grayt.ead.0001-mss.0227Thomas Gray Manuscripts:An Inventory at the Thomas Gray Archive.Alexander HuberThomas Gray Archive2006Catalogued in EAD 2002 by Alexander Huber,
Editor, Thomas Gray Archive, 2005-Englishgrayt.ead.0001-mss.0227#did0001mss.poemsPoems[ca.
1725]-1771poems.sorwSonnet [on the Death of Mr Richard
West]In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,1775Starr/Hendrickson (eds.), Complete Poems (1966), 92Lonsdale (ed.), Poems (1969), 64-68
Composed at Stoke Poges shortly after
the death of Richard West, Gray's closest friend, on
1 June 1742.
First published, entitled
Sonnet On the
Death of Mr. Richard West, in Mason'sPoems (1775), 60.
mss.0227poems.sorwSonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West1780[?]4transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand on
Whatman paper180 mm x 110 mm
MS Add. 439, Poems section,
105-108
The ArchivesYMAR
MS catalogued by Alexander
Huber in The Archives, York Minster Library & Archives, on 27/03/2007.
Transcript in an unidentified neat and legible hand, entitled
Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Richard West
(p. 105) (Sonnet. [p. 107]). The
poem is part of a section called Poems, which is
separately paginated and has its own table of contents (p. 129), in a
volume entitled Gray's Poems. The book
carries the bookplate of Gray's friend and biographer William
Mason.