The Doom of the Sirens
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Production Description
Document Title: The Doom of the Sirens. A Lyrical Tragedy.
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of composition: 1869
Type of Manuscript: draft copy
Note: DGR followed his usual practice and drafted the text on the rectos of
a set of notebook pages, leaving the facing versos for corrections and
additions.
Scribe: DGR
Provenance
Current Location: Duke University Library
Catalog Number: Rossetti Writings XIV. The Doom of the Sirens
Physical Description
Paper: white ruled
Watermark: LANGLEY &/ STEVENS/ 1846
Dimensions of Document: 7 1/8 x 8 5/8 in.
Other Physical Features: The paper is the same as pages 1-7 of the paper gathered in the Duke
Library's
Notebook II.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Copyright: By permission of the Special Collections Library, Duke University
page images | transcript
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
WMR was the first to publish this work—in his 1886 edition. The text he used was the present manuscript, which however he edited in various ways in an effort to make the work more presentable to readers. He of course left out altogether the cancelled passages, many of which are fascinating; but he also removed other parts of the text that DGR had not cancelled—one particularly significant passage at the end of Act I scene 1.
Textual History: Composition
As so often in his composition process, DGR used the rectos of his pages for drafting the work and the facing versos for additions and revisions. The elaborate process of revision exhibited in this set of pages has resulted in a complex documentary structure (see the editorial page notes below for commentary).