3766. RB to Edward Chapman
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 184–186.
Paris, 3 Rue du Colisée.
April 21. ’56.
My dear Chapman,
We are very glad that another edition of EBB’s Poems is wanted, [1] & have turned over the various matters in our minds which you desire us to consider. We think it will be best to include “Casa Guidi” as you suggest. My wife has various poems written in Italy amounting to some thousand lines. They are in the natural advance (I believe) of whatever she writes now as compared with her early works: and it was her intention to make them the nucleus of a new volume that should succeed the novel in verse she is about to publish. But that novel will be a serious affair, and quite enough to occupy the public mind, or the bit of it which it bends on such trifles as poems, for a year at least—so that, say she publishes the novel next November—there would be eighteen months & over for the new volume to bear in quietness. Now, suppose we print these novelties in the third volume of the new edition, after Casa Guidi, as novelties—don’t you fancy it would start the thing advantageously,—almost as a new work, indeed? [2] Could not you so represent the case as to get a handsome lot disposed of by the trade-subscription? Otherwise, the poems would be rather thrown away, for they ought to be attended to as new, and particularly new. The three-volume form would seem to be far better than any addition to the present size of the books,—though, from our being abroad, the contents were unequally distributed, and Vol. 1st has so many pages short of Vol. 2d that I verily believe “Casa Guidi” would cram in there [3] —were it advisable, which it is not, I am inclined to hold with you. As for the price, your own judgment must guide you there: we have a certain hankering after low prices, certainly. [4] My wife has a notion that there is a way, and an advantage attending it, of publishing such poems as hers volume by volume, so as to allow people to buy by degrees; they used to print Wordsworth so, she thinks. [5] What do you say to that?
I will tell you all I can about the “Novel,” so that you may consider these arrangements with reference to its publication. It will be in eight books, of about 1200 lines each—say altogether, between nine & ten thousand lines,—not more nor less. [6] Six of these I have read, the seventh is done, & the eighth doing. We shall hope to arrive in London all right & ready on June 16th and if you concert with Bradbury [7] beforehand, we can begin printing at once and get done as expeditiously as possible, though we must take all proper pains. My wife prefers it to go in one volume, if it can be managed. For the new edition, we can begin directly if you please, and get done before setting about the other. You have only to—1st send us at once a copy of E.B.B.’s Poems [8] & Casa Guidi. We will correct it throughout, and make a more equal distribution of the contents,—2dly to engage Bradbury to print away with as much expedition as possible, letting us have good batches of proofs at a time—which, I believe, I can make an arrangement with my uncle [9] to forward here,—for we must see the proofs. We will get rid of our part of the business duly and promptly, so that by the time the present edition is exhausted you can thrust a portentous Fourth into the purchaser’s hand,—3dly you have to be so good as to tell us your mind on all this as soon as is convenient. I will write by this post to my uncle to know how far he can assist us in relieving us from the charges of carriage; but at the worst there is the book-post and the opportunities of friends’ going & coming.
As to my own Poems [10] —they must be left to Providence and that fine sense of discrimination which I never cease to meditate upon and admire in the public: they cry out for new things and when you furnish them with what they cried for, “it’s so new,” they grunt. The half-dozen people who know and could impose their opinions on the whole stye of grunters say nothing to them (I don’t wonder) and speak so low in my own ear that it’s lost to all intents & purposes. Now, is not Ruskin a layer down of the law in matters of art? Then, see what he says of a poem of mine, printed twelve years ago & more, in this fourth volume [11] —but nobody will snip that round into a neat little paragraph, and head it “Ruskin on Browning,” and stick it among the “News of the Week,” “Topics of the Day,”—as the friendly method is! It’s a shame, ye public,—which wouldn’t so much signify if you had taken the Redan! [12]
I write this witty letter with a gumboil big as my thumb’s top just over my left eye-tooth; it’s conducive to a bland treatment of other people’s stupidities!
Ever yours very sincerely,
Robert Browning.
I meant to apply to my uncle only with respect to the parcels of books—the proofs go for next to nothing, I am told, if described as proofs at the Post office here. How is it with you?
Publication: NL, pp. 91–93.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. The fourth edition of EBB’s Poems was published in three volumes on 1 November 1856.
2. The “novelties,” or “various poems written in Italy,” did not appear in Poems (1856). Presumably, they included “Bianca among the Nightingales” (see letter 3468, note 11), “Amy’s Cruelty,” and “My Heart and I” (see The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. Sandra Donaldson et al., 2010, 5, 37, and 40). All three were collected after EBB’s death in Last Poems (1862); “Amy’s Cruelty” was first published in The Keepsake for 1857. RB may also have in mind EBB’s recent contributions to periodicals: “My Kate” (see letter 3355, note 1) and “A Curse for a Nation” (see letter 3696, note 8).
3. EBB’s Poems (1853), volume 1 is 362 pages; volume 2 is 480 pages.
4. EBB had complained in letter 3216 that the price of her Poems (2 vols., 1850) was “too high” at sixteen shillings; Poems (2 vols., 1853) sold for the same price. Poems (3 vols., 1856) was offered at eighteen shillings.
5. A six-volume edition of Wordsworth’s works was issued by Edward Moxon in six monthly installments beginning on 1 November 1836. See his advertisements in The Athenæum during the month of October 1836 (e.g., 1 October 1836, no. 466, p. 710).
6. Aurora Leigh would grow to nine books and just under 11,000 lines.
7. William Bradbury (1800–69) and Frederick Mullett Evans (1803–70) had been in partnership as printers since 1830. Under the firm name of Bradbury and Evans, they were the printers for Chapman and Hall, as well as several other major publishers.
8. Poems (1853).
9. Reuben Browning.
10. Men and Women (1855).
11. For Ruskin’s praise of RB in Modern Painters, Vol. IV (1856), see letter 3721, note 5.
12. RB refers specifically to the Russian fortification that British troops attempted but failed to take during the final assault on Sebastopol in September 1855.
___________________
