Details
BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT. Autograph manuscript of "Two Odes Translated from Anacreon, " ("Nature gave horns to bulls, & hoofs to horses..." and "'Anacreon,' the ladies say..."), c.1820-1821(?). 2 pages, 4to, the first 15 lines, the second 10 lines, written on the recto and verso of one leaf, paginated by Browning "3" and "4" at top corners (apparently once part of a notebook?), laid in protective cloth-backed folder.
Fair copies, probably of relatively early date, written in a particularly careful hand, each with brief incipit in neat Greek characters at top. During the period 1820-1821, Elizabeth Barrett prepared a number of English translations from Anacreon. Other manuscripts of each lyric are known: the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University possesses a manuscript of the first (see Kelley and Coley, The Browning Collections: A Reconstruction, D1177) and an 1821 transcript by Mary Moulton-Barrett is in the Berg Collection at New York Public Library. Only one other manuscript of "'Anacreon,' the ladies say" is recorded, at Yale University (ibid, D1167). The present manuscript is probably Kelley and Coley's D1168 and 1179.
Provenance: The Browning Collections (sale, Sotheby's, London, 1913, lot unknown), probably purchased by Sotheran -- Anonymous owner (sale, Parke-Bernet, 15 November 1960, lot 63).
Fair copies, probably of relatively early date, written in a particularly careful hand, each with brief incipit in neat Greek characters at top. During the period 1820-1821, Elizabeth Barrett prepared a number of English translations from Anacreon. Other manuscripts of each lyric are known: the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University possesses a manuscript of the first (see Kelley and Coley, The Browning Collections: A Reconstruction, D1177) and an 1821 transcript by Mary Moulton-Barrett is in the Berg Collection at New York Public Library. Only one other manuscript of "'Anacreon,' the ladies say" is recorded, at Yale University (ibid, D1167). The present manuscript is probably Kelley and Coley's D1168 and 1179.
Provenance: The Browning Collections (sale, Sotheby's, London, 1913, lot unknown), probably purchased by Sotheran -- Anonymous owner (sale, Parke-Bernet, 15 November 1960, lot 63).