STOLEN MINUTES WITH THE MUSES. POEMS

Samuel Palmer CHAPMAN (1809-1895). Stolen Minutes with the Muses. Poems. [No place, but Swansea, or Bristol?]: ‘Printed for Private Circulation’, 1877. Octavo. Pp. [iii-]iv-xviii; [1-]4-266 + a small format errata slip facing p. [3]. Mounted photographic portrait frontispiece of the author by his son, Henry Alfred Chapman. (Possibly lacking pp. [i-ii], corner of frontispiece excised without loss to the portrait, toned, spotted). Original red cloth, blocked in gilt and blind (lacking front free endpaper, soiled, short splits to joints, extremities worn).  

Provenance: author’s presentation copy given to a relative (the ‘ghost’ of the inscription on the removed free endpaper can be read [in part] on the back of the frontispiece ‘Presented by the Author to his / ….. Chapman…/ … / … 1877’).

Very rare, OCLC 32365731 records just 3 locations (Shields Library, University of California, Davis; British Library; National Library of South Africa). The poems, mostly what Dr. Johnson might have called "the effusions of the author’s youth", do also include some later material. They are quite good considering that he was a professional photographer rather than a poet (patronizing but true).

On a few occasions, the two worlds overlap: 1. a poem called ‘Photography’; 2. An epigram ‘Sent to a Young Lady with my Carte [i.e. cdv], which she had requested to have’; and  3. in a poem titled ‘Portraits and Poetry. An Advertisement’ in which the author runs down the portrait work of an unnamed photographic rival whilst praising the work of ‘Chapman and Co.’  who ‘felt they well could depend / That merit would meet his reward in the end’.

Chapman and Co was the photographic firm the author started in Swansea in about 1860. By the time the present work was published the author was about 68, and may have moved to Bristol (see p.225 “To my very dear grand-daughter Maggie Chapman, on her paying me … a visit at Bristol”) and actually had little to do with the day-to-day running of the family firm. His son Henry Alfred Chapman (1844-1915) was apparently in charge. The idea that the author had moved to Bristol is supported by the note in the monthly notice of the Royal Astronomical Society in April 1884 recording election of Samual Palmer Chapman, of 27 West Park, Clifton, Bristol, as a Fellow. Chapman died in 1895.

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