ABSTRACT
Four complete MSS of this much-admired lyric are known to have survived; they exhibit minor differences, no one version being identical to another. Nbk 21 (pp. 144–7, 153) contains an untitled draft of all three stanzas and there are a few lines of draft, also untitled, in Nbk 19 (pp. 200 reverso-199 reverso). An autograph fair copy headed The Indian girls song, deriving from the Nbk 21 draft, is now in the Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny (Genève) (Bodmer). Another copy was transcribed on the recto and verso of the first of two leaves damaged by seawater and mud; these, entitled The Indian Serenade, were recovered from the wreck of S.’s boat, the Don Juan, which foundered on 8 July 1822, occasioning his death and that of Edward Williams (MYRS viii 329–35). One side of the second leaf carries a transcription of the libretto of the popular duet ‘Ah perdona’ from the first act of Mozart’s opera La Clemenza di Tito (1791). The MSS of both poem and libretto are now agreed to be in Mary’s hand, though previously they were considered by some to be in S.’s (BSM xxiii p. ix). (See, e.g., Reiman (1977), Reiman (2002), Chernaik 248, BSM xvi pp. l-liii, MYRS viii 336–9; L about S 16–17). The libretto and the poem in this MS are held in the Morgan Library & Museum (Morgan). Mary also transcribed a fair copy into Harvard Nbk 1, again under the title The Indian Serenade (MYRS v 89).
