The Brownings' Correspondence: Volumes 20-22

The works and lives of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a profound influence on nineteenth-century literature and culture and continue to have a significant and lasting impact on literary and historical studies. Their poetry, published during their lifetimes, received intense scrutiny and much praise from the reading public and literary critics. Upon their deaths, and later with the publication of their love letters in 1899, public and scholarly attention increased. The story of their romantic courtship, marriage, and flight to Italy has been told and retold through books, plays, musicals, films, and television, interest in the poetry of Robert Browning has never waned, and in (he last 30 years the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning have become a primary focus for nineteenth-century feminist studies. Unfortunately, this interest and enthusiasm has been greatly impeded by the fact that a large part of the Browning's correspondence remains virtually inaccessible. Scattered in over 300 public and private collections, their letters represent one of the largest and most comprehensive bodies of literary and social commentary on the nineteenth century. The aim of The Browning's Correspondence is to publish the complete text of all the Browning's letters with meticulous annotations, thereby making them accessible and understandable to a modem audience.

To date 14 volumes, of a projected 40, have been published with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent United States federal agency. Editing of volumes 15 and 16 has been funded in part by the NEH; and an application to (he NEH is pending for funds to assist in underwriting the editing of volumes 17-19. This request to the AHRC to conduct research in order to edit and annotate volumes 20-22 will appreciably decrease the delivery time and increase the accessibility of the overall project, bringing this edition past the halfway mark of completion.

The primary objective of this project, for which funding is being sought, is to conduct research to edit and annotate 527 letters written by or to Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning during the period of January 1854 through August 1856. This was a time of travel for the Browning's as they spent a winter in Rome, then travelled to London and Paris, Both poets continued to publish important works: EBB's Poems (1856) and RB's Men and Women (1B55). Meanwhile, their circle of friends and acquaintances widened considerably as they called on and hosted some of the leading literary figures of the mid-nineteenth century, including Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and Alfred Tennyson. These letters will be published as volumes 20-22 of The Browning's' Correspondence.

Scholars and critics involved specifically in Browning studies, as well as a lay audience interested in The Browning's, will benefit most by the publication of these letters. Already the impact of the published volumes has been felt in critical and biographical studies of The Browning's and the nineteenth century, including three editions of Robert Browning's poetry, and a collected edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's works, now in progress.
The result of this research in the non-academic world will be a broadening of the influence of The Browning's' lives and works; in the academic world, an increasing recognition that Browning studies are not exclusively the concern of specialists. This will go far towards sustaining The Browning's in the larger canon of English literature, figures to be reckoned with in any general discussion of literary and cultural history.