Ernest Dowson: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him

17 ERNEST DOWSON: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WRITINGS ABOUT HIM By Jonathan Ramsey (University of California, Santa Barbara) A bibliography becomes an obsession to its compiler. The search for overlooked and incautiously transcribed material grows frenetic at the very time when one ought to have a sense of completion. I feel obligated to give Ernest Dowson«s small audience some account of this bibliography's limitations. I have not attempted to obtain all the M.A. and Ph.D. theses which might very well deal in a significant way with Dowson. Nor have I been able to see all the numerous anthologies which reprint, perhaps with an introductory squib, a few of his poems. Excluded from the list of secondary materials are books and articles which only mention Dowson in passing . Nor have I included those book reviews after I900 which proffer no critical judgments. I have tried to list every contemporary review of Dowson«s publications, and my incompleteness in this regard is what I most regret. The turn of the century response to Dowson·s poems, to the performances and publication of his Pierrot drama, and to his and Arthur Moore's two novels could prove valuable to someone studying the literary expectations of the 1890's audience. But, as other bibliographers must have discovered, one cannot do justice to nineteenth-century publications without searching personally the labyrinths of the British Museum newspaper and periodical library. Cablegrams and microfilm will not suffice. I must extend thanks to William 0. Harris, who in every imaginable way assisted and encouraged me in this mad undertaking; to Hazel Schupbach of the University of California, Riverside, for her impeccable librarianship; and to the graduate student friends at the University who for several years kept me in good humor about this project. Carol Daeley suffered through much with me, and I owe a great deal to her proficiency in German, her suggestions and raillery , and her scrupulous proofreading. If she accepts my gratitude, she must share also the blame for errors undetected by us. "Again, Romance," Book Buyer. XIX (Oct 1899). 199-201. Adrian Rome gives too "finicky" attention to the minutiae of experience and fails to perceive the "larger outlines" of life. Alexander, Calvert. The Catholic Literary Revival. Milwaukee» Bruce, 1935. Pp. 105-12. D's love for Adelaide and his conversion to Catholicism were two most important events in his life. D was one of the few genuine decadents, for he suffered a torturous vacillation between religious Idealism and the pursuit of dissipative sensations. Pater influenced D. ["Relies heavily on Symons· intro to Poems of Ernest Dowson.J "Amateur Dramatic Notes," Lady's Pictorial. XXV (3 Dec I892), 844. Pierrot performance at Chelsea Town Hall» "Mr. Dowson·s fancy proves to be hitched none too securely" to its star, and the drama soon takes an "awkward plunge into bathos." [Includes two drawings of Ida North and William Theodore Peters enacting their parts in the play.] Andrews, CE., and M.O. Percival. "Introduction," Poetry of the Nineties. NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1926. Pp. 3-51. "Dowson in Cynara has dared to be frank about his libertine life In order to make more emphatic his devotion to his pure ideal." Atherton, Gertrude. Adventures of a Novelist. NY: Liveright, I932. Pp. 255-62. Atherton attempted at Pont Aven to "reclaim " D from his drunkenness and excessive shyness. [Compare Horance Annesley Vachell's account in Cassell's Weekly. 21 March 1923, pp. l6 and 18.] ........ The Gorgeous Isle: A Romance. NY: Doubleday, Page, I9O8. A novel suggested by D's career. [See John Gawsworth, "The Dowson Legend."] B., C. "Epicure of Emotion," New York Times Book Review. LII (12 Oct 19^7), 20, 22. In Stories of Ernest Dowson. the "focus is in sensation, but sensation attenuated, remotely perceived .... "emotion recollected ... in desuetude." Notes poetic elements which characterize D's prose style. [Some perceptive comments.] Bacon, Leonard. "Tragic but Heroic Poet," Saturday Review of Literature (NY), XXVII (I** Oct 19^*0, 5^. Review of Longaker 's Ernest Dowson. [Chiefly biographical.] Baker, Carlos. "Keeper of the Pale, Lost Lilies," New York Times Book Review. 8 Oct 19^. p. k, Longaker's Ernest Dowson shows that D's...