5763. RB to Frederic Chapman

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 88.

19 Warwick Crescent,

Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.

<June> 11. ’66. [1]

My dear Frederick,

Now that the new Edition is out at last, [2] will you kindly make all the proper calculations, and pay me what is right? I have been called on to help an old friend [3] inconvenienced by the failure of a bank, and should be glad of the money. Pray be as liberal as possible. As for the “Selections,” [4] I suppose you will have to settle with my heir,—I give up hopes of seeing it.

Very truly yours

Robert Browning.

Publication: NL, pp. 170–171 (as 16 [February] 1866, to Edward Chapman).

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.

1. RB’s crest and part of the date have been excised. The month is provided by RB’s reference to “the new Edition” (see note 2 below).

2. EBB’s Poetical Works (7th ed., 5 vols., 1866) was published by Chapman and Hall on June 9th, as advertised in The Athenæum of 9 June 1866 (no. 2015, p. 782).

3. Unidentified.

4. A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning was published on 9 December 1865, according to the Chapman and Hall advertisement in The Athenæum of that date (no. 1989, p. 824). As indicated in letter 5778, RB was wondering when the second edition would appear.

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