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Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.
Poems: New Edition. [Sonnets From the Portuguese].
Publisher: Chapman & Hall, London;
Date of Publication: 1850
Stock Code: 11522
Second Edition revised and enlarged, being the First Edition (second state, as usual, with 193 Piccadilly to publishers’ imprint) of “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. Foolscap octavo, pp. [3], vi-xii, 362; [4], vi-viii, 480, bound without half-titles. Near contemporary binding in black quarter roan with 4 raised bands, gilt titles & decoration to spine and light brown pebbled cloth covered boards; marbled endpapers and all edges gilt. Leather rubbed to edges; cover cloth very slightly rippled. A little light foxing, mainly to prelims; tidy gift inscriptions to first blanks Vol I only dated 1880 and to both volumes dated 1949. 2 small archival tape repairs with associated creasing to p. 343/4. A very good set. The first printing of “Sonnets From the Portuguese” the 44 celebrated love poems which Browning (1806-61) wrote for her husband Robert, composed in 1845-6. After the first edition of “Poems” was published in 1844, Robert Browning wrote in admiration to Elizabeth and their subsequent courtship inspired the sonnets, which he insisted she include in the Second Edition of the collected verse. The first state of the title-page is so rare that Barret writes in his bibliography ‘the first state of the book must be extremely rare, for as late as 1963 only three copies were located’ and he postulates that ‘there is no evidence that the book was actually “issued” after its publication in two forms... the title page was reset prior to publication’. Wise states ‘...the Second, but greatly enlarged, Edition of Mrs Browning’s ‘Poems’ is of considerable interest and importance, and its claim to rank as a princeps is fully justified’. Over thirty other of Browning’s poems are published here for the first time, ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ being one of the most treasured collections of love sonnets in the English language. £5000.00