The Brownings’ Correspondence, Volume 8

Volume 8 traces the poets’ collaboration with R.H. Horne in the production of A New Spirit of the Age. EBB contributes mottoes and significant passages of criticism to the articles on Tennyson and Carlyle (these passages are highlighted in an appendix to this volume); RB contributes only mottoes. Neither is aware of the other’s involvement. Edward Moxon begins printing EBB’s Poems (1844). She sends manuscripts to Cornelius Mathews for an American edition. Her correspondence, dominated by the exchanges with Horne, continues with Mary Russell Mitford, B.R. Haydon, Thomas Westwood, and John Kenyon. Meanwhile, in 1844 RB publishes Colombe’s Birthday (Bells and Pomegranates, No. VI). He also communicates with Horne and Kenyon, and he begins correspondences with F.O. Ward, to whom he sends contributions for Hood’s Magazine, and Henry Fothergill Chorley.