6008. RB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 287–290.
19. Warwick Crescent, W.
Jan: 19. ’68.
Dearest Isa,
I was truly grieved at hearing of all your annoyances and discouragements—I hope whatever you hope,—wish you what best good you can possibly wish for yourself. I rather fancied you might give a letter “in”, so as to let the month, between now and when I shall hear again, go on more comfortably with good news, if you have any to give. I am truly sorry also that you are in difficulties with your book: [1] but,—if there’s any consolation in this,—I don’t see that you have harmed yourself one particle by causing me to interfere with Chapman. For see: when you first bade me speak about the matter, he <had> been keeping you out of your money a long while,—indeed denying that he owed it you: as he returns to that impudent absurdity, (as if he had been paying for Bradbury!) it is clear that he would have stuck to it, and never paid at all,—or at least without giving you infinite trouble: as it was, he paid—a decided advantage: then,—as he spoke precisely the same about your second book [2] as a failure, he would not have undertaken the third at all,—much less have called on you and made that offer, which you accepted, and which seems to me so decidedly an advantage also: I am quite certain you will not misunderstand me, nor fancy I overrate my own importance or underrate yours, when I say—indeed what he as good as says himself in the letters you quote from—that he paid that money as a bribe to me: it cannot be otherwise if he is prepared to publish (and I suppose pay for) your newest book, [3] in spite of its predecessor being “a dead loss”: (how could it well be anything else?[)] He scarcely advertised it at all,—it consequently passed unnoticed, or at all events, with the exception of the article in the “Pall Mall,” [4] I never saw a word anywhere. I conclude that he was determined to spend not a farthing more than what he paid yourself,—and that was just £50 more than he gave me for an edition of my poems in three vols [5] which he was sure to sell in two years. Oh, dear Isa, you don’t think I [6] am the man to judge of the worth of a book by the money it brings!– These very poems, the last year but one that I was in Italy, did not sell—one single copy in six months: [7] and they were really better then than now, for nobody thought of imitating them and making you sick of the originals. I was told by a person, who is quite capable of knowing, that £170 for a novel was fabulously liberal,—if the novel were not given in a Magazine,—or one of the absolute hits: and I know that there needed all the friendly energy (of Mr A. T.) [8] to get the money paid you which was promised,—a very different thing. However you got it,—and that is a good thing surely. Because, tho’ all things considered, I incline to think that Smith & Elder’s more modest offer would perhaps have served your purpose better in a literary point of view,—supposing it was made with the bonâ fide intention of incurring the further expenditure necessary for the success of the book,—still, the difference in the sums is so great, that I cannot call you wrong to prefer the large one, and trust to chance for the next product. As it is, Chapman is by no means all the world, and he can tell nobody any news about the success or failure of books,—that is, nobody whose interest is to be correctly informed: if a book does not sell, Smith & Virtue [9] know it just as well as the publisher,—and generally lay some of the ill luck to the publisher’s charge. I would have you therefore try other houses: why not Smith again? (That Pall Mall notice was proof of his good will.) I regretted when I read “Nora & Archibald Lee” that you did not print it as your second work, which it was: it is an advance, (in my opinion) on the “Cost of a Secret,” and should have followed it up: but you had a notion of the efficacy of keeping your name before the public: now I believe, in ninety cases out of a hundred, a new name is the greater attraction—and that no second work excites the curiosity which helps the first: (such exceptions as George Elliot [sic], Bulwer [10] &c are too rare to be considered)—Witness Miss Braddon inventing “Babington White” as a likelier name to pass off a poor thing than her own. [11] The sum of it all is,—don’t despair because Chapman is not inclined to pay for what he treats so contemptuously: try the whole of the publishers in turn, & be sure that the worst can be no worse than a man who don’t even put your book on his list. The worst of a novel is, that, unless very pretentious indeed, it either “takes” or falls flat,—there is no revival possible,—I daresay I have bored you sadly with all my preaching, but I want you to cheer up and not think you have played your cards so badly after all. I have been writing with a headache, and the interruption of a visit from Baron Tauchnitz fils [12] —to try and persuade me recall my decision, and no longer refuse to let him print some of my works & Ba’s: [13] but I have no ambition to give cheap shillings’ worths to the travelling English. Come let me get into a better order of ideas. Pen is going to Oxford in a few days—I shall be alone again. How my whole soul turns to Italy, words are weak to tell you—how I wish myself there, out of all this ugliness? If I live & do well, it shall be. “Any where, any where out of this black rainy beastly-streeted London world.” [14] I get quite sick of the dining-out—refuse whatever invitations I possibly can. I want my life for myself, what remains enough: do you know I get up,—have got up all this winter, at 5? And even so, I can’t get thro’ my work. I was sorry to hear of Mrs Alexander’s death, [15] —in the certainty it would bring greater sorrow to you & Mr Bracken. [16] I can’t remember .. I must however have certainly told you of the sudden death of poor Mrs Cust [17] my old friend. I hope you told Cottrell what I decided upon for the picture, [18] and that he approved of it,—and is in better health besides. That imbecile story about Miss Ingelow was printed in the American papers, [19] and Pen was asked by the person with whom he has been reading, Mr Ellis, whether it was not true,—to his no little surprise. Now be just, not to say generous, and write me a good long letter—with plenty of news about yourself, for this is my second, to your single letter, observe! It is right to be mean in such matters. I never saw anything fall so flat & dead from the press as Lytton’s new two-volume collection of Poems: [20] it must needs be a perfect loss to Chapman. It seems to come of people being perfectly penetrated with the notion that he is intellectually less honest than he might be: they are now doing him injustice probably: I have not seen the book myself, however. Goodbye, dearest: Sarianna has (in common with all the human race in London) a vile cold,—but sends her kindest love: so does Pen. And I—what love have I to send,—have not I given you all by this time?
Ever affectionately yours,
Robert Browning.
Publication: DI, pp. 287–291.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. As indicated below, Miss Blagden was trying to find a publisher for her latest novel, The Crown of a Life (1869), which was issued by Hurst and Blackett.
2. i.e., the second published by Chapman and Hall, The Woman I Loved, and The Woman Who Loved Me (1865). The first was The Cost of a Secret (1863); and the third, Nora and Archibald Lee (1867).
3. The Crown of a Life.
4. A review of Nora and Archibald Lee appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette of 4 April 1867, pp. 10–11. The Daily News of 18 April 1867 (p. 2) also reviewed the novel.
6. Underscored twice.
7. RB refers to his Poems (1849).
8. Anthony Trollope.
9. James Sprent Virtue (1829–92), printer, publisher, and proprietor of the firm Virtue & Co., which produced The Art-Journal—founded by his father, George Virtue (1794–1868)—and St. Paul’s, founded by the younger Virtue as Saint Pauls in 1867 and edited by Anthony Trollope.
10. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73).
11. Circe (2 vols., 1867) by Babington White, pseudonym of Mary Elizabeth Braddon (see letter 5135, note 30), was published by Ward, Lock & Tyler the previous August.
12. Christian Karl Bernhard von Tauchnitz (1841–1921), later 2nd Baron von Tauchnitz, son of Christian Bernhard Tauchnitz and partner in his father’s publishing firm.
14. Cf. Thomas Hood (1799–1845), “The Bridge of Sighs” (1844), lines 70–71: “Anywhere, anywhere / Out of the world!”
15. Mary Alexander (née Bracken, 1790–1867), Isa’s aunt, died on 13 November 1867 at her London residence, 43 Grosvenor Place.
16. William Bracken (1809–91), youngest sibling of Mary Alexander. He was an executor of her estate.
18. The Botticelli painting of the Holy Family mentioned in letter 5676.
19. In September 1867 the New York Mail reported that Scottish author Peter Bayne (1830–96) had heard “Miss Ingelow is about to be married to Mr. Browning. Miss Ingelow is, by common consent, regarded as our greatest living poetess, and Mr. Browning stands next to Tennyson in general estimation among our poets. His first wife was the greatest poetess that ever used the English language, and, from Mr. Browning’s choice of a second partner, we may conclude that experience has taught him that a great poetess may be a good wife” (reprinted in the Boston Evening Transcript, 27 September 1867, p. 2).
20. Chronicles and Characters (1868).
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