1572. EBB to Edward Moxon
As publishedin The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 263.
50 Wimpole Street
March 20. 1844
Miss Barrett presents her compliments to Mr. Moxon, & also her best thanks for his courtesy in the gift of a copy of his late edition of Leigh Hunt’s Poems. [1]
She encloses enough m∙s. to begin the printing, in the case of her own work; understanding from Mr Kenyon that Mr Moxon is ready to begin it. Mr Kenyon’s mediating kindness has probably made everything clear otherwise,—especially on the points of her preference of the “Palm Leaves’” types [2] —and of the need for two revises, .. one, for the American edition,—which, if issued, as intended, in numbers of the “Home Library” at New York, shd a little precede the English one. [3] She will be glad to take Mr Moxon’s advice as to the size of this last. Would he advise a thousand copies?
Miss Barrett cannot close her note without thanking Mr Moxon for lending his name to the precarious fortunes of her poetry.
The ‘Masque of Exile’ consists of some eighteen hundred lines & upwards– The ‘Vision of Poets’ is within that length; & other poems of various lengths (some of them ballads) will complete the collection. Perhaps it wd be well to say on the title page, simply, ‘Poems’. But this remains for consideration.
Address: Edward Moxon Esqr
Publication: BC, 8, 263 (in part).
Manuscript: The Karpeles Manuscript Library.
1. A copy of Hunt’s Poetical Works (1844), with EBB’s annotations, formed lot 777 of Browning Collections; it is now at ABL (see Reconstruction, A1272).
2. EBB now cites Monckton Milnes’s recent publication in place of Tennyson’s poems, proposed as example in the previous letter. A copy of Palm Leaves formed part of lot 919 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1605).
3. The Home Library was projected by its editor, Evert A. Duyckinck, to include prose and verse by American and English writers, but only one number was published, although “A new volume of Poems” by EBB was announced. The principal poem, “A Drama of Exile,” was printed in two parts in the July and August numbers of The United States Magazine, and Democratic Review, prior to the appearance of the full American edition in October.
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