Special Collections
Book of the Month, February 2006
The Chronicle of Queen Fredegond
by Algernon Charles Swinburne
London: privately printed, 1909
[S.L.] I [Swinburne – 1909]
The Chronicle of Queen Fredegond is a modest paperback of 74 pages. It was published posthumously: according to the preface, the writer and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton, Swinburne’s best friend and quasi-literary agent, unearthed the manuscript from among the mass of Swinburne’s papers after his death in 1909, and allowed a private printing in an edition of just twenty copies. “That a composition which sheds so strong a light upon the early growth of Swinburne’s genius should remain indefinitely in manuscript is impossible”, explains the editor on p. 8. The Chronicle namely extends a shorter ‘Story of Queen Fredegond’, written between 1860 and 1865 and originally designed as one of the six or more stories for an unpublished collection called provisionally ‘Triameron’.
The tale is an historical romance which takes much of its plot and characters from Gregory of Tours’s Historia Francorum, but with Swinburne’s embellishment. Swinburne describes the plot in the introductory section as follows: “And as for this story, I have divided it in seven chapters, beginning at that place where the author makes mention of Fredegond that was handmaid to Queen Galsoud. And this first chapter is of King Chilperic that slew his wife. And the second chapter is of Queen Audovere that was his wife when Galsoud was dead, and wherefore he put her away. The third chapter shows how he was married to Fredegond that was the fairest woman of all the world, and the falsest among all ladies, and the most villainous; and how she slew his brother at a liege, and of the king’s dotage upon her. And the fourth chapter shows how the queen slew Clodomir that was the king’s son, and how she caused the old queen to be miserably slain, and of other shameful deeds that the queen did out of grievous malice. And likewise of a great miracle that befell the king of Orleans, and of a poor man that was hanged. The fifth chapter is of a great hunting that the king made, and wherefore the queen sat in an upper chamber, wherefore the king fell into a great wrath. And the sixth chapter treats of Landry, that was the queen’s lover par amours, and how they two caused the king to be slain. The last chapter is of the great war that ensued upon the king’s death, and how the queen rode into battle with her little child in her lap ,and how she reigned many years gloriously, and of her death and burial.” (pp. 10-11).
The Senate House Library copy is a recent acquisition for the Sterling Library. It complements over forty books and one holograph manuscript by Swinburne collected by Sterling himself. The copy, already rendered rare by the small size of its edition, is rendered unique by the inscription on the half-title: “Helen Rossetti Angeli, with sincere regards from Thos. J. Wise”. Helen Rossetti Angeli (b. 1879) was the daughter of art critic and literary editor William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) and the artist Lucy Maddox Brown (1843-1894), whose Pre-Raphaelite interest Swinburne shared. Thomas Wise (1859-1937) was a book collector, bibliographer and forger, whose interest in Swinburne lay both in producing bibliographies of his work and in forging Swinburne pamphlets. He further purchased a large number of Swinburne manuscripts, including this one, from Watts-Dunton, from which he printed sixteen pamphlets in 1909 and 70 overall. Since Wise purchased copyright as well as the physical manuscripts, he thereby exerted a stranglehold on Swinburne studies for many years. Wise wrote at least some of the preface to The Chronicle of Queen Fredegond, leaving it unsigned because he obtained the information for it from Edmund Gosse.
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