Annals of English Verse, 1770–1835: A Preliminary Survey of the Volumes Published by J.R. de J. Jackson (review)

HUMANITIES 99 repeated here the illuminating study of early typescripts, undertaken in the Waste Land discussion, though, he might have been forced to argue otherwise: the early versions of 'Drafts & Fragrnents' preserve an 'interior mode,' largely tempered by an editorial committee which also supplied its title and numerical sequence (and chose which poems were to appear at all) - a task that Pound was too tired and ill to oversee in "968, nine years after the poem's composition. Both .the political and the social ramifications of Rajan's dominant theme, that the forces of determinacy and closure are frequently seen as dangerous or threatening, are enormously interesting: Rajan alludes to the first through reference to jameson's Political Unconscious. In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979) Lyotard argues that knowledge, and scientific knowledge in particular, will take the form of a search for 'instabilities' that discounts a privileged meaning, and substitutes instead a refusal to arbitrate the arguments it has created - the very refusal that Rajan presents as the form of the unfinished long poem. (R. PETER STOICHEFF) J.R. de J. Jackson. Annals of English Verse, "770-"835: A Preliminary Survey of the Volumes Published Garland. xiv, 709. $76.00 Readers of J.R. de J. jackson's Poetry of the Romantic Period (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1980) will recall the appended Chronological Table, listing with annotations'significant or typical verse published each year from 1780 to 1835' (p 267). Jackson mentions there that his list may be supplemented by reference to the work of other writers; but the present book, Annals of English Verse, "770-1835, goes far beyond any previous work to provide the preliminary version of a complete catalogue of all volumes of verse published in Great Britain during a period of Sixty-six years. Volumes published in a single year are listed alphabetically by title (usually a short title) but are not yet numbered because the catalogue is still 'preliminary.' Entries include reference to the sources, including in many cases reviews in contemporary periodicals. Readers who know the title of a book and the name of its author may consult an author index to discover the year of publication and thus locate the volume in the appropriate annal. Readers who know the title of an anonymous work may consult an index of anonymous titles. Readers who remember only the title of a volume that is not anonymous might have more trouble finding the reference they need and might find it easier to go directly to some other source of information such as BM (British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books) or LC (National Union (atalague). Jackson's subtitle and introduction emphasize the preliminary state of his survey. But even incomplete it is an impressive achievement in its thoroughness and accuracy. The claim that Annals of English Verse should be useful to 'literary and social historians' suggests a more limited appeal than I think the book really has. Editors and critics should find it helpful; and the very range of subject-matter considered suitable for verse in the period - ranging from science and medicine to religion, politics, ethics, and current fads of all kinds - should make the survey useful to people with a wide range of academic interests. Testing its usefulness as a basic research tool, Icompared the Information In Jackson's survey with that in the notes to Jerome J. McGann's edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, choosing that poem because of the density of its literary references. In his note to llne 128 of Byron's poem - 'Southey's Epics cram the creaking shelves, I And Little's Lyrics shine in hot-pressed twelves' (lines 127-8) - McGann cites 'Thomas Moore's Poems of the Late Thomas Little, Esq. (1801): mentioning, presumably to explain 'hot-pressed twelves: that Moore's was a duodecimo volume (Lord Byron, The Complete Poetical Works, ed Jerome J. McGann [Oxford: Clarendon 1980], vol I). jackson's account of the 1801 edition of Moore's book gives a different title (The Poetical Works of the Late ... ) and claims that it was an octavo: both BM and LC agree with Jackson. While the Dublin edition of 1804...