ABSTRACT

First publ. in a pamphlet entitled Two Poems by Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, London: Chapman & Hall, 1854. EBB.’s ‘A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London’ is on pp. 3–11, with page 12 blank; B.’s poem is on pp. 13–15. The pamphlet was publ. for sale at a charity bazaar held on 19 Apr. 1854 in aid of the ‘Ragged Schools’, in which EBB.’s sister Arabella was involved (see below). The price was sixpence. B.’s MS, which is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, is dated ‘Rome, March 30, ’54’. Repr. M & W (10 Nov. 1855), 1863 (when it was placed in ‘Romances’: see Appendix D, p. 747), 1868, 1888. Our text is 1854. In 1855 the numerals are in arabic. Along with Transcendentalism and Another Way of Love, it is one of three poems from M & W not to appear in any volume of selections.