarly responsibility that the 1930 catalogue had observed. Many of the items in lots 27–30 were miscellanies of manuscripts, assembled and bound in red buckram in the course of Cook and Wedderburnʼs labor on the Library Edition. The Sothebyʼs catalogue described these compilations by citing a few titles of individual manuscripts apparently at random. In Goodspeedʼs catalogue, by contrast, while the red‐buckram‐bound compilations are maintained in their integrity as they had come from Brantwood, each of the items contained therein are separately and accurately described with their respective titles, dates of composition, number of pages, medium, and in some cases dimensions. Many of the itemsʼ descriptions are enhanced, moreover, with sample transcriptions from a manuscript, or with substantial quotations from Ruskinʼs works to contextualize the item. While Goodspeed must have found the time for such meticulous care because sales were slow—the Depression had begun, and interest in Ruskin had been waning even before the financial collapse (see Charles E. Goodspeed)—the dealer far exceeded his basic responsibility and lavished his extensive understanding of and affection for Ruskinʼs work on the catalogue.

In the Catalogue, Goodspeedʼs affection is especially marked in his descriptions of the juvenilia. For example, the catalogue provides detailed description of “four very early MSs”, which include the MS IA draft fragments of “The Monastery”. The latter item is illustrated by 23 lines of verse, which Goodspeed would have to have transcribed himself, and contextualized with the relevant passage in Praeterita describing how Ruskin read Scott during boyhood travels to Perth (Goodspeed, Catalogue, no. 79 [p. 18]). The enthusiasm for these early manuscripts carried over to Goodspeedʼs memoir: although his wide‐ranging acquisitions from the 1931 sale take up more than ten pages of description in his catalogue, his account of the sale in Yankee Bookseller focuses on only “two examples of early writings in prose and verse”—namely, two other pieces from the “four very early MSs”, the MS IA version of “Time: Blank Verse”, “written when Ruskin was eight years old”; and the “Essay on the Relative Dignity of the Studies of Painting and Music”, described (as in the catalogue) using Ruskinʼs ironic remarks in Praeterita about his boyhood proclivity for deploying such treatises by way of courtship (Yankee Bookseller, 267–68).

A decade later, Goodspeed would again recommend the “particular interest” of the “Monastery” manuscript, since, “with one possible exception, [it] is I imagine the earliest example known of Ruskinʼs handwriting”. On this occasion, however, Goodspeedʼs enthusiasm was tempered by sadness mixed with relief, as he was reporting to Chauncey Brewster Tinker that he had recovered this manuscript from the fire‐damaged ruin of his personal library, and was donating it to Yale for preservation (Goodspeed to Chauncey Brewster Tinker, 4 November 1942; see The Damage by Fire to Goodspeedʼs 1931 Acquisitions and Their Donation to Yale University Library; see also MS IA: Provenance).

In 1939, prior to his house fire, Goodspeed sold three of the early Ruskin manuscripts comprising lot 27 to Princeton University Library: MS VI (Contents of the Sale: Item I), “Early Prose Writings” (Contents of the Sale: Item IV), and “Early Geology” (Contents of the Sale: Item V) (Goodspeed, Catalogue, nos. 80–82 [pp. 20–21]).

Besides the juvenilia, the sale also included later manuscripts, items from lots 28 and 29 that Goodspeed had acquired in 1931. These two lots were described respectively in the Sothebyʼs Catalogue as “Prose Writings, 1867–79” (items I, III–VI, IX–XI) and “Prose Writings, 1881–85” (items III, VI–VII). The items are described as “autograph manuscripts, corrected proofs, etc.”, each item “interleaved and bound in cloth” (i.e., the red buckram used by Cook and Wedderburn when organizing Ruskinʼs papers) and containing “manuscript descriptions . . . in the handwriting of Arthur [sic] Wedderburn” (Sotheby & Co., Catalogue).

Specifically, these manuscripts from lots 28 and 29 included in the Princeton sale consisted of (a) various lectures, either published as parts of the Oxford lectures, Aratra Pentelici and The Eagleʼs Nest, or otherwise connected with those teachings, such as the unpublished lecture, “The School of Florence” (lot 28, items III, VI). Other lecture manuscripts included portions of “Verona and Its Rivers” (lot 28, item IV), and The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century (lot 29, item V; see Goodspeed, the 1931 Acquisitions, and Yale University Library). There were also (b) reading notes on the History of . . . Frederick the Great by Thomas Carlyle (lot 28, item XI); and materials connected with (c) Deucalion (lot 28, item X); (d) the “Essay on Baptism” (lot 27, item VI; Contents of the Sale: Item VI); (e) A Knightʼs Faith (part of Bibliotheca Pastorum) (lot 29, item VI); (f) Mornings in Florence (lot 28, item V); (g) Notes . . . on Samuel Prout and William Hunt (lot 28, item IX); (h) Our Fathers Have Told Us (including “The Bible of Amiens” and “Valle Crucis”) (lot 29, items III, VII); and (i) St. Markʼs Rest (lot 28, item I). In Goodspeed, Catalogue, the items correspond to nos. 84–86, 89–90, 92–93, 96–98, 100–103 (pp. 22–29). See also Thorp, “The Ruskin Manuscripts”, 3–9).

Describing this collection in 1940, Willard Thorp (1899–1990), professor of English at Princeton, called the acquisition “notable for its spread, containing, as it does, examples of Ruskinʼs work from his boyish compositions to the last efforts of his literary life when he was laying out projects which illness prevented him from completing”. The range of manuscripts, Thorp explained, would afford Princeton scholars the “opportunity to study Ruskinʼs manner of working . . . in all states from rough notes and first drafts to corrected proofs”. By emphasizing the scope and variety af the collection, Thorp challenged the preeminence of “the Morgan and Huntington libraries and the university libraries of Harvard and Yale [which] are rich in Ruskin materials”. Now Princeton also could show “reason to be proud of its share of the Ruskin treasures now in America”. Not only did acquisitions of significant manuscripts by prominent writers contribute to Princetonʼs standing (see Ruskin Collecting by American Research Libraries in the Twentieth Century); for faculty like Thorp, who was teaching Victorian literature at the time, such collections also provided necessary opportunities for serious undergraduate and graduate research, especially if rich in scope and variety like the Ruskin purchase from Goodspeed. Thorp considered “most enheartening” how “students have moved in and taken over” the special collections department of the library, taking their place “among the elder scholars”, and “hunched over some rare edition and absorbed in creating a thesis or report” on Ruskin or some other topic (Thorp, “The Ruskin Manuscripts”, 2; Thorp, “The Confraternity of Books”, 191–92.

While these items had lingered unsold in Goodspeedʼs catalogue for eight years after their initial purchase, it was fortunate for Princeton that this ready‐made substantial and representative collection of Ruskin remained available when the library found itself in a position to buy. In 1930, when news broke of the first Sothebyʼs sale of Ruskin, Yale University Library had arrived at a fortuitous, if hectic moment, when the library was preparing to move into the nearly completed Sterling Memorial Building—a Gothic cathedral among American libraries, if not quite a Ruskinian one. Among its carefully purpose‐designed facilities was a rare book reading and storage space, appointed to the care of Chauncey Brewster Tinker (1876–1963), professor of English and now also keeper of rare books. Tinker was a tireless advocate for collection building; and thanks to his friendship with the book collector R. B. Adam II (1863–1940), in 1929 Yale had gained the foundation of a comprehensive collection of published Ruskin, which presented a strong case for extending the Ruskin holdings with manuscript materials. Princeton University Library, meanwhile, lagged far behind other Ivy League institutions in library facilities and collections. Nonetheless, 1930 was a significant year for Princeton to begin organizing future efforts, since in that year the Friends of Princeton University Library was founded, which proved crucial to raising the status of Princetonʼs special collections (Axtell, “The Making of the Princeton University Library”, 513). On the early years of the Friends leading to the Ruskin purchase, see Willard Thorp (1899–1990); and on the context of Ruskin collecting at Princeton and other American institutions, see Early Ruskin Manuscript Collecting by American Research Libraries

At the Beinecke Library, a typescript itemized quotation by Goodspeed of items from the 1931 sale (“Quotation on Collection of Ruskin Manuscripts sold from the material removed from Brantwood at Sothebyʼs May 1931 and by order of the Executors of the Estate of Arthur Severn”) suggests that he offered his acquisitions to Yale University Library very soon after receiving them, as he had done in the previous year (see Sothebyʼs Sale of Ruskin Manuscripts and Library, 1930: The Buyers). At this time, Yale did acquire a manuscript of Proserpina, which complemented its manuscript materials related to that work that Yale had acquired from Goodspeed in 1930. The 1931 Proserpina acquisition is described in the 1931 Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, as “107 pp. with corrected proof, a few pen‐and‐ink drawings” (p. 7 [“Prose Writings, 1881–85”, item II]), and in Goodspeedʼs typescript quotation as a “volume containing much of the second vol. with page proof, etc., also a few drawings by Ruskin in the text”. This purchase in 1931 is confirmed both in the current Beinecke Library “Guide to the John Ruskin Collection” (p. 40, although listed there as a gift, not purchase, from Goodspeed), and in a 1942 article, “The Yale Collection of the Manuscripts of John Ruskin”, by Charles Beecher Hogan (p. 67 n. 4). This manuscript of Proserpina is not listed in Goodspeed, Catalogue, having been sold prior to the catalogueʼs printing.

Hoganʼs bibliographical article mentions some holdings by Yale, which cause confusion because seeming to overlap with Princetonʼs 1939 acquisitions, but they are distinct. One is “a long sketch on the subject of Infant Baptism, which was later elaborated into the Essay on Baptism” (“The Yale Collection of the Manuscripts of John Ruskin”, 64). This is a draft of the essay contained in the “Architectural Note Book”, 1850–51, acquired from Goodspeed in 1930 (see Sothebyʼs Sale of Ruskin Manuscripts and Library, 1930: Goodspeed, the 1930 Acquisitions, and Yale University Library). It is distinct from the 39‐folio page holograph of the essay, bound in red buckram, which Goodspeed sold to Princeton.

A second, more puzzling overlapping pair of acquisitions is Princetonʼs and Yaleʼs holdings of manuscript and proofs related to The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century. The Princeton holding clearly corresponds to Goodspeedʼs catalogue description of the “MS. and proof sheets of the principal part of the work in Ruskinʼs autograph, comprising 43 folio pp. (with 3 pp. in the hand of Ruskinʼs cousin, Mrs. Severn), bound in red cloth” (Goodspeed, Catalogue, no. 101 [p. 28]). It is disconcerting, therefore, that Hogan notes the Yale Storm Cloud bound item of manuscript and proofs as having been “sold at Sothebyʼs on May 18, 1931” and brought “to Yale by purchase from Mr. Goodspeed” (“The Yale Collection of the Manuscripts of John Ruskin”, 67 n. 4). The Beinecke Library does presently own the item to which Hogan was apparently referring, but it is quite different from Princetonʼs. The Beinecke record describes: “Wrappers and separate title pages for each lecture bound in; wrapper for 1st lecture bound in before general t.p. 32 cm. Binderʼs stamp: Bound by Zaehnsdorf. Bound with mounted corrected proof (7 leaves) for pages 48–63, and approximately 14 pages of manuscript additions. These are inserted after Part I of the printed text”. This description corresponds to an item in the “Quotation” from the 1931 sale that Goodspeed provided to Yale: “‘Storm Cloud of 19th Century’. Galleys with corrections. Fourteen pp. in authorʼs ms”. The description is also consistent with Hoganʼs less precise description, “part of the manuscript and some proof”. According to Sara Powell, research librarian at the Beinecke, this item has not heretofore been easily locatable in the Beineckeʼs catalogue, because classified as a printed work (BEIN Ruskin +884ta) rather than as a manuscript (email communication to David C. Hanson, 19 November 2019). What remains baffling are the respective provenances of of the Yale and Princeton holdings. It seems clear that, since the description of a Storm Cloud item in Goodspeedʼs “Quotation” for Yale closely corresponds to the current Beinecke description, and since Goodspeed offered his 1931 Sothebyʼs acquisitions to Yale eight years before selling to Princeton, the provenance of the Yale Storm Cloud bound manuscript and proofs can reasonably be traced to the 1931 Sothebyʼs auction. The original description in the 1931 Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, is unhelpfully vague: “Storm Cloud of the XIX Century. Corrected proofs with long autograph additions, 1884” (lot 29, item V [p. 7]). The characterization of the manuscript portion as “additions”, however, appears to line up with the descriptions in Goodspeedʼs “Quotation” and in the current Beinecke catalogue. Unless the Princeton Storm Cloud item also formed part of the original Sothebyʼs 1931 lot, therefore, its provenance prior to Goodspeedʼs possession is in doubt. Yet this tentative conclusion is unsettled by the itemsʼ respective bindings. The Yale item is encased in a decorated Zaehnsdorf binding, whereas the Sothebyʼs 1931 catalogue description of lot 29 ascribes “folio cloth” bindings to each of its items. The Goodspeed Storm Cloud catalogue item is likewise described as bound in “red cloth”—the binding that was typically used for the Brantwood manuscripts (Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, 7; Goodspeed, Catalogue, no. 101 [p. 28]).

For Goodspeedʼs disastrous house fire and damage to his collection generally, see Charles E. Goodspeed (1867–1950): The Damage by Fire to the Goodspeed Ruskin Collection and Its Donation to Yale University Library

Of items remaining in Goodspeedʼs hands from the 1931 Sothebyʼs purchase, the juvenilia contained in MS IA (Contents of the Sale: Item II) and MS X (Contents of the Sale: Item III) were rescued along with the review of “Lord Lindsay on the History of Christian Art” (Contents of the Sale: Item VII). These items are recognizably but very sketchily reported as Goodspeed donations to Yale in “Notes on Recent Acquisitions” for January 1943 and for October 1943 of the Yale University Library Gazette.

The contents of MS IA and X were disassembled from their respective cloth bindings. Individual items with charring around the edges were protected for preservation. A few items may have been destroyed completely, as discussed along with details about condition in the apparatuses for both the individual items and the original bound collections.

Also reported as a Goodspeed donation in “Acquisitions” for the January 1943 issue of the Yale University Library Gazette was manuscript of Laws of Fesolé. In the 1931 Sothebyʼs sale, this had been item VII of lot 28 (“Prose Writings, 1867–79”, Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, 7), one of the three items from this lot that Princeton did not purchase from Goodspeed (see Goodspeed, Catalogue, no. 95 [p. 26]). The other two unsold items from lot 28—item II, manuscript of “Lecture on Modern Art” (British Institution, 1867), and item VIII, manuscript of The Three Colours of Pre‐Raphaelitism (Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, 7; Goodspeed, Catalogue, nos. 88 [p. 24], 94 [p. 26])—are not identifiable in the current catalogues of either the Beinecke Library or the Princeton University Library and therefore can be presumed to have been lost in Goodspeedʼs fire, pending further discovery and identification.

One item, lecture 5 of The Art of England, which is described as “page proofs” and attributed to Goodspeedʼs gift in Beinecke Library, “Guide to the John Ruskin Collection”, notes that “the edges of the pages are charred, affecting the text”, so this manuscript obviously came through the fire (p. 41). This item may have formed part of lot 17 in the 1931 Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, which describes, however, a “reading copy . . . with corrections and additions in the Authorʼs handwriting” (p. 5). The item is not listed in Goodspeed, Catalogue.

Two items of lot 29 (“Prose Writings, 1881–85”), which Goodspeed sold neither to Princeton nor Yale, also are not identifiable in the current catalogues of either library and therefore likewise can be presumed lost, pending further discovery and identification: item I, manuscript, notes, and proofs of Loves Meinie, and item IV, manuscript and notes on the Laws of Plato (Sotheby & Co., Catalogue, 7; Goodspeed, Catalogue, nos. 91 [pp. 24–25], 99 [p. 27]).

Further reserarch is pending regarding the whereabouts of the 150 letters from various correspondents to Ruskin that formed part of lot 17, the 6 letters (1858) to Ruskinʼs father that formed lot 31, and the artwork that formed lot 25.