THE GULLICK ACQUISITION OF 1953

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 2, Issue 2, 1 October 1969, Page 56

THE GULLICK ACQUISITION OF 1953

J. R. Tye

In the Turnbull Library Record of November 1953, 1 the Librarian described briefly the collection of Edmund Gosse material acquired from James Tyrell, the Sydney bookseller, and the present article should be regarded as a supplement for which Mr Taylor has supplied additional information. The collection had been made by Norman Davidge Gullick, formerly advertising manager of the Times Literary Supplement, translator of four novels from the German in the 19305, and for many years an admirer and collector of Gosse's work. The collection itself had been on offer to the Australian National Library at a very reasonable figure, and Mr Taylor stepped in on behalf of the Turnbull Library when the offer lapsed.

Gosse's reputation as writer and critic fluctuated violently during his lifetime, and slumped in the years immediately following his death, as, for instance, in Malcolm Elwin's Old Gods Falling, as late as 1939. Of recent years, however, the inevitable swing of the pendulum has occurred, and Gosse can be seen as a representative of a certain kind of criticism, a powerful entrepreneur in the field of letters, and an influential figure in the study of comparative literature. Attempts have been made to link him with the nefarious activities of T. J. Wise, but the worst that can be said is that he became a dupe rather than an accomplice.

The material acquired by the Library was principally, but not entirely, confined to Gosse; it has, in fact, a relatively wide range of personal and bibliographic interest. Gullick’s very friendly relationship with Gosse in his later years, and his invariable helpfulness - at one stage Gosse refers to him as ‘my master henchman’ 2 -is reflected in scores of brief letters and postcards, and the occasional draft of a letter from Gullick to Gosse; and he was, of course, in an especially favourable position to acquire some of Gosse’s minor manuscripts, of which there are ten, as well as privately circulated items behind some of which there lurked the ominous figure of T. J. Wise. Among the miscellaneous correspondence there are very cordial letters to Gullick from Mrs Gosse and Philip, the son, occasional letters from Norman Douglas (dealing with advertising), Mrs Hardy, Douglas Jerrold, George Moore, Arthur Waugh, and T. J. Wise, as well as isolated letters to Gosse himself from Thomas Hardy and George Saintsbury, presumably picked up as collector’s items. Gullick’s own bibliographical work on Gosse is represented by drafts and the typescript of the Bibliography he prepared for Evan Charteris’s Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse, 1931; by collations of Gosse’s publications as prepared for a separate, definitive Bibliography, for which Gullick’s own Introduction survives as well as a

proof of the collation of the first item, although the Bibliography itself appears never to have been published; and by classified lists of Gosse's poetry, prose and editorial work. The typescript of Gullick's translation of Heinrich Hauser's Once Your Enemy, 1936, is also preserved. In addition to manuscript material of this kind, the Library acquired Gullick's comprehensive collection of Gosse's published work, and some very rare works indeed, including A Critical Essay on the Life and Works of George Tinworth, 1883, the unique Six Lectures to be delivered before the Lowell Institute in December, 1884, 1884, the Catalogue of the Library of the House of Lords, 1908, Lady Dorothy Nevill. An Open Letter, 1913 (MS, Proof and Volume), A Catalogue of the Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne in the Library of Mr Edmund Gosse, 1919, and E. H. M. Cox's The Library of Edmund Gosse, 1924. There are also smaller pamphlets, privately printed versions of periodical articles, which appear neither in Wise's Ashley Library, nor in the British Museum.

A more detailed examination of the collection is rewarding. The correspondence with Gosse covers the period 13 November 1913 until 15 March 1928, some two months before Gosse's death at the age of 79. Gosse was thus elderly and on the verge of retirement from the Librarianship of the House of Lords when the first, characteristic letter was written, 'Dear Sir, If you will call here [l7 Hanover Terrace] at 6 tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, I shall be happy to see you.' 3 Gullick, in a later letter to Gosse, of which the copy is preserved, gave an account of his early admiration for the author: 'I was fifteen years old when I first read a book of yours, the Eighteenth Century literature', and he goes on to describe the 'almost physical thrill of delight' Gosse's pages on Gibbon had given him, and the courage with which Father and Son had inspired in him 'to rebel against the ugly and depressing religion of my home environment'. 4 With this as a basis, the relationship ripened between a young man of not more than 24, and the Librarian of the House of Lords. The invitations to tea become more frequent, and Gosse helps him to private tutoring 'of a rather advanced kind in English Literature' to a young lady of about 20 on 'good remunerative terms'. 5 By January, 1915, however, Gullick was in uniform as an Able Seaman, and in June had written 'from the Islands where burning Sappho loved and where our dear Rupert Brooke lies buried'. 6 In the midst of the Gallipoli episode, Gullick remembered Gosse's birthday, 21 September, and by November was back in England, recuperating in hospital.

Sporadically we learn of a commission in the Gloucester Regiment, of ill-health, of Gosse's abortive attempt to find Gullick a post in agriculture, of an invitation to tea in May, 1919. And then, in 1920, the record amplifies: by 1921, Gullick has become 'a bibliographical Me

. . . What a wonderful person you are'. 7 Gullick's verse, deferentially submitted, is admired for 'its sturdiness with which the desired expression is forced ... from the language' and likened to Hardy's; and Gosse goes on, 'I have always had an instinctive feeling that you were born to succeed ... I only regret that I can hardly hope to witness the blossoming of the aloe'. 8 (Had Gosse been reading 'The Prelude'?) By October, 1922, Gullick's collection of Gosse's work is clearly substantial, for Gosse describes Wise's collection as 'not nearly as complete as yours', 9 and at this stage Gosse must have given Gullick 'the real first edition of From Shakespeare to Pope' 10 in the form of the Lowell Lectures - the volume bears Gosse's note of gift - and also introduced Gullick to Wise. 11 As the collection expands, Gosse's letters become an interesting mixture of personal and minor bibliographical information, leading in the direction of Gullick's intended Bibliography of Gosse's works which so deeply touched him; 'When you are as old as I', he writes, 'may you possess a young friend as devoted to your service as you have shown yourself to be.' 12 In October of 1924 he advises Gullick to write the Introduction himself, and to ask Wise to write the Preface; 13 but from that point on the project seems to lapse, and it may be that it became too formidable a task. One further bibliographic activity is, however, undertaken, the private publication of Gosse's first essay on Swinburne of 1875 14 which had previously only existed in translation in Danish, Dutch, German and Swedish, the English manuscript of which had been given to Gullick. This, the redirection of the Times and its Literary Supplement to the surprising number of hotels and country houses to which Gosse had resort, and the occasional exertion of influence behind the scenes, was all that Gullick could now do for the rapidly ageing master, while Gosse regularly despatched the successive volumes of the collected Swinburne edited by Wise and himself to his protege.

Taken all in all, the correspondence of fifteen years shows the more attractive and humane side of Gosse, agreeing to act as godfather to Gullick's daughter, 15 generously sending him -£2O for a holiday of convalescence, 16 advising the use of sulphuric acid on boils; 17 at the end of a long and busy life susceptible to, and grateful for, the admiration of a younger man, and free from the irritating superficiality and occasional malice of his other correspondence. Wise's correspondence with Gullick is brief, and relates to his interest in Gosse, who had effected an introduction at the end of November, 1922, the meeting taking place on 4 December. Wise's response was characteristic: 'You evidently care for and appreciate good books, and by a natural consequence mine are at all times at your disposal. The enclosed will add one really interesting and important item to your "Gosse" collection. Why not get Mr Gosse to add his name

on page 8 below that of Watts-Dun ton? If you could induce him out of the goodness of his heart to add a word or two confirming my notes, it would add greatly to the attraction of the pamphlet and render it a really important bibliographical record.' 18 The 'interesting and important item' was a privately circulated copy of Swinburne's manuscripts. On the half-title page there is the inscription, 'To Norman Gullick / From Thos. J. Wise', below which Wise had added: 'The Preface to this booklet was written by Edmund Gosse, although it bears the signature of W. T. Watts-Dunton. The circumstances which resulted in this curious wrong ascription will be found detailed at length in my Bibliography of Swinburne, Vol. 11, 1920, pp. 20-25. Thos. J. Wise.' To this, Gosse had added, 'Quite true; and now confirmed by the sole writer of the Preface. / Edmund Gosse.' Yet this again is inaccurate. Wise had indeed testified of the third and fourth paragraphs of the Preface, which he quoted in his Bibliography of Swinburne, 'Although the long Prefatory Note from which the above extract has been taken bears the signature of Watts-Dunton, that gentleman had in fact nothing whatever to do with it beyond attaching his name to the proof.' 19 It was precisely at the end of the third paragraph that Gosse had inserted the words, 'Here T. W-D. ends' 20 if Gosse's statement is to be believed, Watts-Dunton had provided a Preface, Wise had exaggerated in his customary fashion, and Gosse had allowed himself at least to be inconsistent.

Other letters from Wise display an interest in the intended Bibliography as early as January 1923, the occasion of another gift to Gullick. Correspondence briefly resumes in 1924, when Gullick's offer of a duplicate of Gosse's scarce Memoir of Thomas Lodge, 1882, is warmly accepted, and an exchange offered, possibly Wise's private issue of Letters from Algernon Charles Swinburne to Edmund Gosse, Series I-V, 1910-11, the first volume of which is inscribed by Wise to Gullick. 21 At the end of December, 1925, Wise hopes to see the 'grand bibliography' making an appearance, and reassures Gullick as to cost. 22 By this time, Gullick's collection of Gosse's printed works was indeed substantial. In the Preface to the intended Bibliography, he describes his collations as 'in the greater part compiled from books in my own collection', and claims an almost complete set of the private issues. It was unquestionably larger than that of Wise, which consisted of thirty-seven titles, but Wise was among the first to receive a copy of the limited issues inscribed by the author, as the Ashley Catalogue confirms. The pride of Gullick's collection was Six Lectures written to be delivered before the Lowell Institute in December, 1884, 'privately printed in an impression of only four copies at the Chiswick Press in London, October, 1884 ... the rarest of Edmund Gosse's private issues.' 23 Gullick's copy had been given to him by Gosse, for it bears his inscrip-

tion, it was the one listed in the Catalogue of a Portion of the Library of Edmund Gosse, 1894, 24 and one wonders why Gosse should have parted with it, unless there were still some bitterness remaining from Churton Collins's attack on their revised version. There may have been another copy, for in a letter confirming the Lowell Lectures as 'the real first edition', Gosse says that Wise's copy was 'bound later', 25 but it is not listed in the Ashley Catalogue.

There is an intrinsic interest in the Lowell Lectures, for they are virtually the text of the lectures which Gosse gave in the University of Cambridge as Clark Lecturer in the Michaelmas Term of 1884, and subsequently at the Lowell Institute and a number of American universities in the winter of 1884-5. 26 Gullick's copy bears the mark of minor revision only, perhaps for oral delivery, but certainly not for printers' copy. There are, for instance, bracketed portions of the text which are retained in From Shakespeare to Pope, as are substitutions and interlinear modifications. Gosse is explicit in the Preface to the later volume that he modified the text after delivering the lectures, in response to informed criticism: 'ln consequence of such criticism, I have been able profitably to revise the work, to add evidence where it seemed wanting, to remove rash statements and to remould ambiguous

sentences. Above all, I have given a great deal of care to the accumulation, in the form of notes and appendices, of historical and critical data . . . P There is good evidence of this revision when the texts are collated, in at least one respect laying Gosse open to Collins's ferocious attack. Gosse had added to the original the single sentence, 'Shaftesbury introduced this exaggerated elegance of diction into the field of prose, and his success increased the foppishness of the poets', 2 : while in the Index he identified Shaftesbury as the first earl of the Cabal, instead of the third earl of the Characteristics; 'and this is a University Lecturer!', stormed Collins. 29 It was an inexcusable error which Gosse frankly admitted. Another error concerned the date of the Miscellanies of John Norris of Bemerton, given by Gosse as 1678. Gosse's explanation was as follows: 'This date should be 1687, but every writer of the press is aware that this inversion of the figures is one of the very commonest of misprints. That an error in correcting proofs should be construed into ignorance shows a strange forgetfulness of a misfortune to which all writers are exposed.' 30 If the Lowell Lectures had been widely disseminated, Gosse would have been forced to point out that he was haunted by this identical misfortune, for the same error was already in the original, 31 and one wonders whether Gosse ever reverted to them, or was aware of the inaccuracy. The days of literary societies associated with major writers are by no means over, yet one cannot see the formation in the 1970 s of an Edmund Gosse Literary Group such as flourished in New York in the 19205,

for whom Gullick had written a fine tribute as ‘one of his best friends and who knows more about his writing than Sir Edmund himself’. 32 Gullick attempted a Bibliography, and apparently failed; he left no statement about Gosse, apart from the Introduction to the Bibliography and an appreciation of him which he sent over to the Literary Group already mentioned. But a critical appraisal of Gosse needs to be made, and Gullick’s collection and bibliographical data would form a valuable

foundation for such a study.

REFERENCES 1 The Turnbull Library Record, Vol. XI, November, 1953, p. 14. 2 Gosse to Gullick, 21.11. 1923 in Norman D. Gullick Papers. A.T.L. (MS Papers 82). 3 lbid, 13.11.1913. 4 Gullick to Gosse (copy), 30.1.1921. s Gosse to Gullick, 8.11.1914. 6 lbid. 6.6.1915. 7 lbid. 26.1. 1921. B lbid. 31.1.1921. 9 lbid. 1.10.1922. 10 Ibid. 22.11.1922. Ibid. 30.11. 1922. 12 Ibid. 1 1.9.1924. ,3 lbid. 5.10.1924. 14 Gosse, E. W., Swinburne: an Essay written in 1875 and now first printed, 1925. 15 Gosse to Gullick, 18.1.1923. 16 Ibid. 30.7.1923. 17 Ibid. 22.4.1925. 18 Wise to Gullick, 5.12.1922. 19 Wise, T. J., A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1919, Vol. 11, p. 22. 20 Swinburne, A. C., The Portrait, 1909, p. 6. 21 Wise to Gullick, 5.3.1924. 22 Ibid. 30.12.1925. 23 Charteris, E., Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse, 1931, p. 512. 24 Ibid. p. 512. 25 Gosse to Gullick, 22.11.1922. 26 Charteris must be in error in stating that the Lectures were subsequently delivered at Cambridge (vide Dictionary of National Biography, 1922-1930, 1937, p. 354, and Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse, 193 1, p. 192, for Gosse is explicit in his Preface to From Shakespeare to Pope, 1885, p. v, 'The following chapters . . . were first delivered . . . during the Michaelmas Term last year.' 27 Gosse, E. W., From Shakespeare to Pope, London, 1885, p. vi. 28 Ibid. p. 12. 29 Collins, J. C, 'English Literature at the Universities', Quarterly Review, October, 1886, p. 300. 30 Gosse, E. W., A Letter to the 'Athenaeum'. Privately printed. 1886. p. 9. 31 Gosse, E. W., The Reaction in Six Lectures written to be delivered before the Lowell Institute in December 1884, London, 1884, V, p. 24. 32 Gullick to the Edmund Goss Literary Group, 20 Jefferson Street, New York (draft), 5. 10.1928.