3635. James Thomas Fields to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 275–276.
Boston. U.S.A.
September 25th 1855.
My dear Mr. Browning:
Dot us down your debtor £60 for the two vols & send them just as early as it is possible to do so, that we may have a full months start before our brethren of the trade smell the English copies across the sea. They are keen-scented rascals, our friends in the Craft. Dont let Chapman bring out the English copy till we are in full possession of the Sheets, and have them printed. He might delay till Decr 1st perhaps. However, you will do what is best I am sure, that we may not be interfered with. [1]
Willingly would we (Ticknor & F) pay Mrs. Browning for her poems; but, as I once told you, Francis would print at any rate, and at a cheaper rate, and perhaps set on our other books full chase, & so try to injure us every way. We are a funny set of Christians over the waves.
Touching “Sordello” & “Strafford”, I will another day confer with you. We wish to be your publishers, whatever you may prepare for the press. Please remember this. There are certain names we should feel a deep mortification to see any where else than among our list of worthies, & we mean to be just. I regret, and always have done so, that Mrs. Browning does not belong to us, but when her writings first saw America, I was guiltless of book-publishing and innocent of ink. And now that I am reckoned among Publishers and sinners, [2] it is too late to claim her. This is, and always will be annoying to us.
I shall meet Francis in New York next week & sound him as to his intentions and the £50. If anything I can do or say will nail that amt for Mrs B. count on me fully. I once tried to buy the plates & the right of him to issue Mrs. B’s works, but he groaned and held on.
With kindest regards to Mrs Browning.
Yours always most sincerely
James T. Fields.
Robt Browning Esq. London.
You will please advise me where you will be this winter, that we may send you a draft for the £60 on Baring, Brothers & Co. Bankers, London.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Author’s file copy at Harvard University.
1. Chapman and Hall published Men and Women (2 vols., 1855) in London on 10 November; Ticknor and Fields published the American edition in Boston on 8 December.
2. Cf. Matthew 9:10: “And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.”
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