5379. RB to George Stovin Venables
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 55–56.
19 Warwick Crescent,
Upper Wesbourne Terrace,
May 11. ’64.
My dear Venables, [1]
With this you get, I hope, the proofs of my new book, [2] to be published on Monday the 23d [3] I know you will like them if you can: they are the last things of the sort I shall do, for some time at least—my next venture being in another direction.
Ever yours truly
Robert Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: National Library of Wales.
1. George Stovin Venables (1810–88), barrister and journalist, was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1863. He was long associated with The Saturday Review, for which in 1855 “he wrote the leading article in the first issue … and continued to make regular weekly contributions … for more than thirty years” (ODNB). He is listed in RB’s address book of this period (AB-5) at “2 Mitre Court Buildings, Temple.”
2. Dramatis Personæ. Considering Venables’s connection with The Saturday Review, it is probable that he wrote the notice of Dramatis Personæ in the issue of 18 June 1864 (pp. 753–754). For the full text of this review, see pp. 340–343.
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