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Browning's Letters to Isabella Blagden
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The letters written by Robert Browning to Isabella Blagden constitute the longest sustained correspondence carried on by the poet with any individual. The correspondence extends over more than twenty years, and for more than ten years of that time letters once every month were exchanged. This scheme of exchange—Miss Blagden to write on the twelfth and Browning to reply on the nineteenth—was begun in June, 1862. The correspondence ended in December, 1872, within a few weeks of the death of Miss Blagden. In bulk the letters outweigh those written to any other individual except Elizabeth Barrett. In style they are loose, usually hurried, dynamic, faultily constructed, friendly letters—full of gossip, opinion, detraction, dogged frankness, and honest vehemence. They are Browning, unadorned and prosy. Possibly no other single source offers so much information concerning his intimate life.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1939
References
1 Letters of Robert Browning, ed. by Thomas Losson Hood (New Haven, 1933), p. 66.
2 Letters of Robert Browning to Miss Isa Blagden, arranged for publication by A. J. Armstrong (Baylor University Press, Waco, Texas, 1923).
3 Op. cit.
4 See Armstrong, op. cit., p. 146 and p. 151 for examples.
5 Armstrong, op. cit., Foreword.
6 Hood, op. cit., Introduction, p. xi.
7 Ibid., p. xviii.
8 W. H. Griffin and H. C. Minchin, The Life of Robert Browning (London, 1910), p. 211.
9 See Henry Fitch, The Perfect Calendar (New York, 1931).
10 Henry C. Sturges, Chronologies of the Life and Writings of William Cullen Bryant (New York, 1903), p. lvii.
11 See Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 211, for name of hotel and length of stay in Paris.
12 Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Life and Letters of Robert Browning, New Edition (New York, 1908), p. 228.
13 See Armstrong, op. cit., p. 10 and p. 13. As shown below the letters on both these pages should be dated 1859 instead of 1857.
14 Ibid., p. 20.
15 See below for a discussion of the date of this letter, which appears on p. 21 of Armstrong.
16 This professional call was apparently made on Landor, who during this period had become a kind of extra-legal ward of Browning's.
17 Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning (New York, 1892), pp. 153–154.
18 See Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 195.
19 The difficulties in the way of accepting this date are these: Browning says, “we shall return by Cherberg.” Is this a misprint or a mis-reading of Browning's handwriting? Or is Browning actually referring to Cherbourg? If Cherbourg is meant, then obviously Browning was not in Rome when he wrote this letter, for he would not proceed to Florence from Rome by way of Cherbourg. He also says that he and Mrs. Browning will be with Miss Blagden “some five or six days after setting out.” By vettura, the Brownings on several occasions made the trip from Florence to Rome or from Rome to Florence in six to eight days. But, he adds, “We get letters on the fourth Monday after you post them and we will write and bid you look out for us!” Was the post so much slower than travelling by vettura? And finally, Browning says, “How vile and strange it seems to look for you up at the Villa and miss you.” Is this Villa Bricchieri, Miss Blagden's home in Florence? Or, possibly, is it the villa she had in Siena? And why, if either, does Browning use the present tense as though he were in Florence or Siena while penning this letter?
20 Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. by Frederic G. Kenyon (London, 1897), ii, 386.
21 Carr, Cornelia, Harriet Hosmer, Letters and Memories (London, 1913), p. 155.Google Scholar
22 Kenyon, op. cit., ii, 302.
23 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 210.
24 Kenyon, op. cit., ii, 267.
25 Fitch, Henry, op. cit.Google Scholar
26 Kenyon, op. cit., ii, 303.
27 Ibid., ii, 309–310.
28 Announced in the Athenœum for March 17, 1860, as published This day.
29 Kenyon, op. cit., ii, 276.
30 See Armstrong, op. cit., p. 26.
31 Kenyon, op. cit., ii, 420.
32 The poem was unsigned, but was, according to the Index, written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
33 Also from May to September, 1860, but the context of the letter does not fit this later period.
34 Op. cit., p. 217. Cp. also Kenyon, op. cit., ii, 319 and 320, for details which dovetail into Browning's account.
35 Fitch, Henry, op. cit.Google Scholar
36 Griffin and Minchin, op. cit., p. 225.
37 Fitch, Henry, op. cit.Google Scholar
38 Armstrong, op. cit., p. 114.
39 Ibid., p. 152.
40 See Oxford University Almanack and Register for the Year 1868.
41 But see Letters of Robert Browning, p. 352, note 66: 2–1. Here Mr. Hood says that Pen matriculated at Christ Church January 15, 1869.
42 Later Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley, 1864–1876, ed. by The Dean of Windsor and Hector Bolitho (London, 1929), p. 77.
43 The question mark should be removed from the year date of the eighty-sixth letter.
44 See discussion of the eighty-fourth letter.
45 Armstrong, op. cit., pp. 163–165.
46 Letter one hundred and twelve (p. 194) is given the year date [c. 1871]. The c. should be removed.