THE majestic peaks of the Highlands, the volcanic island of Staffa and Scotland’s many castles have long been thought to be an inspiration for the romantic work of Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 

The poet laureate certainly visited his friend Lord Jeffrey, founder of the Edinburgh Review, at Craigcook Castle near Edinburgh at some point at the beginning of the 19th century and spent time with a circle of literary giants including Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Anderson.

But one of Tennyson’s most important works, telling the story of the Knights of the Round Table, was also a remarkable collaboration with one of the most celebrated women in the history of photography, Julia Margaret Cameron.

Cameron, known for her portraits, produced the photographs of Tennyson himself that reveal his famous straggly beard and Victorian clothes.
Now, the work of poet and photographer has come to Scotland, to be held within the University of St Andrews’ Special Collections.

‘Idylls of the King, and Other Poems’ was published in 1875 and walks the reader through the lilting world of Arthurian Camelot, telling the story of the King and his knights.

The Idylls are thought to represent Tennyson’s anxieties about his own era, and the failure of Arthur to run Camelot as a city built on Victorian ideals.

Side by side with Tennyson’s verse in this volume are thirteen photographs by Cameron, depicting Tennyson’s characters.

The book was created while Tennyson and Cameron were living together on the Isle of Wight, after she moved there in 1860.

While the early photographs were published as small, wood-cut copies, Tennyson later encouraged Cameron to fund the publication of large albums of the photos, complemented by handwritten excerpts of his poetry.
Cameron produced two volumes of her work, and it is the second volume that the St Andrews collection has acquired.

Prior to its purchase, the book belonged to Kodak’s research librarian, Dr Rolf Schultze until his death in 1967.

Schultze was also the honorary librarian for the Royal Photographic Society in London, and curator of the Kodak collection in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Idylls will now be held in the university’s photographic collection and used for research and teaching projects.

It will join first editions of Tennyson’s ‘Poems, Chiefly Lyrical’ and ‘In Memoriam’, both of which are already owned by St Andrews. 

Gabriel Sewell, the university’s Head of Special Collections, said: “Idylls of the King is one of the most famous nineteenth-century collaborations between a poet and a photographer and a rare and invaluable source for the study of Tennyson’s poetry and of Victorian culture.

“St Andrews has one of the most significant collections of early photographic material in the UK. Idylls of the King is the jewel in the crown in our collection, cementing the University’s reputation as one of the foremost important centres for the study of the history of photography.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born in Lincoln in 1809 and published his first collection of poetry at the age of 21.

It was in the first half of his life that he visited Craigcook Castle in Edinburgh, spending time with other authors of the burgeoning Romantic literary movement.

A key aspect of romantic literature is its fascination with nature, and it is thought that Tennyson’s time in Scotland proved inspirational for his poetic work.

The Idylls, however, were written in Caerleon, Wales, where the legend of King Arthur originates.

In 1850, Tennyson was appointed poet laureate by Queen Victoria, replacing William Wordsworth. 

Victoria’s patronage enabled Tennyson to become the most influential poet of his day, and the Queen said that his poem ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’ comforted her after the death of her husband Albert in 1861.

Tennyson asked his friend Julia Margaret Cameron to illustrate his poems with her photographs, despite her interest in photography developing late in life age of 48.

Cameron was initially criticised for her use of soft focus, and her unconventional style brought her to include scratches and smudges on her photographs to show her own process.

She would nonetheless go on to become one of the most celebrated photographers of the era and take portrait photos of Victorian celebrities including Tennyson and Charles Darwin.

Her photographs for The Idylls are designed to mimic the style of oil paintings of the era.

Her composition “So like a shatter’d Column lay the King” shows a dead King Arthur being transported from Camelot in a boat - thought to be one of the most dramatic moments in Tennyson’s poetry.

Cameron used fabric to create the illusion of waves beneath the boat, an drew a moon onto the negative after the photograph had been produced.

Another of the thirteen images illustrating the poem ‘Lancelot and Elaine’, shows Elaine, a woman who has died of heartbreak because Lancelot did not return her love. 
The “dumb old servitor” in the photo is modelled by Cameron’s husband, Charles Hay Cameron.
The scene is richly decorated with drapes and a tapestry.
 The volume also includes a frontispiece portrait of Tennyson.
The Idylls sold for an undisclosed amount using grant money awarded to the university by Friends of the National Libraries.