ABSTRACT
First publ. Hood’s Magazine ii (July 1844) 45–8; for B.’s contributions to Hood’s, see p. 218. A letter of July 1844 from B. to F. O. Ward, the acting editor of Hood’s (LH 10), shows that Ward, and Hood himself, suggested revs. in proof, but the lines to which they refer must have been further changed, since the fragmentary phrases which B. quotes fit neither Garden Fancies nor any other poem of the period. Repr. B & P vii (DR & L), 6 Nov. 1845, with both sections given stanza numbers; then 1849, 1863 (when it was placed in Lyrics: see Appendix A, p. 464), 1868, 1880, 1888. Our text is Hood’s. Garden Fancies is the only one of B.’s collective titles for paired poems (e.g. Italy and France for My Last Duchess and Count Gismond, Queen-Worship for Rudel and Cristina) which survived 1849. With his letter of ?18 July 1845 (LK 129), B. sent EBB. all the poems he had publ. in Hood’s, for criticism before publication in DR & L; her comment on Sibrandus 46 (Wellesley MS; all her comments recorded in the notes are from this text, unless otherwise stated) makes it clear that he showed her his own MS, not the printed texts.
