[Rarebooks] FS: Scarce Handwritten Longfellow SIGNED MANUSCRIPT with LETTER

[Charles Agvent]

LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT SIGNED with AUTOGRAPH 
LETTER SIGNED. Cambridge, 20 June 1879. A 3-1/2-page AUTOGRAPH LETTER 
SIGNED on both sides of one folded 8-7/8" x 7" sheet addressed to Helen 
Hamlin, the daughter of Augustus Hamlin, once Surgeon-General of Maine, 
thanking her for the gift of a pen, made of iron from a prison chain 
from Chillon that bound Francois de Bonnivard, and enclosing a SIGNED 
MANUSCRIPT of his poem "The Pen," 10 quatrains on one large sheet of 
paper folded into 4 pages (7 1/8" x 8-3/8"). In his letter, the poet 
asks to be forgiven for the delay in sending his thanks and encloses 
"some lines, not written with the Pen, but about the Pen. I find that my 
hand is fettered by that bit of Bonnivard's chain, and moves more easily 
with a lighter quill." An occasional poem if ever Longfellow wrote one, 
"The Pen" opens with the stanza, "I thought this Pen would arise,/From 
the casket where it lies,/By itself would arise, and write/My thanks and 
my Surprise!" It closes, "And forever this gift will be/As a blessing 
from you to me,/As a drop of the dew of your youth/On the leaves of my 
aged tree." Longfellow closes the letter with a postscript suggesting 
"Perhaps at some future day, if you have no objection, I may like to 
publish these lines in the ATLANTIC." In fact he published them in 
HARPER'S, in December 1879 as "The Iron Pen" and in the 1880 collection 
ULTIMA THULE. There are some differences between this and the published 
version. For example, the first line of the fourth stanza here is "That 
this wood of the war-ship's mast"; while the published version reads 
"That this wood from the frigate's mast." The last line of the sixth 
stanza in manuscript reads "Shall not pass from me away"; the published 
version reads "Shall not fade and pass away." A few other words are 
changed. Both letter and poem are SIGNED "Henry W. Longfellow" and dated 
20 June 1879. A rare example of a complete poem in Longfellow's hand. 
Provenance: Sotheby's 7 December 1999, Sale Number 7394, Lot 65, from 
the S. Howard Goldman Collection. Minor staining and light wrinkling 
with remnants of mounting hinges. Near Fine.

François Bonivard (or Bonnivard; 1493 - 1570) was a nobleman, 
ecclesiastic, historian, and Geneva patriot at the time of the Republic 
of Geneva. His life was the inspiration for Lord Byron's 1816 poem THE 
PRISONER OF CHILLON. (#020030)    $6,500

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/020030/henry-wadsworth-longfellow/autograph-manuscript-signed-with-autograph-letter-signed

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