St John's College W.22 (James 571)
William Barnes, Notebooks. English, c. 1882
Dorsetshire Poet' (1801-86): notebooks containing: i. a list of his writings; ii. a list of articles written for the Dorset County Chronicle; iii. a list of publications in which his works had been noticed; iv. a list of his writings 'not yet published'; and v. some interesting biographical notes. The notebooks were compiled at the end of his life. In a letter to an unknown recipient, also in the collection, dated 18 Nov. 1882, Barnes hopes to send 'within a short time some such notes on my homely self and my writings as those you kindly seek'. With a photograph of Barnes, cut from a magazine: the same image forms a frontispiece to his daughter Lucy Baxter's Life of William Barnes (London, 1887). Barnes was admitted in 1838, a sizar and a 'ten-year man': 'Soon after coming back to Dorchester I put my name on the Boards of St John's College, Cambridge and, after some years, having kept my terms as best I could, I did my act and opponancies before Dr Olliphant and took my degree' (v, 35-6). He proceeded to his BD in 1851. His son William Miles matriculated 1859. Many papers of the Barnes family, including diaries, are held by the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester.
175x110 mm. Home-made notebooks, 78, 18, 58, 31, 46 fos. Purchased of Dobell, New Bond St, Feb. 1925 (Catalogue item 111).
Autograph throughout, in Barnes' elderly, sprawling hand. Paper, with original paper covers.