Edward Dowden: A Critical Edition of the Complete Poetry

With the addition of Miscellaneous Poems of Later Dates in 1914, Mrs. Dowden preserved the order of her husband’s early work but imposed a partly chronological arrangement on that and future editions of Dowden’s verse. She was ambitious to revive Dowden’s reputation as a poet. And Dent actually advertised a two-volume Poetical Works of Edward Dowden, counting its remake of the old volume of Edward Dowden’s Poems of 1876 as one, with the additions just mentioned, and counting A Woman’s Reliquary as the other. The present edition is therefore quasi-chronological: being strictly chronological in a tripartite divisional arrangement (i.e., from Poems,
Miscellaneous Poems of Later Dates, and A Woman’s Reliquary ), followed by a short section entitled Uncollected Verses, while maintaining sequences the poet designed. The division of Uncollected Verses is chronological according to the dates of publication, and this section is small because Mrs. Dowden had laid her hands on almost all of the already published poetry, save for that of a more ephemeral nature–for example, that published in Trinity College Dublin anthologies such as Kottabos I and II and, conjecturally, in The Irish Monthly to accompany a review of his work.