3802. RB to Charles Stephen Francis
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 246–247.
Paris,
June 18. ’56.
Dear Sir,
Pray accept my sincere apologies for the delay in answering your obliging letter to my wife, dated Feby 19. By some blunder it only reached us a week ago in a packet of books. You were already apprised, however, by Mr Fields that we accepted the offer made in a note to that Gentleman & transmitted by him to us, of £75 for a poem of 8000 lines, subject to certain conditions of delivery. In the present letter you repeat the assurance of kind & liberal wishes & intentions in our behalf: be assured that, on our part, no endeavour shall be spared to keep up this good relation—on the strength of which I venture to make one statement, & so leave it entirely to your friendly consideration. Without any reference to past publications, we consider the sum you are willing to give for the poem of 8000 lines handsome, and thank you accordingly. But six months more of hard work have added considerably above 2000 lines to the rest. I believe I might roughly say, 2500: the poem is worth so much more by that. It is not for me to speak of the interest of the poem—but you will find it a sort of novel in verse, narrative, & (presumably) “taking”: at least, our shrewd London Publisher augurs very favorably of its success on that ground; and certainly in America where the public has always been eminently generous & indulgent to my wife’s former poems, the present may look for no worse reception. Under these circumstances I shall simply put it to you whether you would not be justified in “rounding” the 75 to £100. [1] I will not present the Bill for £25, [2] you enclose, till your reply arrives. We mean to throw into the bargain also the greatly corrected proofs of the new edition of E.B.B’s Poems now passing thro’ the press,—the first she has had the opportunity of supervising, thro’ our residence abroad. In particular, “Casa Guidi Windows” will be found materially improved. The three volumes shall be in your hands a month before they appear in London. [3] As for the proofs of the new Poem, they shall be forwarded thro’ your agent as early as possible, on the strict condition that no portion nor extract of them (nor criticism upon them) appear in Reviews or Magasines [sic] previous to the publication in England. On this point, Mr Chapman is imperative. The whole shall be in your hands long before he brings it out. We go to London in a few days in order to begin printing, and are to be addressed at 39 Devonshire Place, Regent’s Park.
Pray believe me,
Dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
Robert Browning.
C. S. Francis Esq.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. As indicated by EBB in a letter to Henrietta ([4 August 1856], ms at Camellia), Francis accepted the larger figure.
2. The first of three instalments. RB received the second (£50) on 15 December 1856 (see his acknowledgment of receipt to Francis on that date, ms at Yale; see also Reconstruction, E561). The third instalment (£25) was acknowledged by RB in a letter to Francis’s agent, Edward Law, on 1 September 1857 (ms at ABL).
3. Francis had no intention of publishing an American edition of EBB’s Poems (1856). He continued to issue reprints of the American edition of Poems (1844) as The Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “corrected by the last London ed.”
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