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Jack Kolb, A.H.H.
A Life Lived Quickly: Tennyson's Friend Arthur Hallam and His Legend. By Martin Blocksidge
The Tennyson Research Bulletin, 9/5 (November 2011). Edited by Valerie Purton, Essays in Criticism, Volume 63, Issue 1, January 2013, Pages 81–88, https://doi.org/10.1093/escrit/cgs023Close - Share Icon Share
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In 1969 T. H. Vail Motter wrote to Cecil Lang asking for a young graduate student who might help him with his renewed work on Arthur Henry Hallam. Motter, who had edited the seminal edition of Hallam's Writings in 1943, had not worked on Hallam for many years. But he now wanted to return to his initial interest in Tennyson's friend, and had in mind a three-volume undertaking: a new expanded edition of the writings, an edition of Hallam's collected letters, and a full-length biography. Lang, who was beginning work on his edition of Tennyson's letters, recommended me as a candidate, and for the next year Motter and I worked on editing the letters. His death in 1970 left the enterprise in limbo. For the next eleven years I slowly continued work on the letters, realising that it would have to be something more comprehensive than Motter had intended. The edition finally was published in 1981, the same year as the first volume of Tennyson's letters. Unfortunately, I've been even more delayed in preparing a new edition of Hallam's writings that is yet to appear, and I had more or less abandoned the idea of a biography, wondering if Hallam's relatively short life (1811-33) justified a full-length account.
