A8 La Ballade de I’Amant de Coeur

Table of Contents

A8-a First edition

Title Page

Launch

Description

Contents

A8-a First edition

Title Page

La Ballade de I’Amant de Coeur

rule

A

Mes Frères d’Armes,

Burges

et

Pot

Launch

Printed circa 1886

Description

Height: 8 1/8 in; 8.13 in; 20.64 cm

Width: 5 1/8 in; 5.13 in; 13.02 cm

[  ]^; pp [4], comprising:

• title page, p [1];
• text pp [2-3];
• p [4] blank.

Contents

The Ballade is signed “Pagan,” and although GM’s name is not given on the leaflet, a revised version is included in section XI of the fourth American edition of Confessions of a Young Man (A12-d) as “La Ballade d’Alfred, Alfred aux Belles Dents.” GM apparently worked on revisions for a number of years, as there is extant an autograph manuscript of a portion of the Ballade, dated 2-11-10, showing changes and revisions. In the fourth English and all subsequent editions (A12-2d et seq.) it is transferred to section XIV, with further slight revisions and with some meager details of its writing, but none of its printing. The only located copy of this leaflet is in the Frank Fayant collection in the Cornell University Library and is the same one listed in the 1930 Maggs Brothers Catalogues 531 and 538. Accompanying the leaflet is a letter from GM’s brother. Colonel Maurice Moore, stating GM’s authorship, with the possible collaboration of another brother, Augustus, whom he identifies as “Burges” of the title. Colonel Moore also identifies “Pot” as Pot Stephens and adds that “Pagan” was GM’s pen-name in those days. In Old Pink 'un Days, London, 1924, J. B. Booth states that GM wrote for the Bat as “Shifter, the Pagan,” but nothing so signed has been located in that periodical. In the issues of 2 and 9 February 1886, however, he is referred to as “George Pagan Moore,” a fact that might help date the leaflet.