Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.1 #22 (20 Dec 1890).
Romance is interwoven with the fate of many a notable book before it has reached the printer's hands, especially, perhaps, with the history of some of the classics. "The Institutions of Quintilian," the most complete scheme of rhetoric handed down from ancient times, had vanished. It was discovered by Poggio, the secretary to eight popes in succession. Careless monks had hidden it away under a heap of rubbish in a ramshackle coffer belonging to the tower of the monastery of St. Gallo.
Luther's "Table Talk," packed away in bees'-wax, came fortunately to light in 1626, when some workmen were digging at the foundations of an old house. The great collection of the State Papers of Thurlos, secretary to Cromwell, accidentally fell out of the false ceiling of a chamber in Lincoln's Inn. Milton’s "Doctrines of Christianity" was casually come upon in the middle of a sheaf of despatches.
Dante's "Divina Comedia" was made a complete manuscript after the poet's death, through the instrumentality of a dream. The sons of the great Florentine were puzzled by the fact that a number of cantos were missing. They had reason to believe that their father had written more than were immediately forthcoming. Months passed on, and every effort to find the papers had ended in failure. One morning, when eight months had elapsed, Dante's son, Jacopo, paid a surprise visit to one Pier Giardino, reputed an admirer and disciple of the poet. He had a strange story to tell. His father had seemed to come to his side in a vivid vision of the past night, had led him in fancy to another room, and touching a wall, said, "What you have sought for so much is here." In the early dawn the two impatient men set off to the house seen in Jacopo's dream. They persuaded the tenant to allow them to go to the indicated chamber. A blind was fixed to the wall within. Removing this, their eyes were gladdened by the disclosure of a mouldy pile of MS. The lost cantos, thirteen in number, were found.
A strange peril was put in the path of some of the most wonderful poems of this century by their author. Dante Gabrielle Rosetti lost his wife after a brief and happy union crowning a long courtship. On the day when the last sad offices were to be fulfilled, the poet walked into the room which contained his wife's remains. He spoke to the dead as if the closed ears could attend. A book of manuscript poetry was in his hand. He told the fair, still form the poems were hers, and she must take them with her; and he placed the packet in the coffin and left it to be interred in Highgate Cemetery. But Rosetti’s friends knew how rich was the treasure thus buried. They importuned him on the subject, and at last prevailed. Application was made to the Home Secretary, leave was obtained, the MS. volume was exhumed after being seven years in the tomb, and fortunately it was in a fair state of preservation. In due time the poems were published, and they are now an imperishable part of Victorian literature. They were almost sacrificed on the shrine of true love.
Quite recently a narrow escape of valuable literary work has been put on record. Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson was sailing between his new and beautiful home in distant Samoa, and Auckland. The cabin caught fire, and there was consternation in the vessel. The burning things were hauled upon deck and pitched helter-skelter into the sea. Everyone's idea was to keep the flames from spreading. Suddenly the novelist's wife saw two of the sailors heaving forward a box which had caught fire, and was slowly burning. Mrs. Stevenson knew it, and, with a cry of dismay, she interposed. It was just in time. Another second or two and the labour of many months would have been consigned to the deep. The box was a casket of works in MS. It held the compositions of one of the ablest writers of these years—saved by a narrow chance.