SOME RIVERSIDE RECORDS BY REGINALD BLUNT ILLUSTRATED from OLD PHOTOGRAPHS For out of the olde fieldes as men saithe Chaucer. MILLS & BOON, LIMITED 49 RUPERT STREET LONDON, W.. OF INTRODUCTORY F the half-dozen papers dealing with Chelsea people and places which this volume comprises, it can only be said that they follow, more or less, the lines-discursive and reminiscent-of those in my previous Chelsea books, Paradise Row, In Cheyne Walk, and The Wonderful Village, readers of which will therefore know what-and equally what not-to expect from them. With the exception of the story of Cremorne Gardens, which may perhaps recall the days (or rather nights) of their youth to some for whom those days and nights are getting dreadfully distant, these pages deal with people more than with places, and especially with literary folk, of whom Chelsea has housed such a remarkable galaxy, as the list I have included in an Appendix will bear witness. But whether these rambling visitations be to More's study or Donne's seclusion in Danvers House, to Swift's poor lodging or Smollett's Sunday garden parties, to Leigh Hunt's tinkerdom or Carlyle's ill-starred garret, to Fanny Burney's attic or Sir Hans Sloane's Manor House Museum, to Rossetti's studio or Henry James' flat, it is always from the angle of their immediate surroundings and the local association of their work that the attempt has been made to visualise and to recall them. 576607 And if, here and there, such Chelsea happenings as Vanessa's visit to Swift, or Donne's to his beloved Mistress Magdalen Herbert, or Buchanan's attack upon Rossetti's poetry, have raised the forgotten ghosts of old controversies once again, excuse must be pleaded in the perennial fascination of the unsolved and the enigmatic. The verses "By Chelsea Reach" are a reminiscence of the Chelsea Historical Pageant of 1908, in the book of words of which they made their first appearance. They are reprinted here in the hope that they, too, may help to recall, for many lovers of Chelsea, that delightful and memorable achievement at Old Ranelagh Gardens, which was crowned by a week of glorious sunshine and success, and has left among its participants such a host of happy memories. CHELSEA, June 1921 R. B. |