5432. RB to Messrs. Ticknor & Fields

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 101.

London. 19. Warwick Crescent

Upper Westbourne Terrace.

[Postmark: 1 August 1864]

Gentlemen,

I beg to return my best thanks for the Bill of Exchange just received. I fear you have been put to a heavy expence in procuring it, and that my “Dramatis Personæ,” of which it is the purchase-money, will hardly reïmburse you. [1] May things be better in America when I next have anything to sell and you to buy—and this on account of far higher interests than mine or even yours!

Pray believe me, Gentlemen,

Yours very sincerely

Robert Browning.

Messrs Ticknor & Fields.

Address: Messrs Ticknor and Fields, / 135. Washington Street, / Boston. / U.S. America.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Harvard University.

1. The “Bill of Exchange” was for Dramatis Personæ and the three poems published in The Atlantic Monthly, the sum agreed upon being £150 (see letter 5345). However, according to Byran Waller Procter, RB received £153 (see SD2724).

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