3646. RB to James Thomas Fields
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 292–293.
London,
October 3. ’55.
Dear Mr Fields,
I happened to be at Mr Chapman’s two days ago, when your note of the 17. Ulto reached him. You will have received, I hope, shortly after that date, my own letter, dispatched hence on the 7. Ulto—wherein, while accepting with due thanks your offer (made last year) of £30 “for my new volume,” I put it to your justice to consider my two volumes (of rather a goodly size for bran-new verse) as worth £60. [1] I shall not wait for your reply to so moderate a request, but at once supply you with the information you desire. The Title is simply “Men and Women. By Rt Bg”—and the time of publication,—at the end of this, or the beginning of next month. I send as many sheets of Vol. I. as are “worked”—the remainder and the Second Volume, shall be forwarded almost immediately, the whole being in Type. Vol. 1. extends to p.p. 260. Good luck to us both! I shall be glad to know how you entertain the other proposition in my letter, relating to a new edition, greatly augmented and corrected, of “Sordello” and “Strafford” for a year’s circulation in the U.S. only. “Sordello” has long been withdrawn from the booksellers here, and is in demand at present:—“Strafford,[”] out of print still longer. I should like to pay such a compliment to my American Readers, whose sympathy I duly value. Your letter will probably give me your opinion of such an undertaking.
Will you have the goodness to address to me “care of Robert Lytton Esq. À la Légation Britannique, Paris”—as I proceed thither in about a week and shall pass the winter there. You will be pleased to know that my wife is very well: she begs that her kind remembrances may accompany those of
Yours very sincerely ever
Robert Browning.
Thursday Mg Oct 4 / I send off the whole of Vol 1: the 2d to follow as soon as possible.
Publication: Ian Jack, “Browning on Sordello and Men and Women,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 45 (Summer 1982), 188–189.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. Fields’s acceptance of these terms was sent in letter 3635, which RB acknowledges in letter 3651.
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