6039. Frederick Wedmore to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 305–306.
Hamilton Villa.
Weston-super-Mare.
11th April. ’68.
My Dear Mr Browning.
Thank you for your very kind note, of two or three weeks ago. [1] I am better, thanks, and hope my health will not much longer keep me out of London.
The one-volume story, [2] which, some time since, I told you I was writing, is about to be published, and if you are not averse to dedications and can trust this story to be, in its intention, as good as I can make it (however bad & poor it is in execution) I should be very glad to be allowed to dedicate it to you, [3] —first, and chiefly, because I think I owe so very much to your writings. Also, I cannot fail to be conscious that your name on the dedication-page would draw to the book the attention of some at least of those who do not form part of “a Braddon-loving public”: and, without wishing to use your name unwarrantably, I shd not unnaturally be glad to avail myself of anything that would lift my story out of the mass of sensation novels.
This may really influence me less than I think it does: indeed it was not what I first thought of—but I have fancied it only right to mention it frankly.
I should like to know, during this coming week, if possible, what you would say to the dedication; and if there are any reasons—& there may be many—against it which I may not have considered, I have but to be told that they exist for me to give up most willingly the desire I have expressed, And I am, Dear Mr Browning,
Now and Ever, truly Yours
Frederick Wedmore.
Address: Robert Browning, Esq. / 19 Warwick Crescent, / Upper Westbourne Terrace, / London / W.
Publication: BBIS-8, p. 38.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This “note” from RB has not surfaced.
2. The Two Lives of Wilfrid Harris, published by T. Cauley Newby, was advertised as “just ready” in The Athenæum of 23 May 1868 (no. 2117, p. 716). RB’s copy, presumably sent to him by Wedmore, sold as part of lot 399 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction A2435).
3. RB had no objection. The dedication reads: “To / Robert Browning: / with / Love and Honour. / London, May, 1868.”
___________________
