Lady Agnes and Other Poems — Philip Wentworth (1878)

Opening

The dedication page carries a single line of Latin: "In te Domine speravi non confundar in aeternum." No name. No explanation. The line is from Psalm 31 — In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion — and it stands alone on the page, unadorned, before the first poem. Philip Wentworth, writing from Derby Terrace, Queen's Road, Manchester, in February 1878, evidently felt no need to say anything else by way of preface to God.

The Book

Lady Agnes and Other Poems is a first and, as far as is known, only edition of verse by Philip Wentworth, published in Manchester by John Heywood of 141 and 143 Deansgate in 1878. The volume was printed by John Heywood's Excelsior Printing and Stationery Works at Hulme Hall Road, Manchester — publisher and printer being the same firm. The binding is dark green pebbled cloth with gilt-lettered title and author name on the front board in a display typeface with the characteristic split-serif styling of late Victorian jobbing lettering, with a black-embossed decorative band at head and foot. The upper right corner of the half-title page carries a pencilled ownership inscription: L. Venables — written in a careful Victorian cursive hand, underlined with a slight upward flourish. The half-title verso reads: The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.

The preface is signed Philip Wentworth and dated Derby Terrace, Queen's Road, Manchester, Feb., 1878. It is brief and revealing. Wentworth states plainly that his object is to secure, if possible, a place in the esteem of worthy judges of literature — a modest formulation, but an unambiguous one. He addresses two anticipated objections: first, that the poem Our November Festival does not conform to the strict rules of prosody, to which he pleads deliberate freedom from unnecessary conventional exactness; and second, that A Vision of Voltaire might be taken to imply an inadequate estimate of so great a genius — to which he replies, with unmistakable edge, that abject deference to insincerity in literature, simply because it happens to be fashionable, is a crime that nothing can palliate.

The Contents

The volume contains thirty-one poems running to p. 92, preceded by a contents list across two pages (pp. vii–viii). The title poem Lady Agnes (p. 1) is subtitled A Ballad and runs to p. 6 — the longest single piece in the collection. The remaining poems range from religious verse (The Nativity, p. 19; The Gentle Saviour, p. 39; Abdiel de Terrâ, p. 29; Light in Darkness, p. 86) to political and satirical pieces (Peace or War, p. 10; The Age, p. 15; King Secular, p. 43; The Battle of Life, p. 41; The Indian Empire, p. 55; The Marriage of the Prince of Wales, p. 53; Prologue to an Unsuccessful Prize Poem, p. 47) to philosophical and reflective poems (The Canon of Criticism, p. 21; Genius and Work, p. 41; Man's Inheritance, p. 90; A Vision of Voltaire, p. 73; Angels, p. 70; Wanderings in the East, p. 76) to lighter or lyrical pieces (Ode to a Pin, p. 25; Hymn for Summer Evening, p. 31; The Oak and the Harebell, p. 33; Last Hours on the Shore, p. 36; Summer Song, p. 81; Old Father Christmas, p. 65; Carpe Diem [New and Old], p. 67) and a handful of personal reflective poems (Enforced Solitude, p. 59; A Dream of the Devil, p. 61; The Neglected Home, p. 83; Memory, p. 87; The Lost Love, p. 79).

The collection closes with Our November Festival (p. 91), the poem Wentworth singles out in his preface as departing from strict prosodic rules. A critic familiar with Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) will note that Wentworth includes a poem entitled Tennyson's "In Memoriam" (p. 40) — a direct engagement with the most influential English elegy of his generation — and that A Vision of Voltaire signals an active, if guarded, interest in French Enlightenment thought at a moment when Voltaire's reputation in English literary circles remained ambivalent.

The Poet

Philip Wentworth is an obscure figure. No entry for him appears in the standard Victorian literary dictionaries, and no subsequent publication by this name has been traced. What the book itself tells us is precise: he was resident in February 1878 at Derby Terrace, Queen's Road, Manchester; he had been working on the collection for many years (his preface phrase); he was educated enough to quote Latin scripture from memory; and he held independent literary opinions sharp enough to put a jab at fashionable insincerity into a preface for a debut collection. The title poem Lady Agnes is a ballad, a form then in deliberate revival under the influence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites. The range of subjects — Empire, Royalty, the Established Church, Voltaire, Manchester November fog — suggests a well-read provincial intellectual navigating the tensions of late Victorian nonconformist culture. No further biographical details have been established.

The ownership inscription L. Venables on the half-title places the copy in a family with a notably old English surname: Venables is a Norman baronial name, widespread in Cheshire and the north-west Midlands from the eleventh century. Whether this is coincidence or a trace of local continuity is unknown.

The Publisher

John Heywood was a Manchester bookselling, publishing, printing, and stationery business, founded by John Heywood (1804–1864) at Deansgate and continued by his son John Heywood (1832–1888). At the time of this volume's publication (1878) the firm was operating from 141 and 143 Deansgate, Manchester, with printing conducted from the Excelsior Printing and Stationery Works at Hulme Hall Road. The firm subsequently moved and expanded, operating from 121 Deansgate and St Bride Street, London, before being incorporated as a limited company in 1905. Heywood was a significant regional publisher of literary and practical works, serving Manchester's substantial reading public, and was at various times printer to HM Government. His colophon in this volume — John Heywood, Excelsior Printing and Stationery Works, Hulme Hall Road, Manchester — appears on the final verso.

Deansgate is one of Manchester's oldest thoroughfares, running through the mediaeval core of the city south of Castlefield. By 1878 it had become a mixed commercial street with booksellers, printers, stationers, and publishers concentrated along its length — the natural address for a small-press literary debut in the industrial north.

The Epigraph

The Latin line on the dedication page — "In te Domine speravi non confundar in aeternum" — is drawn from Psalm 31:1 in the Vulgate numbering (Psalm 30 in the Vulgate, Psalm 31 in the Hebrew/Protestant numbering): In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion. The text also opens Psalm 71 in the Hebrew tradition. The phrase was set to music by Buxtehude in his cantata BuxWV 53 and forms part of the Te Deum conclusion. As an epigraph to a first poetry collection, the line reads as an act of faith placed before the work rather than within it.

Bibliographic Details

Author: Philip Wentworth

Publisher: John Heywood, 141 and 143 Deansgate, Manchester

Printer: John Heywood, Excelsior Printing and Stationery Works, Hulme Hall Road, Manchester

Date: 1878 (first and only known edition)

Preface signed: Derby Terrace, Queen's Road, Manchester, Feb., 1878

Half-title verso: The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved

Epigraph: "In te Domine speravi non confundar in aeternum" (Psalm 31:1, Vulgate)

Inscription: L. Venables — half-title, pencil

Binding: Dark green pebbled cloth, gilt lettering on front board, black-embossed decorative bands

Format: Hardback, small 8vo, 92 pp + contents (pp. vii–viii)

Copies known: Rare; first edition only