Some drafts by Richard Steele for The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian

摘要

WITH the transfer of the Blenheim Papers to the British Library in 1978, a large bodyof Sir Richard Steele's letters and literary manuscripts became more easily available forexamination by scholars. They are now bound as Add. MSS. 61686-61688, most of theliterary material being gathered in the last of these three volumes. The staff of theDepartment of Manuscripts took evident pains to relate Steele's drafts and memorandato published works when preparing the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts: TheBlenheim Papers, 3 vols. (London, 1985), and several useful identifications were made.Nevertheless a large proportion of the drafts have remained unidentified. The presentpaper will discuss seven fragments in Steele's autograph, all from Add. MS. 61688,which can be shown to relate to the three most important periodicals with which he wasinvolved. The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian. Two can be claimed withreasonable certainty to be drafts of particular papers, two possibly so; it is suggested thatanother is an unpublished essay intended for The Tatler; and two fragments shed lighton that old but still interesting question, the nature and extent of Steele's collaborationwith Addison.