Complete works of Robert Browning 13: with variant Readings and Annotations (Complete Works Robert Browning)

419 Pages·1995·44.45 MB·English

by  Robert Browning

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING, VOLUME XI11
Portrait of Robert Browning (c. 1875) by Robert Barrett Browning. By
courtesy of the Armstrong Browning Library.
'Unrinnt '&dings Jnnotntionr
Volume XI11
EDITED BY
ASHBY BLAND CROWDER
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS, OHIO
BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
WACO, TEXAS
1995
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING
EDITORIAL BOARD
ALLAN c. DOOLEY, Executive Editor
JACK w. HERRING, General Editor
PAR K H o N A N , Founding Editor
ROMA A. KING, JR., Founding Editor
JOHN C. BERKEY
DANIEL BERARDINELLI
MICHAEL BRIGHT
ASHBY BLAND CROWDER
SUSAN CROWL
SUSAN E. DOOLEY
DAVID EWBANK
RITA S. HUMPHREY
CRAIG TURNER
PAUL TURNER
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
1995 by Ohio University Press and Baylor University
Q
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved
99 98 97 96 95 5 4 3 2 1
Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper
OQ
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
(Revised for vol. 13)
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889.
The complete works of Robert Browning, with variant
readings & annotations. Editorial board.
Vol. 7- : general editor, Jack W.Herring.
Vol. 8 has imprint: Waco, Tex. : Baylor University;
Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press; v. 9, 13: Athens,
Ohio : Ohio University Press ; Waco, Tex. : Baylor
University Press.
Vol. 13 edited by Ashby Bland Crowder.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
I. King, Roma A. (Roma Alvah), 1914- ed.
11. Herring, Jack W., 1925- . 111. Crowder, A. B.
IV. Title.
PR4201.K5 1969 821’.8 68-18389
ISBN 0-8214-11 1 1-X (v. 13)
CONTENTS
Page Number
PREFACE vii
TABLES xx1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxv
THE INN ALBUM 3
Section I
7
Section I1
24
Section I11
49
Section
IV 62
Section V
90
Section VI
104
Section VII
113
Section VIII
127
PACCHIAROTTO AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER: WITH
OTHER POEMS 131
Prologue 135
Of Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper 137
At the “Mermaid” 166
House 172
Shop 174
Pisgah-Sights I 180
Pisgah-Sights I1 182
Fears and Scruples 184
Natural Magic 187
Magical Nature 188
Bifurcation 189
Numpholeptos 191
Appearances 198
St. Marun’s Summer 199
HervC Riel 205
A Forgiveness 214
Cenciaja 230
Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial 242
Epilogue 263
EDITORIAL NOTES
The Inn Album 273
Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper: with Other Poems 317
PREFACE
1 CONTENTS
This edition of the works of Robert Browning is intended to be
complete. It will comprise at least seventeen volumes and will contain:
1. The entire contents of the first editions of Browning’s works,
arranged in their chronological order of publication. (The poems in-
cluded in Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, and Men
and Women, for example, appear in the order of their first publication
rather than in the order in which Browning rearranged them for later
publication.)
2. All prefaces and dedications which Browning is known to have
written for his own works and for those of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
3. The two prose essays that Browning is known to have pub-
lished: the review of a book on Tasso, generally referred to as the “Essay
on Chatterton,” and the preface for a collection of letters supposed to
have been written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, generally referred to as the
“Essay on Shelley.”
4. The front matter and the table of contents of each of the col-
lected editions (1849, 1863, 1865, 1868 [70,75], 1888-1889)w hich Brown-
ing himself saw through the press.
5. Poems published during Browning’s lifetime but not collected
by him.
6. Poems not published during Browning’s lifetime which have
come to light since his death.
7. John Forster’s Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, to which
Browning contributed significantly, though the precise extent of his
contribution has not been determined.
8. Variants appearing in primary and secondary materials as de-
fined in Section I1 below.
9. Textual emendations.
10. Informational and explanatory notes for each work.
11 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY MATERIALS
Aside from a handful of uncollected short works, all of Browning’s
works but Asolando (1889) went through two or more editions during
vii
his lifetime. Except for Pauline (1833), Strafford (1837), and Sordello
(1840), all the works published before 1849 were revised and corrected
for the 1849 collection. Strafford and Sordello were revised and cor-
rected for the collection of 1863, as were all the other works in that edi-
tion. Though no further poems were added in the collection of 1865, all
the works were once again corrected and revised. The 1868 collection
added a revised Pauline and Dramatis Personae (1864) to the other
works, which were themselves again revised and corrected. A new edi-
tion of this collection in 1870 contained further revisions, and Brown-
ing corrected his text again for an 1875 reimpression. The printing of
the last edition of the Poetical Works over which Browning exercised
control began in 1888, and the first eight volumes are dated thus on
their title-pages. Volumes 9 through 16 of this first impression are dated
1889, and we have designated them 1889a to distinguish them from the
second impression of all 16 volumes, which was begun and completed
in 1889. Some of the earlier volumes of the first impression sold out al-
most immediately, and in preparation for a second impression, Brown-
ing revised and corrected the first ten volumes before he left for Italy in
late August, 1889. The second impression, in which all sixteen volumes
bear the date 1889 on their title-pages, consisted of a revised and cor-
rected second impression of volumes 1-10, plus a second impression of
volumes 11-16 altered by Browning in one instance. This impression
we term 1889 (see section I11 below).
Existing manuscripts and editions are classified as either primary
or secondary material. The primary materials include the following:
1. The manuscript of a work when such is known to exist.
2. Proof sheets, when known to exist, that contain authorial cor-
rections and revisions.
3. The first and subsequent editions of a work that preserve evi-
dence of Browning’s intentions and were under his control.
4. The collected editions over which Browning exercised control:
1849-Poems. Two Volumes. London: Chapman and Hall.
1863- The Poetical Works. Three Volumes. London: Chapman
and Hall.
1865- The Poetical Works. Three Volumes. London: Chapman
and Hall.
1868-The Poetical Works. Six Volumes. London: Smith, Elder
and Company.
1870-The Poetical Works. Six Volumes. London: Smith, Elder
and Company. This resetting constituted a new edition,
which was stereotyped and reimpressed several times; the
1875 impression contains revisions by Browning.
1888-1889-The Poetical Works. Sixteen Volumes. London: Smith,
Vlll
Elder and Company. Exists in numerous stereotype impres-
sions, of which two are primary material:
1888-1 889a-The first impression, in which volumes 1-8 are
dated 1888 and volumes 9-16 are dated 1889.
1889-The corrected second impression of volumes 1- 10 and
a second impression of volumes 11-16 altered by Browning
only as stated in section I11 below; all dated 1889 on the title
pages.
5. The corrections in Browning’s hand in the Dykes Campbell
copy of 1888-1889a, and the manuscript list of corrections to that im-
pression in the Brown University Library (see section below).
I11
Other materials (including some in the poet’s handwriting) that
affected the text are secondary. Examples are: the copy of the first edi-
tion of PauZine which contains annotations by Browning and John
Stuart Mill; the copies of the first edition of Paracelsus which contain
corrections in Browning’s hand; a very early manuscript of A Blot in
the ’Scutcheon which Browning presented to William Macready, but
not the one from which the first edition was printed; informal lists of
corrections that Browning included in letters to friends, such as the
corrections to Men and Women he sent to D. G. Rossetti; verbal and
punctua tional changes Browning essayed in presentation copies of his
works or in his own copies, if not used by his printers; Elizabeth Bar-
rett’s suggestions for revisions in A Soul’s Tragedy and certain poems
in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics; and the edition of Strafford by Em-
ily Hickey for which Browning made suggestions.
The text and variant readings of this edition derive from collation
of primary materials as defined above. Secondary materials are occa-
sionally discussed in the notes and sometimes play a part when emen-
dation is required.
111 COPY-TEXT
The copy-text for this edition is Browning’s final text: the first ten
volumes of 1889 and the last six volumes of 1888-1889a, as described
above. For this choice we offer the following explanation.
Manuscripts used as printer’s copy for twenty of Browning’s thirty-
four book publications are known to exist; others may yet become
available. These manuscripts, or, in their absence, the first editions of
the works, might be considered as the most desirable copy-text. And
this would be the case for an author who exercised little control over
his text after the manuscript or first edition stage, or whose text clearly
became corrupted in a succession of editions. To preserve the intention
ix