1481. EBB to John Kenyon

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 127.

[London]

[?January 1844] [1]

Offered for sale by Maggs, Catalogue 188 (1902), item 122. 1¼ pp., 12mo., signed “E. B. Barrett.” Referring to her borrowing some books. “I am taking very daring advantage of your kindness dear Mr Kenyon but if you think so too, I shall be very much obliged to you for only half the books I have mentioned and with good reason. After all I do not distinctly understand whether the departure to-morrow is or is not for the whole three months, if it should be, and I do not see you again, do take with you our wishes that you may have every kind of enjoyment from this excursion which the absence of town and the presence of the country can separately produce.”

1. Although Kenyon frequently lent books to EBB, she seemed to borrow them with greater frequency and urgency while collaborating with R.H. Horne on A New Spirit of the Age. The tone of this letter suggests that she had already borrowed a number of books for that purpose, hence a conjectural dating about midway through that collaboration.

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