Correspondence

3280.  EBB to Emelyn Story

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 327.

[Florence]

[31 October 1853] [1]

Dearest Emelyn

I wrote to Miss Blagden today about the Pantaleoni apartment– Thank you twenty times– Wish for me, will for me, mesmerize for me, that I may indeed go to bed early tonight. For Mr Wood [2] is here talking down art in Italy!

Your affectionate EBB–

Publication: BAF, pp. 22–23.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dated by EBB’s reference to letter 3279.

2. Marshall Wood (1835–82), sculptor, was the son of Hamilton Wood, of Manchester, and his wife Sarah Anne (née Bennett). Between 1854 and 1875, he exhibited twenty-four works at the Royal Academy (see Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work … 1769–1904 (1906, 8, 339). During his stay in Florence, Wood executed medallion portraits of the Brownings (see letter 3286, note 17). He was the younger brother of Shakspere Wood (1827–86), also a sculptor.

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