Add MS 43487

GEORGE SMITH MEMORIAL BEQUEST. Vol. XIV. ''Sonnets from the Portuguese'' (here simply headed ''Sonnet I'' II, etc.), and seven other poems (see below), by Elizabeth Barrett afterwards Barrett Browning: autograph, with

corrections, particularly to the later sonnets and the other poems. The text of the sonnets (ff. 3-50) differs in many small particulars from that of the first printed edition (E. B. Browning, Poems, 1850, vol. ii); ''Future and Past'', there (i, p. 362) printed apart from the series and later included as Sonnet XLII, here appears as Sonnet XVII. The other poems in the MS. were, with one exception, first printed, with alterations of text and, in two cases, of title, in Poems, 1850, or Poems, 1856. They are:-(a) ''A Denial'' (1856). f. 58;-

(b) ''Life and Love'' (1850). f. 61;-(c) ''Verses'' (''Inclusions'', 1850). f. 62;-

(d) ''A Ring'', first printed in Times Lit. Supp., 21 June 1947, p. 316. f. 63;-

(e) ''Only'' (''Insufficiency'', 1850). f. 64;-(f) ''Proof and Disproof'' (1856). f. 65;-(9) ''Question and Answer'' (1856). f. 69. The spurious ''Reading edition'' of 1847 was first exposed by J. Carter and G. Pollard, An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets, 1934, pp. 26-27. The present MS. appears to have been written, at least for the most part, in 1846; at the end, below the text of Sonnet XLIV, is written ''50 Wimpole Street, 1846, Sept.'', and below this is added, in ink of a different colour, ''Married-September 12th, 1846''. Two other autograph MSS. of the Sonnets are in existence, and appeared as lots 152 and 153 in the Browning sale, Sotheby''s, 2 May 1913; the former is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, the latter in the private library of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. (see MS. Facs. 328). For a critical edition, giving the variants of all three MSS., see Sonnets from the Portuguese, edited by Fannie Ratchford, New York, 1950, where the present MS. is denoted B. For a full description of the present MS. see Times Lit. Supp., loc. cit. The autograph MS. of ''Future and Past'' (Sonnet XLII), described by T. J. Wise, The Ashley Library, i, 1922, p. 98, and elsewhere, is now in the British Museum as Ashley MS. A. 223. Sonnet XIX in the present MS. is reproduced in Poetical Works of E. B. Browning, 1897, and Sonnet XLIII in Fannie Ratchford, op. cit., frontispiece. Paper; ff. ii+ 89 (ff. 24, 37, 41, 48, 68 stubs; ff. 2, 51-57, 70-89, blank). Octavo. Circ. A.D. 1846. Owned until his death 1889) by Robert Browning. Given by his son, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, to Mrs George Murray Smith in 1898 (his letter to her husband, announcing his intention of making the gift, is at f. 1; a presentation inscription is on f. 1). Bound in half roan, with marbled sides.

Poetry ENGLISH: Mrs E. B. Browning, ''Sonnets from the Portuguese'', etc.: circ. 1846.: Autogr.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet: ''Sonnets from the Portuguese'', etc.: circ. 1846.: Autogr.

includes:

• f. i Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, son of Robert Browning, poet: Letter to G. M. Smith: 1898.
• f. 1 Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, son of Robert Browning, poet: Presentation inscription by: 1898.