3651. RB to James Thomas Fields
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 303–304.
London,
Oct. 9. ’55.
My dear Mr Fields,
Thank you very cordially for your kind & handsome letter of the 25th Sept. It delights me on all accounts. You will find that, in the confidence that I should receive such a letter, I at once complied with your request to Mr Chapman (Sept. 17th) [1] and despatched the first volume, thro’ your Agents here, on the 3d current. With this you will receive the second volume—I believe, by the Packet that leaves to-morrow—if not, by Saturday’s Mail. The Book was advertised to appear “in October” [2] —but I undertake to postpone publishing till the 10th or as much later in next month as Mr Chapman’s arrangements allow: with a week’s start of this second—for the first volume,—and with this second in your hands,—say by the 22—you will be indisputably a-head of anybody intending to print from the first published copy,—which cannot reach the U.S before the 22 Nov. at earliest. I wish you success with all my heart.
With respect to “Sordello” & “Strafford”—I will thoroughly correct, and considerably augment them,—especially “Sordello”—which I have refrained from looking at, these many years, in order to get a fresh eye for this very purpose—for I know that, however defective it may be in certain points, it is my best performance hitherto: I am not without evidence that the good of it is to be got at even now by the pains-taking,—and I hope & believe that, by myself taking proper pains in turn,—I shall make the good obtainable at a much easier rate. And this labor at end,—by next Spring, perhaps—I propose to give them to you, at your own terms, for a year’s exclusive publication in the U.S. before incorporating them with my poems.– I have some 250 copies of the first edition of Sordello—long since withdrawn from circulation,—which Mr Chapman would fain that I allowed him to advertise and dispose of—but I shall destroy them.
I wish indeed that you could associate my wife’s name with mine in your list of authors: I consider Mr Francis’ case as a very bad one. He may have a legal right to reprint any English book, and a conventional right to find his priority of seizure respected by the other American Publishers: but to prevent any writer from subsequently getting remuneration from a more liberal Bookseller, by making such a declaration as you mention, is surely abominable. I could conceive of his expecting that stereotype-plates, unsold copies &c should be uninterfered with: but to stand between an author and the latter fruits of his life, simply because Mr Francis has had the exclusive enjoyment of the earlier,—who will justify that? Mr Francis has never hitherto, nor up to this moment, given my wife one cent for her books: and I have only a friend’s assurance, [3] —not his own,—that he will pay her, as I told you, £50 for her next poem. I repeat, we both of us earnestly wish that poem, and whatever may follow, in your hands—and it appears that we must content ourselves with wishing. Still Mr Francis may turn Christian, or swell suddenly, breaking into spots—(of which there are instances in ancient authors) [4] —and you will interfere with effect if you can.
My wife sends her kind regards & remembrances. We go to Paris directly—in the event of my giving no other address—or in any case, indeed, I am to be reached “care of Robert Lytton Esq. À la Légation Britannique, Paris.” And thither, as a pleasant beginning of our correspondence, you shall, if you will be so good, send my £60—for which, as well as on other accounts, I remain, My dear Mr Fields,
Yours obligedly and sincerely,
Robert Browning.
Wednesday 10th Oct / I have just time to add—you will receive both vols complete by the Steamer that leaves on Friday 12th Mr Chapman delays publishing here till the 10th Nov: on which day you can publish—not before, he begs. [5] Mr Chapman also desires me to beg you to make the Draft payable to him—as he will give me the amount at once.
Address: James T. Fields Esq. / Boston. U.S.A.
Docket, in recipient’s hand: Robt Browning Recd Octr 26.
Publication: Ian Jack, “Browning on Sordello and Men and Women,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 45 (Summer 1982), 189–191.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. See SD1857.
2. Both The Athenæum (no. 1458, p. 1142) and The Examiner of 6 October 1855 (p. 640) carried this Chapman and Hall advertisement for Men and Women under the heading “New Poems by Robert Browning.”
3. i.e., John Gray’s (see letter 3618, note 6).
4. RB may have in mind a passage from Nathaniel Wanley’s The Wonders of The Little World (1678): “That is wonderful saith Donatus, which was observ’d in a Boy … that if at any time he eat of an Egg, his Lips would swell, in his Face would rise purple and black spots … after the same manner as if he had swallow’d poyson” (Book I, chapter 9, paragraph 23, p. 13).
5. Ticknor and Fields issued the American edition of Men and Women on 8 December 1855 with an 1856 imprint.
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