BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861). Autograph manuscript of stanzas 1-13 (of 36, without the later stanza 7) of "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" ("I stand on the mark, beside the shore, Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee; Where exile changed to ancestor..."), A WORKING MANUSCRIPT, with considerable, quite significant revisions in the text, WITH PENCILLED ANNOTATIONS BY ROBERT BROWNING (some 45 words) in the margin of four stanzas, bearing a deleted title, "Black & Mad, at Pilgrim's Point," n.d. [published 1848]. 4 pages, 8vo, 84 lines in 7 stanzas. [With:] BROWNING. The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point, London: Moxon 1849 [but 1888], 8vo, brown morocco gilt, printed buff paper wrapper bound in, by Riviere, front cover detached, A FORGERY BY THOMAS J. WISE, with the Moxon imprint (another impression named Chapman & Hall as publisher). Baylor University, Catalogue of the Browning Collection, ed. W. Barnes, 1966, EB16; William B. Todd, "A Handlist of Thomas J. Wise, " in Thomas J. Wise: Centenary Studies, 1960, no.69f. A WORKING DRAFT OF "THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM'S POINT," WITH ANNOTATIONS BY ROBERT BROWNING A fine poetical manuscript, with very significant revisions and provocative annotations by Robert Browning, comprising the first part of EBB's well-known anti-slavery verses. The stanzas are numbered 1-12 in pencil. "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" was composed at the suggestion of James Russell Lowell, to be part of a collection of anti-slavery writings published for sale at the annual Boston Anti-Slavery Bazaar. The collection, entitled The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom, was issued in 1848 (the ms. Browning sent to Lowell was part of the Houghton Collection, sold Christie's London, 13 June 1979, lot 67, $14,000). In the present working draft, Browning's annotations vividly suggest the close interchange between the two poets. For example, alongside a line in stanza 7, which reads "Could the whippoorwill, or the stag of the glen" Browning writes: "could not some more character- istic creature be found - and smaller too, to pair with the whippoorwill? martin, racoon, opossum, wild cat &c..." The early draft represented by this manuscript survives in three sections: 1) Stanzas 1-13 (here numbered 1-12, without the later stanza 7), the present manuscript (Kelley and Coley, The Browning Collection: A Reconstruction, D800) 2); Stanzas 14-26, with one page annotated by Robert Browning, in the Ashley Library in the British Library (Kelley and Coley D801, illustrated in Ashley Library, I, following p. 100 and Wise, Bibliography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, pp.89-92); 3) Stanzas 27-36, annotated by Robert Browning, is in the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University (Kelley and Coley D802). Provenance: The Browning Collections (sale, Sotheby's, London, 1913, part of lot 124, purchased by Meynell) -- Roderick Terry, bookplate -- Lily Lambert Fleming (sale, Parke-Bernet, December 1953, lot 88), bookplate. -- Philip M. Neufeld (sale, Christie's, 25 April 1995, lot 73). (2)