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Robert Browning, 1855
Details
Men and Women
Robert Browning, 1855
BROWNING, Robert (1812-1889). Men and Women. London: Bradbury and Evans for Chapman and Hall, 1855.
The Buxton Forman copy of the first edition of one of Browning's best collections, in the primary binding. Included are the poems "Love Among the Ruins," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Any Wife to any Husband," and "The Statue and the Bust." H. Buxton Forman was a Victorian collector and bibliographer who, along with his colleague Thomas James Wise, perpetrated a major fraud on the bibliophilic community by creating forgeries of non-existent literary works. The present copy is signed on both title pages by Laura Sellé in 1865, who four years later would marry Buxton Forman and perhaps gave it to him as a gift. The forgeries were later uncovered through the sleuthing of Graham Pollard and John Carter in their famous exposé A Sequel to an Enquiry into the Nature of Certain XIXth Century Pamphlets. Barnes/Texas RB17; Sterling 88; Tinker 420; Wise Browning, p.22.
Two volumes, octavo. 2-page publisher's advertisements at end of vol. II. Publisher's original olive-green stamped cloth, covers stamped in blind, spines decorated and lettered in gilt, pale cream-colored endpapers [primary binding] (spines a little sunned); custom chemises and slipcase. Provenance: Laura Sellé (Buxton Forman's wife and the daugher of Wilhelm Kristian Sellé, Musician in Ordinary to Queen Victoria; signatures in both volumes dated 1865) – H. Buxton Forman (1842-1917, Romantic bibliographer and forger; bookplate, his sale, Anderson Galleries, 15 March 1920, part of lot 127).
Robert Browning, 1855
BROWNING, Robert (1812-1889). Men and Women. London: Bradbury and Evans for Chapman and Hall, 1855.
The Buxton Forman copy of the first edition of one of Browning's best collections, in the primary binding. Included are the poems "Love Among the Ruins," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Any Wife to any Husband," and "The Statue and the Bust." H. Buxton Forman was a Victorian collector and bibliographer who, along with his colleague Thomas James Wise, perpetrated a major fraud on the bibliophilic community by creating forgeries of non-existent literary works. The present copy is signed on both title pages by Laura Sellé in 1865, who four years later would marry Buxton Forman and perhaps gave it to him as a gift. The forgeries were later uncovered through the sleuthing of Graham Pollard and John Carter in their famous exposé A Sequel to an Enquiry into the Nature of Certain XIXth Century Pamphlets. Barnes/Texas RB17; Sterling 88; Tinker 420; Wise Browning, p.22.
Two volumes, octavo. 2-page publisher's advertisements at end of vol. II. Publisher's original olive-green stamped cloth, covers stamped in blind, spines decorated and lettered in gilt, pale cream-colored endpapers [primary binding] (spines a little sunned); custom chemises and slipcase. Provenance: Laura Sellé (Buxton Forman's wife and the daugher of Wilhelm Kristian Sellé, Musician in Ordinary to Queen Victoria; signatures in both volumes dated 1865) – H. Buxton Forman (1842-1917, Romantic bibliographer and forger; bookplate, his sale, Anderson Galleries, 15 March 1920, part of lot 127).
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Heather Weintraub
Specialist, Books, Manuscripts, & Archives