4227. RB to Edward Chapman
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 201–202.
Le Hâvre, Maison Versigny,
Rue du Perrey 2.
Aug. 8. [1858] [1]
My dear Chapman,
Thank you for your prompt answer & the account: we agree with you that the next edition of “Aurora Leigh” ought to be much cheaper [2] —& how that may happen, we leave to your judgment: my wife, you know, has a weakness for cheap little books—not so I, who offered the public certain yellow six pennyworths [3] —which they used to look at like so many papers of jalap, once on a time! To be sure, they incline to the actual boluses no more than to the original pills.
My particular object in writing is to tell you that if you will be good enough to put those same “odds & ends, books and notes waiting me” into one parcel and forward them to Miss Barrett, 7. Delamere Terrace, Harrow Road—that lady will bring them to us immediately, as she is going to leave London for Hâvre next Thursday or Friday—so your kindness, to be efficacious, must be energetic—and if I lose this opportunity, another may not occur.
The weather here is capital—my wife’s health restored beyond my expectations: we are in a hideous angle, but the sea makes itself decidedly felt: it was right to take the journey. Why don’t you go (or come) sea-faring this way? My boy bathes like a duck.
Good bye. My wife’s kind regards go with mine. What odd poem is that you have just published, of Bailey’s? [4]
Yours ever faithfully,
Robert Browning–
Publication: NL, p. 108.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Year provided by the return address; 1858 was the only year the Brownings stayed in Le Havre.
2. The fourth edition of Aurora Leigh, published 11 June 1859, sold for seven shillings. The previous editions sold for twelve, which EBB considered “far too much” (letter 3925).
3. The first number of Bells and Pomegranates, Pippa Passes (1841), sold for sixpence; the next five, one shilling; No. VII, two shillings; and the last, No. VIII, Luria and A Soul’s Tragedy, two shillings, sixpence.
4. The Age; A Colloquial Satire by Philip James Bailey was issued by Chapman and Hall on 20 July 1858. A negative review in The Athenæum of 31 July 1858 contained the following: “This poem is an instance of a triple-headed fault:—of a grave man trying to be funny; of a blank-verse writer attempting bellman’s rhymes … of a poetical man trying to reason about politics” (no. 1605, p. 136).
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