BROWNING, Robert (1812 - 1889). Autograph letter signed to an unidentified correspondent (George Stampe), 19 Warwick Crescent, 21 January [18]63, acknowledging his letter 'with its promise of desisting from a procedure which would have caused me and the others deepest pain', and accepting that his correspondent had acted in ignorance of what the world, or he himself, would think 'on the subject of a stranger's undertaking to write the Life of a person but recently removed from the earth, and soliciting details, and correspondence illustrative of it from friends, without the direct permission of that other person whom the Law of God & Man accurately regards as one with the former'; wondering that Stampe's first approach was not to himself, and generally expressing anger at his trying to obtain letters [from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Hugh Stuart Boyd], 'they were obtained by the chance of an old, blind, forsaken man dying and leaving his papers at the mercy of the first comer', continuing with further reproaches, but finally accepting his correspondent's word, and proposing to take no further action, 4 pages, 8vo (slightly discoloured).'I fancy you are young - and in a proper exercise of your faculty you may achieve distinction: be assured that all such interferences with the sacredness of the grave are abominable.'Elizabeth Barrett Browning had died in Italy on 29 June 1861, and her griefstricken husband was, as he writes, pestered 'by individuals of more or less ability' wishing to write her life, and to have access to her letters. In a published letter written two days earlier (19 January 1863) to Isabella Blagden he tells her that 'a certain Geo: Stampe of Great Grimsby' has approached two of his friends for details of Elizabeth's life for a biography, and claims to have her correspondence with Hugh Stuart Boyd. The present letter is evidently a reply to Stampe's response to Browning's first angry letter written a few days earlier. Boyd (1781 - 1848) whom Elizabeth met in 1828 at Malvern, was blind, and she became his Greek reader. Their correspondence, which Stampe apparently hoped to publish, included 240 letters by Elizabeth and 170 by Boyd, and it was subsequently returned to Browning. The letters were eventually sold in 1913 (Robert Browning. Letters to 'Dearest Isa', Texas, 1951, 148-151).

BROWNING, Robert (1812 - 1889). Autograph letter signed to an unidentified correspondent (George Stampe), 19 Warwick Crescent, 21 January [18]63, acknowledging his letter 'with its promise of desisting from a procedure which would have caused me and the others deepest pain', and accepting that his correspondent had acted in ignorance of what the world, or he himself, would think 'on the subject of a stranger's undertaking to write the Life of a person but recently removed from the earth, and soliciting details, and correspondence illustrative of it from friends, without the direct permission of that other person whom the Law of God & Man accurately regards as one with the former'; wondering that Stampe's first approach was not to himself, and generally expressing anger at his trying to obtain letters [from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Hugh Stuart Boyd], 'they were obtained by the chance of an old, blind, forsaken man dying and leaving his papers at the mercy of the first comer', continuing with further reproaches, but finally accepting his correspondent's word, and proposing to take no further action, 4 pages, 8vo (slightly discoloured). 'I fancy you are young - and in a proper exercise of your faculty you may achieve distinction: be assured that all such interferences with the sacredness of the grave are abominable.' Elizabeth Barrett Browning had died in Italy on 29 June 1861, and her griefstricken husband was, as he writes, pestered 'by individuals of more or less ability' wishing to write her life, and to have access to her letters. In a published letter written two days earlier (19 January 1863) to Isabella Blagden he tells her that 'a certain Geo: Stampe of Great Grimsby' has approached two of his friends for details of Elizabeth's life for a biography, and claims to have her correspondence with Hugh Stuart Boyd. The present letter is evidently a reply to Stampe's response to Browning's first angry letter written a few days earlier. Boyd (1781 - 1848) whom Elizabeth met in 1828 at Malvern, was blind, and she became his Greek reader. Their correspondence, which Stampe apparently hoped to publish, included 240 letters by Elizabeth and 170 by Boyd, and it was subsequently returned to Browning. The letters were eventually sold in 1913 (Robert Browning. Letters to 'Dearest Isa', Texas, 1951, 148-151).

Details

BROWNING, Robert (1812 - 1889). Autograph letter signed to an unidentified correspondent (George Stampe), 19 Warwick Crescent, 21 January [18]63, acknowledging his letter 'with its promise of desisting from a procedure which would have caused me and the others deepest pain', and accepting that his correspondent had acted in ignorance of what the world, or he himself, would think 'on the subject of a stranger's undertaking to write the Life of a person but recently removed from the earth, and soliciting details, and correspondence illustrative of it from friends, without the direct permission of that other person whom the Law of God & Man accurately regards as one with the former'; wondering that Stampe's first approach was not to himself, and generally expressing anger at his trying to obtain letters [from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Hugh Stuart Boyd], 'they were obtained by the chance of an old, blind, forsaken man dying and leaving his papers at the mercy of the first comer', continuing with further reproaches, but finally accepting his correspondent's word, and proposing to take no further action, 4 pages, 8vo (slightly discoloured).

'I fancy you are young - and in a proper exercise of your faculty you may achieve distinction: be assured that all such interferences with the sacredness of the grave are abominable.'

Elizabeth Barrett Browning had died in Italy on 29 June 1861, and her griefstricken husband was, as he writes, pestered 'by individuals of more or less ability' wishing to write her life, and to have access to her letters. In a published letter written two days earlier (19 January 1863) to Isabella Blagden he tells her that 'a certain Geo: Stampe of Great Grimsby' has approached two of his friends for details of Elizabeth's life for a biography, and claims to have her correspondence with Hugh Stuart Boyd. The present letter is evidently a reply to Stampe's response to Browning's first angry letter written a few days earlier. Boyd (1781 - 1848) whom Elizabeth met in 1828 at Malvern, was blind, and she became his Greek reader. Their correspondence, which Stampe apparently hoped to publish, included 240 letters by Elizabeth and 170 by Boyd, and it was subsequently returned to Browning. The letters were eventually sold in 1913 (Robert Browning. Letters to 'Dearest Isa', Texas, 1951, 148-151).

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