Evidence: | Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, letter postmarked 1 October 1845:
'I have read to the last line of your Rosicrucian; & my scepticism grew & grew through Hume's process of doubtful doubts, & at last rose to the full stature of incredulity .. for I never could believe Shelley capable of such a book, (call it a book!) not even with a flood of boarding-school idiocy dashed in by way of dilution. Altogether it roused me to deny myself so far as to look at the date of the book, & to get up & travel to the other end of the room to confront it with other dates in the "Letters from Abroad" [...] & on comparing these dates in these two volumes before my eyes, I find that your Rosicrucian was "printed for Stockdale" in [italics]1822[end italics], & that Shelley [italics]died in the July of the same year[end italics]!! And unless the "Rosicrucian" went into more editions than one, & dates here from a latter one [...] the innocence of the great poet stands proved -- now does'nt it? For nobody will say that he published such a book in the last year of his life, in the maturity of his genius, & that Godwin's daughter helped him in it!' |
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Century: | 1800-1849 | ||||||||||
Date: | Between 1 Sep 1845 and 1 Oct 1845 | ||||||||||
Country: | England | ||||||||||
Time: | n/a | ||||||||||
Place: | n/a | ||||||||||
Type of Experience (Reader): |
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Type of Experience (Listener): |
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Reader: | Elizabeth Barrett Barrett |
Age | Adult (18-100+) |
Gender | Female |
Date of Birth | 6 Mar 1806 |
Socio-economic group: | Professional / academic / merchant / farmer |
Occupation: | Writer |
Religion: | Evangelical |
Country of origin: | England |
Country of experience: | England |
Listeners present if any: (e.g. family, servants,
friends, workmates) |
n/a |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Author: | Percy Bysshe Shelley |
Title: | St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance. By a Gentleman of the University of Oxford |
Genre: | Fiction, Astrology / alchemy / occult |
Form of Text: | Print: Book |
Publication details: | First published 1811; read in apparently pirated 1822 edition printed London, for J. J. Stockdale |
Provenance: | unknown |
Record ID: | 19522 | |
Source - | ||
Author: | n/a | |
Editor: | Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis | |
Title: | The Brownings' Correspondence | |
Place of Publication: | Winfield | |
Date of Publication: | 1993 | |
Vol: | 11 | |
Page: | 106 | |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Citation: | Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis (ed.), The Brownings' Correspondence (Winfield, 1993), 11, p. 106, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=19522, accessed: 29 March 2024 |
In letter postmarked 2 October 1845, Browning replied to Barrett: 'Let us hope against hope in the sad matter of the novel -- yet, yet, -- it IS by Shelley, if you will have the truth -- as I happen to [italics]know[end italics] -- proof [italics]last[end italics] being that Leigh Hunt told me he unearthed it in Shelley's own library at Marlow once, to the writer's horror & shame [...] As for the date, that Stockdale was a notorious pirate and raker-up of rash publications .. and, do you know, I suspect the [italics]title-page[end italics] is all that boasts such novelty, .. see if the [italics]book[end italics], the inside leaves, be not older evidently! -- a common trick of the trade, to this day' (see p.108 in source). |
Reading Experience Database version 2.0. Page updated: 27th Apr 2016 3:15pm (GMT)