– 11 – A u g u s t 2 0 2 2 First Appearance Of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets From The Portuguese 11. BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett. Poems. New Edition. London, 1850. Two volumes. Small octavo, contemporary full crimson morocco gilt. $15,000. Important and preferred second edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poems, containing the first appearance of her famous love poems to her husband, Sonnets from the Portuguese, which did not appear in the 1844 first edition of Poems. A lovely copy in fine contemporary bindings. This enlarged edition of Browning’s Poems is rightly considered an entirely separate work from the 1844 first edition. It includes, in addition to the Sonnets from the Portuguese, a number of poems here printed or collected for the first time. “The strange courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, morally chained to amonstrous father, and their subsequent elopement, is one of themost romantic stories in 19th-century literature. What Browning did not know is that while Elizabeth was lying on that famous sofa in her father’s house on Wimpole Street she was pouring out her heart in some of the most remarkable love poetry ever written by a woman. One morning some time later, when they were living in Pisa, Elizabeth Browning pushed a packet under her husband’s arm, asked him to read the sonnets it contained and, should he disapprove, destroy them. Then she rushed from the room. Browning sat there and read with ever-growing wonder. Even before he had finished he hurried to his wife and demanded their publication. To shelter her feelings it was pretended that the sonnets had been translated from the Portuguese” (Great Books and Book Collectors, 239). Bound without half titles. Second state, as usual, with publisher’s address of “193, Piccadilly” on title pages (only four copies are known in the first state, and the title page is presumed to have been reset prior to publication). A lovely and desirable copy in contemporary morocco-gilt bindings in fine condition. Life And Works Of The Sisters Brontë 10. BRONTË, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Life and Works of the Sisters Brontë. London, 18991900. Seven volumes. Octavo, contemporary threequarter tan calf. $4000. “Haworth Edition” of the Brontë sisters’ admired novels, illustrated with frontispiece portraits and numerous photographic plates throughout, finely bound by Riviere & Son. “They had neither wealth nor power… what they did have was the vicarious experience of books and an irrepressible creativity… More than anything else, however, they had each other… Without this intense family relationship, some of the greatest novels in the English language would never have been written” (Barker, 830). Includes Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, and The Professor; Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights; and Anne Brontë’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey. With prefaces by Mrs. Humphry Ward. Also includes Elizabeth C. Gaskell’s noted biography of Charlotte Brontë. Interiors clean, a few leaves in The Professor with marginal creasing; a few corners gently rubbed, near-fine. A handsome illustrated set. “But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.”
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