William Empson papers

Empson's letters to publications, many of which were published, are here listed in Section II with his other letters rather than with his compositions.

The arrangement of Empson's other compositions in this collection is based on the arrangement of the manuscripts when they came to this library and reflects both his own way of working and the history of the collection after his death in 1984.

Using Biography, Essays on Shakespeare, Faustus and the Censor, Essays on Renaissance Literature (vols. 1 and 2), Argufying, The Royal Beasts and Other Works, and The Strengths of Shakespeare's Shrew have all been published since Empson's death in 1984. As their prefaces testify, all but the last three were planned by their author, who worked on rewriting and revising most of the critical essays gathered in those collections from well before his retirement from the University of Sheffield in 1971 until his death. The work of revision not only entailed producing multiple new drafts, it also often meant gathering and annotating early drafts as well as printed copies of previously published pieces. This habit of writing by rewriting was a longstanding one: for the four books of criticism published during his lifetime, Empson would often annotate manuscripts of already printed articles in the process of reworking them into chapters of the longer works. Many of his poems had also been published separately before being gathered into the several collections, and his revisions were often made directly on the earlier manuscript or printed page.

In general, where Empson had grouped parts of early manuscripts with the later ones in the process of rewriting and rethinking, those earlier items have been left with the sheets of the later projects that absorbed them. When possible, the earlier articles or speeches are identified by title.

Sections IV.A (Poems, Stories, Plays) and IV.D (Shorter prose pieces) contain pieces, many previously published, some of which were collected by Empson or his editors into books. For the items in these sections, information is here given about first publication when known and about publication in one of the posthumous collections, but the items themselves are arranged alphabetically by individual title rather than by the collections within which they may have appeared. In these sections will be found items gathered by John Haffenden in: Argufying Essays on Literature and Culture (1987), The Royal Beasts and Other Works (1986), and The Strengths of Shakespeare's Shrew Essays Memoirs and Reviews (1996).

In Sections IV.B and IV.C., books of criticism published during the life of the author or planned by him are arranged chronologically by first publication, and items are grouped according to their eventual appearance in the book-length work, by contents or chapter order within the book, with all or parts of earlier writing on the same topic included when it is clear that Empson was using those sheets in the process of later writing. Full information about first publication of items in IV.B can be found in Frank Day, Sir William Empson: an annotated bibliography (New York and London, 1984). Empson had planned a book on Marlowe, of which the various reworkings are here included with the only part of it that has been published.

The journals and notebooks (IV.E) contain notes on reading, some class notes, notes for BBC programs, a few draft letters, draft passages for essays or speeches, occasional journal entries recording thoughts, and occasional drafts of poems, plays, stories. Loose sheets in the notebooks or grouped in folders in this section of the collection include a few typescripts, but most of the writing in this section is in Empson's hand. Contents of any one book are eclectic: the very partial characterization below is far from complete.

Section IV.F contains only printed items without textual revisions: offprints with Empson's revisions are grouped with his manuscripts.In section V, Compositions by others, printed items with significant annotations are grouped with manuscripts in section A, but many of the offprints in section B include signed inscriptions to Empson.