Clark, John

Manuscript volume, originally used as a stock book for haberdashery, belonging to John Clark [of Bridgewater, Somerset], containing lists of hosiery, thread, pins, ribbons, laces, tapes, bobbins, blankets, flannel and other cloths, furs, tippets, muffs, capes, silk cloaks, cambric handkerchiefs, pasteboard, paper and umbrellas, 1832-1837. Many pages have had pasted on to them newspaper cuttings and illustrations from popular magazines, [1838-1852], including plans for the new parish church of Paddington, 1840. From folio 18, the volume has interspersed on previously blank pages a draft continuation by Clark of Byron's Don Juan (i.e. cantos xvii-xxiv), described by the author as 'rough copy - incorrect' (each leaf being cancelled presumably as the fair copy was made) and signed by himself as 'completed 1842 September 1, at X a.m. clk. struck, & flute playing in the street'.. There are also some notes on Byron's original poem, his life and literary style accompanying the continuation, which date from later in the 1840s. The vellum cover is inscribed 'John Clark's first copy of his poem'.

George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale, began writing Don Juan in Italy in 1818, and continued to add episodes until his death in 1824. The long, digressive satiric poem is a loose narrative, based on the life and adventures of the eponymous hero. The first two cantos were published in 1819, though the poem was not published in its entirety until eighty years after Byron's death. Willis W. Pratt, in his Notes on the Variorum Edition of Byron's Don Juan , Vol IV (1957), says (p.312) '...throughout the forties and fifties...there was still a spate of imitations and continuations [of Don Juan], but they became fewer, and, if possible, worse'. Among those he cites (on p.313) is 'John Clark (?), second of two volumes, titlepage missing, printed between 1834 and 1847'. The British Museum does not record a copy of this work.

Single item.

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Bought from G Jeffrey in 1963 as an addition to the Goldsmith's Library of Economic Literature.

Collection level description.

14½" x 9". Bound in vellum.

Compiled by Sarah Aitchison as part of the RSLP AIM25 Project.

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