The Brownings’ Correspondence, Volume 7

Volume 7 continues EBB’s important correspondences with Mary Russell Mitford and B.R. Haydon. The poetess debates with the latter on the relative merits of Napoleon and Wellington. She announces her intention to publish a new collection of her poetry with Edward Moxon. Meanwhile, she contributes to periodicals on both sides of the Atlantic, including a poem denouncing child labor, “The Cry of the Children,” that is prompted by an investigative report on the subject by R.H. Horne. Both poets read his epic poem Orion. EBB reviews it in The Athenæum; RB sends a note of thanks to him for a presentation copy and includes a sketch of a corner of his attic writing room, replete with spider and skull. RB also exchanges letters with Charles Dickens and Alfred Domett but publishes no works during this period. The volume draws to a close with Horne’s asking EBB to help him produce A New Spirit of the Age, to which she agrees.