6049. Lord Lytton (1803–73) to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 312.

12 Grosvenor Sq

May 8. 1868

Dear Browning

Will you give me the pleasure of your Company at dinner here Saturday 16th May ¼ to 8 [1]

Yrs Lytton [2]

[Written across the top of the page in RB’s hand] 66, Grosvenor Street, Lady Carnarvon– Same eg. [3]

Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 228–229.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. The Morning Post of 19 May 1868 listed the dinner guests: “Lord Lytton entertained at dinner, at his house in Grosvenor-square, the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Malmesbury, Earl and Countess of Hardwicke, Lord and Lady John Manners, Lord and Lady Sherburne, the Hon. Mrs. Wingfield, the Right Hon. Sir H. Bulwer, Sir Lawrence and Lady Palk, Mr. Tomline, M.P., Mr. G. [sic, for J.] A. Froude, and Mr. Robert Browning, on Saturday last” (p. 5).

2. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73) was made 1st Baron Lytton in July 1866 by Prime Minister Lord Derby.

3. RB refers to Evelyn Herbert (née Stanhope, 1837–75), only daughter of the 6th Earl of Chesterfield. She married Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert (1831–90), 4th Earl of Carnarvon, on 5 September 1861. The Carnarvons hosted a dinner party on the 16th at their Grosvenor Street residence. “After dinner her ladyship had a reception, which was numerously attended” (The Morning Post, 18 May 1868, p. 5). Presumably, RB dropped in for the reception, following the Lytton dinner.

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