A 463: etext transcription

This brief, extrageneric fragment appears to be the trial beginning for the rough-copy poem-draft beginning "There is no Frigate | like a Book" (A 462) and composed around 1873 (THJ, RWF). One letter of the fragment is marked "unclear": it may be an "a" or a "W." In addition to appearing as a trace (lineation and punctuation altered) in the rough-copy poem-draft, the fragment appears as a trace in a (destroyed) fair-copy of the poem sent to the Norcrosses around 1873 (THJ, RWF). Though the manuscript sent to the Norcrosses has been destroyed, Frances Norcross prepared a transcript of it for Mabel Loomis Todd in the 1890s; see (Tr A 43a). One additional manuscript of the poem, carrying only the lines of the second stanza and not including the trace, is extant, though its present location is unknown; a photostat of the stanza is held by the Jones Library, Inc.