M32

Edward Harry William Meyerstein 

Meyerstein's MS. of this wonderful book was written on the recto pages of what looks like a standard, school exercise book, with additional notes on the verso of many of the pages.

The first link below contains the letters to and from the chief librarian James Ross, offering and accepting the gift of the MS.

 It took 853 photographs to capture the MS. in full, and not until I was finished (after many, many, many hours of collation and preparation) could I see that it had nothing new to add to the printed edition. 

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I do wish that I had read Meyerstein's letter a little more carefully, especially where he writes 'from which my life of Chatterton was printed'   this tells me now that the copy in the Bristol Library is a fair copy (loosely speaking), and that the copy in the British Library is the working MS., which needs to be shown here on this website. My excuse, for failing to understand the letter, is that I was so excited to actually hold the MS. in my hands that my forensics deserted me..

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No matter, I felt I owed it to Meyerstein to present his 'fair copy' on this website. It is presented below as a host of links offering either a section or a chapter of the book. 

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If there is a collaborator local to the British Library who can spare the time (and you will need a lot of it), it would be a real treat to upload Meyerstein's original working MS. to the project. 

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Meyerstein's handwriting is quite difficult to read, so I recommend reading the printed edition instead, which, although it is quite a rare book, is usually available in libraries, on Abebooks or, if you are a member of the academic classes with an affiliation, you will be able to read it online for free.