Poetical Works of Robert Browning : 8 Pocket Volumes in Green Suede India Paper

The Poetical Works of Robert Browning

Introduction by Arthur Waugh.

Published by Smith, Elder & Co, 1910. In Eight Volumes. Limp suede bindings housed in a clamshell box with printed title label. Printed on India Paper and with each volume having a frontispiece. The inside has a paper label with the list of contents to all volumes.

CONDITION
All volumes in very good clean condition. The suede bindings are very good.. Endpapers good. Pages very clean throughout both volumes. Clamshell box is in very good condition. Overall very good and handsomely presented.

Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterisation, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, and challenging vocabulary and syntax.

Browning's early career began promisingly, but collapsed. The long poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) received some acclaim, but in 1840 the difficult Sordello, which was seen as wilfully obscure, brought his poetry into disrepute. His reputation took more than a decade to recover, during which time he moved away from the Shelleyan forms of his early period and developed a more personal style.

In 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett and went to live in Italy. By the time of her death in 1861 he had published the crucial collection Men and Women (1855). The collection Dramatis Personae (1864) and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-1869) followed, and made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation today rests largely on the poetry he wrote in this middle period.