William Johnson published in 1858 a slender volume bound in green cloth,
(Smith, Elder & Co.) which was entitled "Ionica," and which comprised
forty-eight poems.
In 1877 he printed privately a little paper-covered book (Cambridge
University Press), entitled "Ionica II," containing twenty-five poems.
This book is a rare bibliographical curiosity. It has neither titlepage
nor index; it bears no author's name; and it is printed without
punctuation, on a theory of the author's, spaces being left, instead of
stops, to indicate pauses.
In 1891 he published a book, "Ionica" (George Allen), which contained
most of the contents of the two previous volumes, together with some
pieces not previously published--eighty-five poems in all.
The present volume is a reprint of the 1891 volume; but it has been
thought well to include, in an appendix, certain of the poems which
appeared in one or other of the first two issues, but were omitted from
the 1891 issue, together with a little Greek lyric, with its English
equivalent, from the "Letters and Journals."
The poems from page 1 to page 104, Desiderato to All that was possible,
appeared in the 1858 volume, together with those on pages 211 to 216, To
the Infallible, The Swimmer's Wish, and An Apology. The poems from page
105 to page 162, Scheveningen Avenue to L'Oiseau Bleu, appeared in the
1877 volume, together with those on pages 217 and 218, Notre Dame and
In Honour of Matthew Prior. The remainder of the poems, from page 163
to page 210, appeared in the 1891 volume for the first time. The dates
subjoined to the poems are those which he himself added, and indicate
the date of composition.