The Poems of Browning: Volume Four

The Poems of Robert Browning is a multi-volume edition of the poetry of Robert Browning (1812 -1889) resulting from a completely fresh appraisal of the canon, text and context of his work. The poems are presented in the order of their composition and in the text in which they were first published, giving a unique insight into the origins and development of Brownings art. Annotations and headnotes, in keeping with the traditions of Longman Annotated English Poets, are full and informative and provide details of composition, publication, sources and contemporary reception.

Volumes one (1826-1840) and two (1841-1846) presented the poems from his Brownings early years, while volume three (1847-61) covered the period of his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett and residence in Italy. Volume four (1862-71) deals with the decade following Elizabeths death and Brownings return to England.  These years saw the appearance of some of his most significant work, and a steady rise in his critical reputation. In Dramatis Personae (1864), Browning uses his characteristic dramatic mode to expose predicaments of thought and feeling, in characters ranging from Shakespeares Caliban to the cheating medium, Mr Sludge; other poems dramatize Brownings complicated feelings about the deceptions and self-deceptions of romantic love. Balaustions Adventure (1871) is an engaging reworking of Euripides Alcestis, whose theme, the resurrection of a beloved lost wife, has poignant personal resonance for Browning;while Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, published in the same year, offers a thinly-veiled account of the life and actions of Napoleon III, the recently deposed Emperor of France, over whom Browning and Elizabeth had quarrelled. In these two long poems, Browning can be seen engaged in the dialogue with Elizabeth that was to shape much of his work during the remainder of his writing life

Volume five will be devoted to The Ring and the Book (1868-9), the twelve-book epic which many during the nineteenth century considered Brownings greatest work. When complete, The Poems of Browning will represent the most informative and up-to-date edition of the works of one of Englands greatest poets.

 Daniel Karlin is Winterstoke Professor of English Literature at the University of Bristol.

Joseph Phelan is a Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature at De Montfort University.

John Woolford is Professor Emeritus of nineteenth-century literature and culture at the University of Manchester and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield.