Correspondence

4843.  RB to Thomas Buchanan Read

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 12–13.

126 Felice,

Monday Eg [ca. March] [1861] [1]

My dear Read,

Thank you heartily for your invitation for to-morrow—I cannot accept it, however, being engaged. I do hope I shall be able to see you in the course of the week [2] —you know what untoward circumstances have kept me so long from that pleasure. I was emboldened to introduce myself to Mrs Read [3] on the strength of our old acquaintance.

My wife’s kind regards go with those of

Yours very truly

Robert Browning.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Mrs. Joseph Ashby Burton.

1. Approximate dating based on the Brownings’ return address (they resided at 126 Via Felice from November 1860 to June 1861) and on the Reads’ presence in Rome (see note 2 below).

2. Read and his wife were in Rome from January to November 1861 (see I.C. Keller, “Thomas Buchanan Read,” Pennsylvania History, 6, July 1939, 143–144). Read is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-4) at 34 Via Gregoriana.

3. Read’s second wife, Harriet Denison (née Butler, 1837–1935), was a daughter of Edward Butler (1797–1849), of Germantown, Philadelphia, and his wife, Caroline (née Hyde, 1804–92). The Reads married in Brooklyn on 8 July 1856.

___________________