BIB_ID
402516
Accession number
MA 2148.26
Creator
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861.
Display Date
[1844 March].
Credit line
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Description
1 item (9 pages) ; 10.8 x 9 cm
Notes
Place of writing determined from internal evidence. There is no date on the letter other than "Monday" and the envelope is missing. The published editions of the correspondence, cited below, place this letter as probably being written in March 1844, based on its contents and relation to other letters.
Provenance
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Summary
Writing that she had been having serious doubts about the quality of her poem "A Drama of Exile" and whether she should publish it, when she had a visit from John Kenyon, who offered to read it and responded enthusiastically; telling George that she values Kenyon's opinion more than Richard Horne's because Kenyon does not generally like poems on religious subjects, whereas Horne would be more predisposed towards the poem (though he has not read it yet, being busy with his own books); writing that she has decided to publish it after all: "And it is settled that Moxon will do it; & that it will be done in four or five weeks,--& that I am to come out in two volumes--which will be rather sublime, I think. Moxon advises the two volumes. Also my American friends have commanded an edition, which is to come out in numbers, with half-profits for the author--and a separate preface to the American edition being also commanded, I am going to set about it instantly"; mentioning that she has received a long letter from Harriet Martineau and that Cornelius Mathews has asked about her relationship to Tennyson.
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