4419. RB to Edward Chapman
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 172–173.
Florence,
June 3. ’59.
Dear Chapman,
I see by your advertisements [1] that you have duly received my last letter, [2] & that I need only wish us all success with the new edition. [3]
The special purpose of this present writing is to beg you to present to Mr Page, our particular friend the whole of my wife’s works & mine [4] —he ought to have been presented with them long ago, but distance hindered us. Will you show him the Portrait which he painted? [5] And will you further render him any service that may be in your power? You will confer a real obligation on my wife & myself: he is a noble man, beside his genius—& I wish with all my heart he may be appreciated and assisted in England.
We are intensely interested in the events here: believe me, who know what I say, that the Turin correspondent of the “Times” writing, or pretending to write from Florence the other day, is the poorest of the devil’s creatures. [6] Tuscany is England to me just now, & not one patch of your ground that is overcrawled by a Derbyite. Ever yours faithfully
Robert Browning.
Please send “Aurora Leigh” to William and also to Dante Rossetti [7] —you have their addresses.
Pray send, as I begged the Athenæum here and no longer to Rome[.]
Publication: Gary Scharnhorst, “An Uncollected Letter from Robert Browning to Edward Chapman,” Studies in Browning and His Circle, 9 (Spring 1981), 85–86 (in part).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Chapman and Hall’s advertisements for the fourth edition of Aurora Leigh began appearing in late February 1859, though there had been one published in October 1858 (see letter 4255, note 2). More recently, it was advertised as ready “next week” in The Athenæum of 21 May 1859: “Aurora Leigh: A Poem. / By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. / With Portrait. Fourth and Cheaper Edition” (no. 1647, p. 667).
2. This letter has not surfaced.
3. Aurora Leigh (4th ed., rev., 1859) was published on 1 June 1859, as indicated by Chapman and Hall’s advertisement in The Publishers’ Circular of that day (p. 266).
4. The whereabouts of these volumes is unknown.
5. Evidently, after Page’s portrait of RB (see letter 3420, note 9) was rejected for exhibition by the Royal Academy in 1856, the Brownings asked Edward Chapman to store it at his office until their return to London.
7. The whereabouts of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s presentation copy is unknown. His brother’s copy, now at ABL, is inscribed by him: “W.M. Rossetti From the Authoress.”
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