SD2983. Diary Entry of William Allingham
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 387–388.
[London]
26 May [1868]
Lunch at Browning’s. Talk runs chiefly on his forthcoming new Poem in many thousand lines. He takes me into his study, and shows me the original Book, a small brown quarto, printed account of the trial of Count Guido, with some original MS. letters, stitched in at the end pleading for his respite. B. bought it off a stall in Florence for a few pence. He has told the story over and over again to various friends; offered it to A. Trollope to turn into a novel, but T. couldn’t manage it; then R.B. thought, ‘why not take it myself?’
‘I began it in rhymed couplets, like Laurence Bloomfield, but thought by and by I might as well have my fling, and so turned to blank verse.’
At luncheon he went over the headings of the chapters or books into which this very long Poem is divided. ‘And now! can you advise me? I’m puzzled about how to publish it. I want people not to turn to the end, but to read through in proper order. Magazine, you’ll say: but no, I don’t like the notion of being sandwiched between Politics and Deer-Stalking, say. I think of bringing it out in four monthly volumes, giving people time to read and digest it, part by part, but not to forget what has gone before.’
Text: William Allingham, A Diary, ed. H. Allingham & D. Radford (London, 1908), pp. 180–181.
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