The Orchard-pit The Orchard Pits Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1869
abaab iambic pentameter ballad fragment
<artist/> <location/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>DGR began this ballad in 1869 when he wrote a few stanzas, and he sketched out the story in prose. But he never went on with the work. It has much in common with works like <xref doc="a.20-1869.f30.raw"> <title level="wrk">“Eden Bower” and The Doom of the Sirens” , both of which also date from the same period.

Textual History: Composition

DGR's prose cartoon along with several verse fragments is part of Notebook IV in the Duke University Library. The same notebook has a draft of the opening stanzas (including a cancelled stanza), and the Huntington Library preserves another heavily corrected manuscript text of the first three stanzas. There exists as well a brief draft fragment in Notebook III in the Duke University Library.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

WMR first published a fragment of the verse text as well as the extended prose summary in his 1886 edition and collected both thereafter. He was copying, presumably, from the texts of both that are preserved in Notebook IV at Duke.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Mégroz, 255-258

1911 See WMR's note (1911). bitten: all printed texts give the reading “bitter”, which is not correct, though the manuscripts might easily be misread in this way. An unpublished letter from WMR to Ellis of 18 April 1890 calls for this correction to be made, after A. E. Housman had written to WMR the week before calling the textual issue to his attention. Both of these letters are in the library of the South African National Gallery. 1869
abaab iambic pentameter ballad fragment
1869
cartoon for a poem
1911 The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Fifteen Original Autograph Manuscript Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (posthumous manuscript collection, Huntington Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1849-1865 ? 0 Notebook Pages (Note Book III, Duke Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 0 Notebook Pages (Note Book IV, Duke Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871, 1880 0 Notebook Pages (Note Book IV, Duke Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871, 1880 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0