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Robert Browning
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Robert Browning : Red Cotton Nightcap Country
"In the early 1870s Browning frequently dined at the Chelsea home of the newly married Sir Charles Dilke. In 1872 he read there Red Cotton Nightcap Country (1873) -- 'at his own request'"
UnknownCentury: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning
Robert Browning : poems
Henry James to Grace Norton, 26 July 1880: "One of my latest sensations was going one day to Lady Airlie's to hear Browning read his own poems ... He read them as if he hated them and would like to bite them to pieces."
UnknownCentury: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning
Gustave Drounieau : Resignee
Robert Browning to Andre Victor Amedee de Ripert-Monclar, 5-7 December 1834: 'I heard of poor Drounieau's case in the Papers. I have read none of his verses, but was rather pleased with some parts of a novel of his, called Resignee'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
George Sand : Lelia (chapter VIII)
Robert Browning to Andre Victor Amedee de Ripert-Monclar, 5-7 December 1834: 'Madame Dudevant has accomplished something it seems -- a certain "Jacques" [...] I read an analysis of her's of the mental constitution of a gambler, from Lelia [...] a much truer exposition may be found in "The young Duke" by young D'Israeli [goes on to comment further upon latter novel].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Agricole Fortia d'Urban : works including Dissertation sur le Passage du Rhone et les Alpes par Annibal
Robert Browning to Andre Victor Amadee de Ripert-Monclar, 30 July 1835: 'I have you to thank [...] for some very clever books by the Marquis de Fortia which I have read with the greatest interest [...] I happen to have met with a work of his, since writing to you last, on the passage of Hannibal over the Alps, which delighted me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
William Charles Macready : annotations to Robert Browning, Strafford
Robert Browning to William Charles Macready, January 1837: 'I have taken a cursory look at your [italics]addissions[end italics] in "Strafford," seeing it on the table. I shall remedy every oversight I am sure out of an after crop of thoughts!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Unknown
Honore de Balzac : Beatrix ou les Amours Forces
Robert Browning to Euprhasia Fanny Haworth, ?25 April 1839: 'You read Balzac's "Scenes" etc -- he is publishing one, "Beatrix", in the feuilleton of the "Siecle", day by day -- I receive it from Paris two days old and usually post it off to a friend of mine, as soon as skimmed. But the four or five first chapters were so delightful that I hate myself for not having sent them to Barham [i.e. Barham Lodge, Haworth's home at Elstree]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
: racing programme
Robert Browning to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth, 16 September 1839: 'Wish "Paracelsus" luck, by the way, at the Great St Leger -- for he, a horse, starts, I see by this morning's "Times", with a batch of the rarest -- as does "Avicenna" -- both gloried in by Mr C. Atwood!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Newspaper
Thomas Noon Talfourd : Recollections of a First Visit to the Alps, in August and September 1841
Robert Browning to Rachel Talfourd, c.1842: 'Out of certain projects of calling personally and saying my thankful say -- comes this poor paper and ink acknowledgement of the Sergeant's great kindness [...] I have read the "Recollections" with the greatest delight, seeing in my mind the whole party at every turn. Will you have the goodness to tell him this, mending my imperfect phrase.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett : 'Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets'
Elizabeth Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, 2 April 1842: 'As to your kind desire to hear whatever in the way of favorable remark I have gathered for fruit of my papers [on the Greek Christian poets], I put on a veil and tell you that Mr Kenyon thought it well done altho' "labor thrown away from the unpopularity of the subject" -- that Miss Mitford was very much pleased [...] that Mrs Jamieson read them "with great pleasure" unconsciously of the author, -- & that Mr Horne the poet & Mr Browning the poet were not behind in approbation! Mr Browning is said to be learned in Greek [...] & of Mr Horne I should suspect something similar. Miss Mitford & Mrs Jamieson altho' very gifted & highly cultivated women are not Graecians & therefore judge the papers simply as English compositions. 'The single unfavorable opinion is Mr Hunter's who thinks that the criticisms are not given with either sufficient seriousness or diffidence, & that there is a painful sense of effort through the whole.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Alfred Tennyson : Poems
Robert Browning to Alfred Domett, 13 July 1842: 'I send this with Tennyson's new vol -- The alterations are insane. WhatEVER is touched is spoiled [...] Locksley Hall is shorn of two or three couplets I will copy out from the book of somebody who luckily transcribed from the proof-sheet -- meantime [italics]one[end italics] line, you will see, I [italics]have[end italics] restored'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton : Eva; the Ill-omened Marriage, and Other Tales and Poems (extracts)
Robert Browning to Alfred Domett, 13 July 1842: 'Sir L. Bulwer has just published a set of sing-songs -- I read two, or one, in a Review -- & thought them abominable.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Thomas Powell : poems
Robert Browning to Thomas Powell, c.October 1842: 'I am highly obliged to you [...] for the two volumes of verse now on my table. I have not as yet found time for the steady perusal I must give them -- but a glance at some of the smaller pieces has already convinced me of the injustice of your styling their appearance in print, an "infliction."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Thomas Babington Macaulay : Lays of Ancient Rome (extracts)
Robert Browning to Alfred Domett, 13 December 1842: 'The only novelty we have had in books as yet, has been Macaulay's Lays of Rome -- a kind of revenge on that literature which so long plagued ours with Muses, and Apollo, and Luna and all that, -- by taking the stalest subjects in it, and as plentifully bestowing on them the commonplaces of our indigenous ballad-verse -- "Then out spake brave Sir Cocles" -- "Go, hark ye, stout Sir Consul" -- and a deal more: I have only seen extracts, but they gave me this notion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton : The Last of the Barons (extract)
Robert Browning to Alfred Domett, 5 March 1843: 'Here we are sound asleep. Bulwer's new Novel, "The Last of the Barons," is to be, he says, the last of Bulwer's -- and seems a poor affair, if one may judge by the single extract I have seen.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Browning, Jr : 'On Bonaparte'
Robert Browning, Sr to Thomas Powell, 11 March 1843: 'I hope the enclosed may be acceptable as curiosities. They were written by Robert when quite a child. I once had nearly a hundred of them. But he has destroyed all that ever came in his way, having a great aversion to the practice of many biographers in recording every trifling incident that falls in their way [...] There was one amongst them "On Bonaparte" -- remarkably beautiful -- and had I not seen it in his own handwriting I never would have believed it to have been the production of a child. It is destroyed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning, Sr Manuscript: Unknown
Robert Browning : Colombe's Birthday
Robert Browning to Christopher Dowson, Jr., 10 March 1844: 'Yesterday I read my play to [Charles Kean] and his charming wife (who is to take the principal part) -- and all went off au mieux -- [italics]but[end italics] -- he wants to keep it till "Easter next year" -- and unpublished all the time!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Unknown
Alfred Domett : letter to Robert Browning
Joseph Arnould to Alfred Domett, c.8 November 1843: 'Browning & Sister[,] Dowson & wife dined with us a week back, Browning read us your letter, a capital one [...] Your advice to him as to his [poetic] language, r[h]ythm & c was admirable & he seemed [italics]really[end italica] grateful for it [...] he read it out to us himself & I can assure you there was not in his manner the slightest semblance of anything approaching to offence'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Letter
Arabella and Henrietta Moulton-Barrett : letter to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Arabella and Henrietta Moulton-Barrett (sisters), 2 October 1846, on receiving her father, brother's, and sisters' responses to her marriage: 'The delay of the week in Paris brought me to the hour of my death warrant at Orleans [...] Robert brought in a great packet of letters [...] He wanted to sit by me while I read them, but I would not let him [...] I got him to go away for ten minutes, to meet the agony alone [...] And besides it was right not to let him read -- -- They were very hard letters, those from dearest Papa & dearest George [...] 'Now I will tell you -- Robert who had been waiting at the door [...] came in & found me just able to cry from the balm of your tender words -- I put your two letters into his hands, & [italics]he[end italics], when he had read them, said with tears in his eyes, & kissing them between the words -- "I love your sisters with a deep affection -- I am inexpressibly grateful to them -- It shall be the object of my life to justify their trust as they express it here."' '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Letter
Honore de Balzac : novels
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 8 February 1847: 'Robert is a warm admirer of Balzac & has read most of his books'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Hugh Stuart Boyd : letter to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Henrietta Moulton-Barrett, 31 March 1847: 'Thank you for the dear welcome letters [...] Tell [Arabel] to thank Mr Boyd for his kind one -- Mr Boyd's [...] came when I was ill [following miscarriage] & Robert read [it] to me -- Not that he reads my letters so in general, mind, .. but that my head swam so on that particular occasion & wd not let me read properly.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Letter
Elizabeth Barrett : Poems
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 10 January 1845: 'I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett [...] since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me [...] part of me it has become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew [...] talking with whoever is worthy, I can give a reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought -- but in thus addressing myself to you, your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether [goes on to describe how had previously missed opportunity of being introduced to Barrett by their mutual friend John Kenyon].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Joseph Arnould : 'Rabelais and His Times' (review of various works on Rabelais)
Robert Browning to Alfred Domett, 23 February 1845: 'Arnould is a happiness to see and know [...] I send, with this [letter], a Review with an article of his -- "Rabelais" -- which I know you will be delighted with as I have been'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Benjamin Disraeli : Vivian Grey
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 30 April 1845: 'You ask me questions, "if I like novels," [...] There is a story of D'Israeli's, an old one, with an episode of strange interest, or so I found it years ago, -- well, you go breathlessly on with the people of it, page after page, till at last the end [italics]must[end italics] come, you feel -- and the tangled threads draw to one, and an out-of-door feast in the woods helps you .. that is, helps them, the people, wonderfully on and lo, dinner is done, and Vivian Grey is here, and Violet Fane there [...] At this moment, Mr Somebody, a good man [...] "in answer from a question from Violet, drew from his pocket a small, neatly written manuscript, and, seating himself on an inverted wine-cooler, proceeded to read the following brief remarks upon the characteristics of the Maeso-gothic literature" -- This ends the page, -- which you don't turn at once! But when you [italics]do[end italics], in bitterness of soul, turn it, you read -- "On consideration, I" (Ben, himself) "shall keep them for Mr Colburn's 'New Magazine" -- and deeply you draw thankful breath!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Hans Christian Andersen : The Improvisatore: or, Life in Italy (extracts)
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 30 April 1845: 'That book you like so, the Danish novel, must be full of truth & beauty, to judge from the few extracts I have seen in Reviews. That a Dane should write so, confirms me in an old belief -- that Italy is stuff for the use of the North, and no more: pure Poetry there is none, nearly as possible none, in Dante even [...] strange that those great wide black eyes should stare nothing out of the earth that lies before them!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett : An Essay on Mind
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, ?18 July 1845: 'I confess to you that [...] as soon as I read your "Essay on Mind" (which of course I managed to do about 12 hours after Mr [John] K[enyon]'s positive refusal to keep his promise, and give me the book) from preface to Vision of Fame at the end, and reflected upon my own doings in that time, 1826, I did indeed see, and wonder at, your advance over me in years'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Alfred Tennyson : Timbuctoo
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 14 June 1845: 'When I ask my wise self what I really do remember of that Prize-poem -- the answer is -- both of Chapman's lines a-top, quite worth any prize for the quoter -- then, the good epithet of "green Europe" contrasting with Africa -- then, deep in the piece, a picture of a vestal in a vault [...] I read the poem many years ago, and never since -- tho' I have an impression that the versification is good.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning
Aeschylus : Prometheus Bound
'R[obert] B[rowning] wrote seven and a half pages of comments about E[lizabeth] B[arrett] B[arrett]'s revised translation [of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound], and ended with these remarks: "And so it is all magnificently rendered. The above attempts at notifcation are the merest stoppings for a moment where I did not know my old path thro' the text again [...] take my true praise and congratulations."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Unknown
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton : Alice, or The Mysteries
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 15 August 1845: 'I have read those novels [i.e. Alice, and Ernest Maltravers, mentioned by Barrett in letter postmarked 13 August] -- but I must keep that word of words, "genius" -- for something different -- "talent" will do here surely.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton : Ernest Maltravers
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 15 August 1845: 'I have read those novels [i.e. Alice, and Ernest Maltravers, mentioned by Barrett in letter postmarked 13 August] -- but I must keep that word of words, "genius" -- for something different -- "talent" will do here surely.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
George Sand : Consuelo
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 15 August 1845: 'There lies Consuelo -- done with! 'I shall tell you frankly that it strikes [italics]me[end italics] as precisely what in conventional language with the customary silliness is styled a [italics]woman's[end italics]-book, in its merits & defects [goes on to comment extensively on text]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley : Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, letter postmarked 11 September 1845: 'Mrs Shelley found Italy for the first time, real Italy at Sorrento, she says. Oh that book -- does one wake or sleep? [...] Godwin's daughter and Shelley's wife, and who surely was something better once upon a time [...] the intrepidity of the commonplace quite astounds me [goes on to criticise specific passages] [...] once she travelled the country with Shelley on arm; now she plods it, [Samuel] Rogers in hand [...] I quarrel with her, for ever, I think.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett : 'Past and Future'
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 16 November 1845: 'Since I wrote what is above, I have been reading [...] that sonnet -- "Past and Future" -- which affects me more than any poem I ever read [...] is not that sonnet to be loved as a true utterance of yours?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 21 December 1845: 'Yesterday I was reading the "Purgatorio" and the first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one, struck me with a new purpose [goes on to quote, and to translate "off hand", lines 52-57 from Purgatorio V]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Richard Hengist Horne : Ballad Romances
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 January 1846: 'I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to see that beautiful things are there -- I suppose "Delora" will stand alone still -- but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story [...] and there is good sailor-speech in the "Ben Capstan" [...] At one thing I wonder -- his not reprinting a quaint clever [italics]real[end italics] ballad, published before "Delora", on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" -- the first of his works I ever read -- no, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which was this line "When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold," .. good, is it not?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Richard Hengist Horne : 'The Merrie Devil of Edmonton'
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 January 1846: 'I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to see that beautiful things are there -- I suppose "Delora" will stand alone still -- but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story [...] and there is good sailor-speech in the "Ben Capstan" [...] At one thing I wonder -- his not reprinting a quaint clever [italics]real[end italics] ballad, published before "Delora", on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" -- the first of his works I ever read -- no, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which was this line "When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold," .. good, is it not?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Richard Hengist Horne : 'Stanzas to a Ruined Windmill'
Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 January 1846: 'I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to see that beautiful things are there -- I suppose "Delora" will stand alone still -- but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story [...] and there is good sailor-speech in the "Ben Capstan" [...] At one thing I wonder -- his not reprinting a quaint clever [italics]real[end italics] ballad, published before "Delora", on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" -- the first of his works I ever read -- no, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which was this line "When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold," .. good, is it not?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton : The Caxtons. A Family Picture
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Arabella Moulton-Barrett, 12 March 1850: 'Robert is reading "the Caxtons" & is much pleased with the book. [italics]I[end italics] am reading "Shirley", and am interested -- only it does not seem to me equally suggestive of power (so far) with Jane Eyre.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
: newspapers
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Anna Brownell Jameson, 2 April 1850: 'I complain of Florence for the want of books -- we have to dig & dig before we can get anything new -- and [italics]I[end italics] can read the newspapers only through Robert's eyes, who only can read them at Vieusseux's [Reading Rooms] in a room sacred from the foot of woman: and this is'nt always satisfactory to me, as whenever he falls into a state of disgust with any political regime, he throws the whole subject over, & wont read a word more about it. Every now & then, for instance, he ignores France altogether .. and I, who am more tolerant, & more curious, find myself suspended over an hiatus'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Newspaper
William Makepeace Thackeray : The History of Pendennis
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Isa Blagden, ?3 December, 1850: 'I send the first volume of Pendennis. We have one more which Robert is finishing'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
John Westland Marston : Review of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poems (1850)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Thomas Westwood, 12-13 December 1850: 'If you had not sent me the Athenaeum article I never should have seen it probably, for my husband only saw it in the reading room, where women dont penetrate, (because in Italy we cant read, you see) & where the periodicals are kept so strictly like Hesperian apples, by the dragons of the place, that none can be stolen away for even half an hour. So he could only wish me to catch sight of that article -- and you are good enough to send it & oblige us both accordingly.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Serial / periodical
Elizabeth Barrett Browning : sonnets ['from the Portugese']
Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Arabella Moulton-Barrett [sister], 12 January 1851: 'Now I am going to speak to you about those sonnets [...] The truth is that though they were written several years ago, I never showed them to Robert till last spring .. I felt shy about them altogether .. even to him. I had heard him express himself strongly against "personal" poetry & I shrank back. -- As to publishing them, it did not enter my head. But when Robert saw them, he was much touched & pleased -- & [...] could not consent, he said, that they should be lost to my volumes: so we agreed to slip them in under some sort of veil, & after much consideration chose the "Portugese" [goes on to explain reasons for choice]'.
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Manuscript: Unknown
Alfred Tennyson : Enoch Arden
Robert Browning to Alfred Tennyson, 13 October 1864: 'I have been two months away, and only just find your book now [...] "Enoch" continues the perfect thing I thought it at first reading; but the "Farmer," taking me unawares, astonished me more in this stage of acquaintanceship.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Alfred Tennyson : The Northern Farmer
Robert Browning to Alfred Tennyson, 13 October 1864: 'I have been two months away, and only just find your book now [...] "Enoch" continues the perfect thing I thought it at first reading; but the "Farmer," taking me unawares, astonished me more in this stage of acquaintanceship.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Alfred Tennyson : Harold
Robert Browning to Alfred Tennyson, 21 December 1876: 'True thanks again, this time for the best of Christmas presents, another great work, wise, good, and beautiful. The scene where Harold is overborne to take the oath is perfect, for one instance.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning Print: Book
Robert Browning : Preface, The Ring and the Book
From Alfred Tennyson's letter-diary to his family (1868): 'Nov. 21st. Browning read his Preface to us last night, full of strange vigour and remarkable in many ways; doubtful whether it can ever be popular.'
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