The Lawrences Auction

by Rachel Jacob, Armstrong Browning Library Graduate Research Assistant

In September of 2020, the Armstrong Browning Library acquired multiple new Browning related objects. These objects were at auction from Lawrences Auctioneers in Sommerset, England. It is usual for a few Browning items to be at an auction, but for this Lawrences auction, a descendant of the Brownings put their Browning collection up for sale. Below are the items the Armstrong Browning Library added to our collection from this Browning-filled auction.

The Brownings’ Library

Talfourd, Thomas Noon. Dramatic Works. 11th ed. London, 1852.  Browning Guide # A2240.1 .

Hill Legacy Collection in Browning and 19th Century Studies

Presentation Volumes

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Aurora Leigh. London: Chapman and Hall, 1857.  Browning Guide #C0005.2.

Hill Legacy Collection in Browning and 19thCentury Studies

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Poems Before Congress. London: Chapman and Hall, 1860. Browning Guide # C0120.

Hill Legacy Collection in Browning and 19thCentury Studies

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets. London: Chapman & Hall, 1863. Browning Guide # C0039.1.

Hill Legacy Collection in Browning and 19thCentury Studies

Browning, Robert. Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning. London: Chapman and Hall, 1863. Browning Guide #C0544.2.

Hill Legacy Collection in Browning and 19thCentury Studies

Wey, Francis Alphonse. Rome. Introduction by W.W. Story. London, 1875. Browning Guide #C0641.05.

Hill Legacy Collection in Browning and 19thCentury Studies

Browning Letters

Third draft copy of letter from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Lord Somers, October 1817.

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Manuscripts of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The African (“Cold shone the moon on distant mountains”). Transcript by Mary Moulton-Barrett with revisions by EBB. Browning Guide #D0015.1.

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

The African by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Manuscript.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Enchantress (“Above the ’Egean wave, the sun is glancing”). Fair copy, revised, in the hand of Mary Moulton-Barrett and EBB, with pencil revisions in EBB’s hand. Browning Guide #D0231.1.

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Enchantress (“Above the ’Egean wave, the sun is glancing”). Transcript, revised, by Mary Moulton-Barrett and EBB. Browning Guide #D0231.2.

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Enchantress (“Above the ’Egean wave, the sun is glancing”). Transcript by Mary Moulton-Barrett.  Browning Guide #D0233.1.

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Enchantress (“Above the ’Egean wave, the sun is glancing”). Transcript by Mary Moulton-Barrett.  Browning Guide #D0233.2.

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. An Essay on Mind (“Since Spirit first inspir’d, pervaded all”). Transcript by Mary Moulton-Barrett. Browning Guide #D0251.1.               https://www.browningguide.org/browning-collections/search-results/?start-date=&end-date=&name=&name-select=&role=&title=&description=&location=&section=4&entry-number=0251.1&order-by=entry-number&search-submit=Search

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Likenesses of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Copy of Charles Hayter’s oil portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning as a child walking into the porch at Hope End, followed by a spaniel carrying her hat. Browning Guide #F0002.

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Copy of Charles Hayter’s oil portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning as a child

Works of Robert Browning, SR.

Browning, Robert, Sr. The Druidical Tumulus, Pornic. Wash and ink drawing. Pornic, 1862. Browning Guide #J0025.05

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Other Association Manuscripts and Document

[Moulton-Barrett, Edward Barrett (brother)]. Criticism of EBB’s The Seraphim. Browning Guide #L0186.1

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

Moulton-Barrett, Mary. Passage from Pizarro by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Browning Guide #L0212.1

Margaret Cox Endowed Fund

 

“Puppy Love” Closing Announcement

By Allison Scheidegger, PhD Student, Department of English, Baylor University

This spring, the Armstrong Browning Library is hosting “Puppy Love: An Exploration of Victorian Pet-Owner Relationships,” an exhibition on dog ownership and depictions of dogs in the Victorian period, with a focus on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s spaniel, Flush. January 15, 2022 – August 15, 2022.

“Puppy Love: An Exploration of Victorian Pet-Owner Relationships” will close on August 15th, 2022. Come and see it before it’s gone!

Illustration from Horses and Dogs. 1876.

One of my favorite parts of curating the “Puppy Love” exhibit has been uncovering networks of connection between writers that are founded on pet ownership. Two major kinds of networks come to mind: between writers who are fellow dog owners, and between writers who give one another dogs. In this blog post I will share some avenues I’ve found for further exploring these doggy networks.

The shared experience of owning a dog can create a bond between strangers. The first case of the exhibit, “Flush and Friendship,” showcases a pair of letters between E. B. Browning and fellow poet Thomas Westwood. Browning and Westwood forged a letter-writing friendship that was founded on a shared interest in poetry and dogs. In the first letter in the exhibit, Westwood reaches out to Browning to ask for a copy of one of her poems. Westwood’s tone is that of a star-struck fan: in this letter, he admits that he only found courage to write to Browning after reading her “To Flush, My Dog.” Because Browning loves dogs so much, Westwood reasons, she must be kind. This letter is available in full on the Baylor libraries digitization page: https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/5-august-1843.-westwood-thomas-to-browning-elizabeth-barrett./339971?item=339972. Click the “Transcript” tab for help decoding the handwriting!

Browning’s response (available in Baylor’s digital collections: https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/ca.-8-august-1843.-browning-elizabeth-barrett-to-westwood-thomas./339976?item=339977) is kind and sympathetic—she is more than happy to talk about dogs! In her reply to Westwood, Browning includes an imaginary response from Flush to Flossy. Overjoyed at her response, Westwood then sends a flurry of letters. Although in his anxiety to make a good impression, Westwood comes across as flattering and awkward early in the correspondence, the two manage to talk about their shared interests. See this letter from Browning to Westwood  (https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/2-september-1843.-browning-elizabeth-barrett-to-westwood-thomas./340099?item=340100) for a discussion of the writing of Tennyson and Robert Browning (E. B. Browning’s future husband). Westwood and Browning would continue their correspondence for over ten years, connecting over the common ground of poetry and dog ownership.

But there is an even more significant kind of canine connection: the connection between friends who give one another the gift of a dog. Mary Russell Mitford made her friend Browning a dog owner when she sent her a spaniel she had bred. Mitford sent Flush the spaniel to Browning to comfort her after the death of her favorite brother Edward. Flush succeeded in rousing Browning from debilitating depression and inspired several poems. Browning acknowledges in the footnote in “To Flush,” her spaniel was “the gift of [her] dear and admired friend Miss Mitford.”

Mary Russell Mitford, by Benjamin Robert Haydon (d. 1846). National Portrait Gallery.

Mitford was a fellow author who encouraged Browning in her writing. Although today Browning’s work is more prized, at the time Mitford was the more established author.

As I researched Woolf’s writing of Flush: A Biography, I realized that the story of Browning and Flush must have fascinated Woolf because in many ways it paralleled Woolf’s own story with her cocker spaniel, Pinka.

Lady with a Red Hat [Vita Sackville-West], by William Strang. 1918. Oil on canvas. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

Woolf’s friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, who was herself a popular poet and author, gave Pinka to Woolf. Completing the parallels between the Mitford-Browning and Sackville-West-Woolf stories, Pinka posed as Flush for the frontispiece of the first edition of Woolf’s Flush (Steele xvii).

Frontispiece of Woolf’s Flush. 1933.

Mitford and Sackville-West were the more established and popular writers when they became friends with Browning and Woolf, respectively. In honor of these mentors’ literary and canine contributions to the development of Browning and Woolf, I unearthed some dog writing of their own. Mitford wrote several short stories about dogs, including “The Widow’s Dog,” a story about a spaniel named Chloe (read on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22842/22842-h/22842-h.htm), and one about a heroic hound (read “Scotland: Sir Allan and His Dog” from Findens’ Tableaux on Google books:  https://www.google.com/books/edition/Finden_s_Tableaux_A_Series_of_Picturesqu/cttJAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1). Sackville-West, meanwhile, wrote Faces: Profiles of Dogs, which pairs humorous commentary with photographs of dogs by Laelia Goehr. Visit Goehr’s official site (available at: https://www.laeliagoehr.com/dogs) to see some of these striking dog portraits. Although the “Puppy Love” exhibit delves into the world of animal writing, there is much more to discover.

 

Works Consulted

Sackville-West, Vita. Faces: Profiles of Dogs. Daunt Books, 2019.

“Scotland: Sir Allan and his Dog. In Finden’s Tableaux. Edited by Mary Russell Mitford. 1838.

Steele, Elizabeth. “Introduction.” In Flush: A Biography. Edited by Elizabeth Steele. Shakespeare Head Press, 1999, pp. xi-xxxi.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Letter to Thomas Westwood. [ca. 8] August 1843. Browning Correspondence.

—. Letter to Thomas Westwood. 2 September 1843.

Westwood, Thomas. Letter to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 5 August 1843. Browning Correspondence.

 

Read more in this series of blog posts about the exhibit “‘Puppy Love’: An Exploration of Victorian Pet-Owner Relationships”: