Page:The bibliography of Tennyson (1896).pdf/46

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THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1857.

1857.

Enid and Nimuë; or, The True and the False. London: privately printed, 1857, pp. 131.

The original and earliest form of the first two of the four "Idylls of the King," published in 1859, I never saw a copy, and describe it only on the authority of the paper contributed by Mr. Leicester Warren to the Fortnightly Review in October, 1865, which may, however, be considered as conclusive; since, although he does not state expressly that he had seen a copy himself, nor intimate how many copies were printed, or escaped destruction, he records the exact number of pages circumstantially, as given here; which he could hardly have done except after inspection of the book or on the information of some trustworthy friend who had seen and noted, if he did not possess a copy. Perhaps, however, it was only a single set of proof-sheets that had been preserved, and shown or described to Mr. Warren; and the book may have been withdrawn before any copies were actually printed off in their final form. It is hardly likely, even if a small number of such copies were extant, that a copy should not appear in the market during a period of thirty-eight years, especially as such a copy, offered to public competition, would doubtless have realized an almost fabulous sum. At present "Enid