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Creator
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889
Call number
Pforz MS
Physical description
177 items
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Robert Browning manuscript material, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library
Repository
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Access to materials
Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright. The collection consists primarily of correspondence dating between 1837 and 1889. It also includes several literary pieces, two corrected sets of page proofs, presentation copies, and an autographed portrait.

Biographical/historical information

Robert Browning, Victorian poet and playwright. Browning is best known for his use of the dramatic monologue in such poems as "My Last Duchess" (1842) and "Porphyria's Lover" (1836) and for his verse novel The Ring and the Book (1868-1869).

Scope and arrangement

The Robert Browning manuscript material in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of writings and correspondence. The writings include one holograph play, several holograph poems, two sets of page proofs with holograph corrections, holograph annotations on manuscripts by others, presentation copies, and an autographed portrait. The bulk of the more than 160 pieces of correspondence date between 1876 and 1887. The correspondence discusses both his professional and personal life, including the death of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and his interest in Percy Bysshe Shelley and other Romantic poets. Correspondents include: Sarah Anna Elizabeth Purefoy FitzGerald, learned lady; H. Buxton Forman, bibliographer and forger; Ellen Heaton, art collector and philanthropist; George Barnett Smith, author and journalist; and over forty others.

The Robert Browning manuscript material is arranged in three series:

Administrative information

Custodial history

Carl H. Pforzheimer began to acquire Robert Browning manuscripts in May 1918 when he acquired several autograph letters at the Winston H. Hagen sale at Anderson Galleries. The corrected page proofs of La Saisiaz: The Two Poets of Croisic and Jocoseria were acquired at the William Temple Emmet sale at Anderson Galleries in October 1918. At the Harry Buxton Forman sale at Anderson Galleries in March 1920, Pforzheimer acquired the manuscript of Colombe's Birthday, the presentation set of Bells and Pomegranates, and Browning's letters to Forman, among other Browning items. In May 1920 he acquired sixty-five letters from Browning to Mrs. FitzGerald from the bookdealer Gabriel Wells. For the next forty years only a few Browning manuscripts were added to the Collection. The remainder of the manuscripts, including the series of letters to Ellen Heaton, were acquired between 1966 and 1972 under the auspices of the Pforzheimer Foundation, mostly through auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's.

Because the Pforzheimer Collection collects actively, its holdings of Robert Browning manuscript material may grow in the future as items become available for purchase.

Processing information

Finding aid created by Charles Cuykendall Carter in 2015. Revised, expanded, and imported into ArchivesSpace by Timothy Gress in July 2025.

Related Material

In addition to manuscript material created by Robert Browning, the Pforzheimer Collection holds a virtually complete collection of his published work, including a copy of his Pauline (1833) (Browning Collections B0036); an album of drawings by his father, Robert Browning, Sr. (Browning Collections J0001); two pencil sketches by his sister, Sarianna Browning (Browning Collections H0057.13); and more than twenty pieces of manuscript material by his wife, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, described in a separate finding aid. Also held are Browning's copy of the 1886 edition of his Pauline reprinted by Thomas J. Wise (Browning Collections A0450); and an oil painting by an unknown artist inscribed: "The spot where the body of Shelley was burned. Painted for Robert Browning" (Browning Collections H0029).

Additional Robert Browning manuscript material at the New York Public Library can be found in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature and in the Manuscripts and Archives Division. Printed books can be found in the Berg Collection and in the Rare Book Division.

Note

All but one of the items listed in Series I, Writings, and Series III, Additional Materials, have been described in The Browning Collections: A Reconstruction, compiled by Philip Kelley & Betty A. Coley, and are listed with reference. The Browning Collections is available in a print edition published by the Wedgestone Press and in a freely accessible and frequently updated digital edition at https://www.browningguide.org/browning-collections/search/. The literary manuscripts and corrected page proofs are described in volume III of The Poetical Works of Robert Browning (Clarendon Press, 1988) and volumes XIV, XV, and XVII of The Complete Works of Robert Browning (Ohio University Press, 2003, 2007, 2012). The titles given in Series I are those assigned by these scholarly editors and are listed with reference.At the time of writing all of Robert Browning's letters written before June 1868 have been published in The Brownings' Correspondence, edited by Philip Kelley et al., and are listed with reference. This scholarly edition provides accurate and complete transcriptions of all known letters written by and to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. The Brownings' Correspondence is available in a print edition published by the Wedgestone Press and in a freely accessible digital edition at https://www.browningscorrespondence.com/All but one of the letters from Browning to Sarah Anna Elizabeth Purefoy FitzGerald have been published in Learned Lady: Letters from Robert Browning to Mrs. Thomas FitzGerald 1876-1889, edited by Edward C. McAleer (Harvard University Press, 1966).

Key terms

Names

Using the collection

Location

Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 319

Access to materials

Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.