Beyond the Brownings–Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Posted on October 7, 2014 by melindacreech

Courtesy of the Armstrong Browning Library

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Victor Hugo, a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement, is considered one of the greatest and most recognized French writers. His best-known works are the acclaimed novels Les Misérables (1862) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

Hugo’s works at the Armstrong Browning Library include one letter and seven books, one of them rare.

Victor Hugo. Thèatre De Victor Hugo. Paris: Charpentier, Libraire-Editeur, 1844.

This volume is a first edition.

Letter from Victor Hugo to Monsieur de Fiennes. No date.

Monsieur de Fiennes may have been an advocate at Bruxelles and later appointed Minister of Finances of France in 1840.

Letter from Frederick Tennyson to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 29 September 1860.

The brother of Alfred Lord Tennyson spent most of his life in Italy and Jersey, a small island off the coast of Normandy. But, for twenty years he lived in Florence, where he was a friend of Robert and Elizabeth Browning. In this letter, written while in Jersey to Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Siena, Italy, Frederick Tennyson, mentions that:

We have had Victor Hugo here this summer he came to attend a Garibaldi meeting and made a grand oration. He seems still to be in great vigour & though I could see his face but imperfectly from the opposite side of the room his voice is clear & lion-like–

Beyond the Brownings–Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Posted on October 5, 2014 by melindacreech

© National Portrait Gallery, London

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Michael Faraday, an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry, was one of the most influential scientists in history, leading to the practical use for electricity in technology. The Armstrong Browning Library owns one rare edition book.

In a letter of 23 August [1853] to Anna Jameson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning makes this comment about Faraday:

For as to Faraday, … I dont know what you conclude upon Faraday .. but for me, I am sorry not to be able to do more reverence to the name & authority of a man of science such as he. His letter meets none of the important phenomena, .. ignores facts altogether .. & has a tone of insolence & arrogance which sets the blood burning in me—what do you think: how do you feel? It seems to me from what you say that you have witnessed or had testimony upon only the inferior phenomena, and I have been long aware that these may be simulated involuntarily by the muscular hypothesis, & that many of the amateur operators have exercised their muscles simply. Therefore you may be convinced by the Faraday letter as some other persons have been. But if you were in the possession of certain facts, which, as I know them, Faraday ought to have known, before he gave an opinion on the subject .. such facts for instance as the movement of tables without a touch from finger or foot .. you would feel, as I cant help doing, considerable indignation at the treatment of the subject in this famous letter.

This letter, part of Wellesley College Special Collections, and also in The Browning Letters digital collection through the Baylor-Wellesley collaboration, refers to Michael Faraday’s letter on table-moving, published in The Athenaeum, 2 July 1853.

Michael Faraday, “Professor Faraday on Table-Moving,” The Athenaeum, 2 July 1853.

Michael Faraday. Chemical Manipulation; Being Instructions to Students in Chemistry, on the Methods of Performing Experiments of Demonstration or of Research, with Accuracy and Success. London: W. Phillips, 1827.

This is a rare first edition of Faraday’s only monograph, a work on experimental method.

Beyond the Brownings–Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

Posted on September 30, 2014 by melindacreech

© National Portrait Gallery, London

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Charles Babbage is credited with originating the concept of a programmable computer. He was a visitor at John Kenyon’s parties and probably acquainted with the Brownings. There are several references to him in Elizabeth’s letters, including this passage from a letter from EBB to Robert Browning, 17 February 1845. This letter, part of Wellesley College Special Collections, is also in The Browning Letters digital collection at Baylor University through the Baylor-Wellesley collaboration:

Do you know Tennyson? that is, with a face to face knowledge? I have great admiration for him. In execution, he is exquisite,-and, in music, a most subtle weigher out to the ear, of fine airs. That such a poet shd submit blindly to the suggestions of his critics, (I do not say that suggestions from without may not be accepted with discrimination sometimes, to the benefit of the acceptor) blindly & implicitly to the suggestions of his critics, .. is much as if Babbage were to take my opinion & undo his calculating machine by it. Napoleon called poetry ‘science creuse’-which, although he was not scientific in poetry himself, is true enough. But anybody is qualified, according to everybody, for giving opinions upon poetry. It is not so in chymistry and mathematics. Nor is it so, I believe, in whist and the polka.

The Armstrong Browning Library has three of Babbage’s letters in its collection.

Letter from Charles Babbage to [James] Booth.
20 December 1856.

Babbage thanks Booth, the executor of Kenyon’s will, for the gift of a telescope, which had belonged to their valued friend, John Kenyon.

Many thanks to you and Miss Bayley for the kind thought of giving me a memorial of our valued friend Kenyon. I shall gladly accept the telescope which you propose for that purpose…

Beyond the Brownings–Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Posted on September 25, 2014 by melindacreech

Courtesy of the Armstrong Browning Library

By Michael Milburn, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a first-generation Romantic best known for his poetry and literary criticism, also wrote widely on the subjects of theology, philosophy, science, and politics, in spite of his in part self-made reputation as an opium addict who failed to live up to his potential. He is renowned for such classics as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Christabel,” and “Kubla Khan.”

The ABL has ten letters by Coleridge, eight of which are addressed to his brother George, several first editions, two annotated volumes, and over ninety other books which belonged to members of his family, primarily his descendants.

Draft or Copy of a Letter from George Coleridge to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. [10 March 1798].

Coleridge and his brother George disagreed over Britain’s military actions against the revolutionary government in France. George, who was in favor of the British, wrote this letter in order to extend his hospitality to Coleridge despite their political differences.

We may forget that we are not political Brothers, and call to our Mind, that to philosophize on Government and to legislate are the Duty of a few, to cultivate domestic affections of all.

The lack of signature, however, indicates that unless the document was a transcript, this version of the text, at least, remained an unsent draft.

Autograph draft manuscript of Hints respecting Beauty

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to [Mary Russell Mitford]. [8 July 1811].

In this draft of a letter to Mary Russell Mitford, Coleridge developed some of the aesthetic ideas that would become famous in his “Essays on the Principles of Genial Criticism” and Biographia Literaria. After noting the errors that can arise from using words merely to express degree, he defines beauty in kind as “the reconciliation of ‘the many’ with ‘the one,’” offering the simple example of a triangle, in which three sides are reconciled into a single shape, and the ideal example of a circle, in which radii of many angles are brought together by the one center on which they converge.

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to George Coleridge. 2 October 1803.

Coleridge experienced night terrors all his adult life, probably worsened by his addiction to opium and the periods of withdrawal when he would try to quit. In this letter, he tells his brother that when he tries to sleep, “such a Host of Horrors rush in—that three nights out of four I fall asleep struggling to lie awake, and start up & bless my own loud screams, that have awakened me.” He had described the experience poetically in “The Pains of Sleep,” written during the previous month, though not published until 1816.

Coleridge’s first volume of poetry

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Poems on Various Subjects. London, Bristol: G. G. and J. Robinsons; J. Cottle, 1796.

Note the contemporary full tree calf binding, a technique in which the leather was stained to create a pattern resembling a tree.

Percy Bysshe Shelley. Queen Mab. London: Printed and published by W. Clark, 1821.

In a note on his own poem, Percy Bysshe Shelley, a second-generation Romantic writer, advocates for a vegetarian diet as the most expedient solution to the problems facing humanity, whether medical or moral, decrying in particular “the brutal pleasures of the chase.” Coleridge could not resist the opportunity to let the wind out of Shelley’s sails by writing in the margin, “Mr. Shelley’s favourite diversion at present (1822) is hunting.”

The comment is not in Coleridge’s collected marginalia.

Jeremy Taylor. The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living …: Together With Prayers Containing the Whole Duty of a Christian. The eleventh ed. London: Printed by Roger Norton for Richard Royston, 1676.

This volume by the seventeenth-century divine Bishop Jeremy Taylor belonged to Coleridge and contains a brief marginal note by him. Coleridge’s son Hartley, a poet in his own right, inscribed the copy in order to remind himself of his father’s legacy: “Hartley Coleridge / a small but precious / portion / of his promised inheritance.”

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to T. G. Street.
2 October 1813.

Coleridge wrote to Street, the editor of the Courier, to complain of the Morning Chronicle’s coverage of the Napoleonic Wars. On this page, Coleridge refers to “the volcanic” Horrors of the French Revolution. The letter has yet to be published.

Beyond the Brownings–William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Posted on September 23, 2014 by melindacreech

Courtesy of the Armstrong Browning Library

By Michael Milburn, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

William Wordsworth was the foremost of the early Romantic poets in England, known on the one hand for his use of familiar imagery and language; on the other, for his complex and contemplative blank verse; and in either case, for his devotion to nature. Notable works include Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800) and The Prelude, which was not published until after his death in 1850.

The ABL has several rare editions of Wordsworth’s poetry, including three inscribed copies, in addition to five unpublished or partially published letters.

William Wordsworth. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. New ed. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1832.

The author’s inscription reads as follows: “To Lady Townshend Farquhar / in token of affectionate Regard / from her / Sincere Friend / W^m Wordsworth / Rydal Mount / 14th Novbr 1832.” Lady Maria Frances Geslip (née de Latour) was the widow of Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar, a Member of Parliament.

William Wordsworth. Grace Darling. Carlisle: Printed at the office of Charles Thurnam, 1843.

Privately printed and inscribed by the author.

In his poem, Wordsworth celebrates the heroics of Grace Darling, who became a Victorian icon for her role in rescuing the survivors of the Forfarshire after it was shipwrecked near her father’s lighthouse in 1838. This extremely rare edition once belonged to the American musical theater composer Jerome Kern.

Letter from William Wordsworth to Francis Merewether. 7 August [1829].

Francis Merewether was a High-Church priest and pamphleteer who had asked Wordsworth to speak on his behalf to Professor John Wilson, best known for his contributions to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine under the pseudonym of Christopher North. Wordsworth obliged with this reply, reporting that “Professor Wilson” would be “willing to look over” Merewether’s “papers . . . and to admit them if suitable.”

William Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems. London: J. & A. Arch, 1798.

First edition, second issue. Possibly the first printing to be sold instead of privately distributed.

The anonymous publication of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 was one of the most important events in British literary history. Wordsworth’s collection, with several contributions by Coleridge, ushered in a new era in which imagination and emotion mattered more than formal poetic diction.

Letter from William Wordsworth to Allan Cunningham 8 January 1827.

The “Mr. Kenyon” to whom Wordsworth refers in this letter is probably John Kenyon, fellow poet and friend to Wordsworth and Coleridge, as well as to the Brownings, whom he introduced to each other. Wordsworth wants Cunningham to vote in favor of Kenyon’s acceptance to the Athenaeum club, whose members would eventually include Michael Faraday, Matthew Arnold, and William Makepeace Thackeray.

Letter from William Wordsworth to John Abraham Heraud. 10 June [1834].

Wordsworth had recently been instructed to rest his eyes, so he had been unable to read Heraud’s Judgment of the Flood on his own. His excuse for not having the entire work read aloud suggests how he might have hoped his own philosophical poetry would be read, at least when he was not reciting it himself:

You are a thinking writer–& I said “I must not go on with this, till I can have my eyes upon the page” & this I beg you would take as expressing of real admiration.

Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to Joshua Watson and Archdeacon Watson. [2 June 1820].

Dorothy Wordsworth was William Wordsworth’s sister, close friend, and longtime collaborator. Her journals reveal many details about life in the household she shared with her brother and his family. Here, she comments on the health of her youngest brother, Christopher.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns several other Wordsworth letters:

Letter from William Wordsworth to Unidentified Correspondent. 15 September 1818.

Letter from William Wordsworth the Unidentified Correspondent. 27 November 1835.

Letter from Christopher Wordsworth to Mr. Smith. 1 October 1844.

New Research and Teaching Tool for 19th-Century Studies Unveiled

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Jennifer Borderud

By Jeremy Land, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English

Baylor’s 19^th Century Research Seminar (19CRS), an interdisciplinary forum for faculty and students in and outside of Baylor University to present and hear original research in all areas of nineteenth-century studies, is proud to announce the launch of its completely redesigned website. This project was developed in conjunction with Baylor’s English department and the Armstrong Browning Library. In the past, 19CRS’s blog was simply a message board to notify interested parties about upcoming events. The redesigned site will still keep our supporters informed about all the innovative research sponsored by 19CRS; however, the added features are designed to make the site more of a tool for all those interested in studying the nineteenth century.

19CRS has complied an exhaustive list of internet sites to support both research and teaching. Topics range from nineteenth century art to African-American studies to Victorian literature and everything else we could possibly compile. All of these resources are either peer reviewed by NINES or hosted by a university so that we could guarantee the quality of the materials. In addition we only selected sites that provide immediate access to records, images, manuscripts, or other digital information useful to scholars, students, and teachers.

In case you were unable to come to our monthly seminars, 19CRS’s new site has begun to catalog our past presenters’ presentations. If you missed a presentation, or perhaps you want to reference something from a lecture in your own research, you can now down load a PDF copy, when available, for your projects. Or if you really enjoyed the current lecture and felt there was not enough time to finish the discussion or were later inspired by what you heard, 19CRS’s blog now offers a discussion forum for interested parties.

Other features include a place for teachers to share syllabi, reviews showcasing important books from Baylor faculty and 19CRS presenters, and the Armstrong Browning Library’s latest acquisitions. Regardless of your level of experience or expertise, we think our new site has something to offer those interested in the nineteenth century. As always, we invite you to share in our new site, offer feedback on improving it, and to join us for our monthly lecture series.

Learn more about the 19th-Century Research Seminar here: http://blogs.baylor.edu/19crs/

Beyond the Brownings: The Victorian Letter and Manuscript Collection

Posted on September 10, 2014 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Scholars know the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University as a world-class research library devoted to the lives and works of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In addition to housing the world’s largest collection of books, letters, manuscripts, and memorabilia related to the Brownings, the library houses a substantial collection of primary and secondary materials related to nineteenth-century literature and culture. The Victorian Letter and Manuscript Collection includes almost 2,500 items from literary, political, ecclesiastical, scientific, and cultural figures in the nineteenth century. Letters, manuscripts, and books from Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Matthew Arnold, Charles Babbage, J. M. Barrie, William Cullen Bryant, Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Michael Faraday, W. E. Gladstone, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Victor Hugo, Thomas Henry Huxley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, George MacDonald, John-Henry Newman, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Greenleaf Whittier, and William Wordsworth will be featured in the exhibit. In future blogs about the exhibit you can find out how Elizabeth Barrett Browning was related to Charles Babbage, where Victor Hugo spent his summer vacation, who was b__k b__ll__ed, and what happened to Miss Brodie’s cow.

Armstrong’s Stars: “Where is Waco, Texas?”

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Jennifer Borderud

By Jennifer Borderud, Access and Outreach Librarian, Armstrong Browning Library

Account of Noyes’s lecture in the 18 January 1917 issue of the Lariat (The Texas Collection)

In her biography of Dr. A.J. Armstrong, chair of Baylor’s English Department from 1912-1952 and founder of the Armstrong Browning Library, Lois Smith Douglas recounts Dr. Armstrong’s efforts to bring English poet Alfred Noyes to Waco in 1917. Douglas writes that the poet’s manager initially declined the invitation “with undisguised humor,” asking “‘Where is Waco, Texas?’” (93).

Undeterred by the remark, Dr. Armstrong arranged an additional thirteen speaking engagements for the author of the “The Highwayman” throughout Texas and the Southwest and succeeded in bringing Noyes to Baylor’s campus on 12 January 1917. Waco was Noyes’s first stop on his tour of the United States that year (Douglas 93-94). Baylor’s student newspaper, The Lariat, wrote of the event: “It is unprecedented in the history of Texas and the South that a poet belonging to the world’s great poets has visited this section” (“Alfred Noyes to Lecture Here” 1). Ever the ambassador, Dr. Armstrong enthusiastically introduced Noyes to Baylor and Waco, and over the course of his 40-year career at Baylor, Dr. Armstrong made certain that Baylor and Waco came face-to-face with the world’s dramatic, literary, and musical talents.

Armstrong’s Stars, a new blog series, is a collaboration between the Armstrong Browning Library and Baylor’s Texas Collection. Once a month we will feature a story about a celebrity that Dr. Armstrong brought to Baylor. These stories will highlight an interesting part of Baylor’s history and feature collection materials housed in both the Armstrong Browning Library and the Texas Collection. Contributions to the blog series will be made by ABL and Texas Collection staff as well as by students from Baylor’s English Department, some of whom are also members of Sigma Tau Delta, Baylor’s English honor society. We are particularly pleased to have members of Sigma Tau Delta participating in this series as Baylor’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, founded by Dr. Armstrong in 1925, sponsored many of these exciting events and ensured their success.

Members of Sigma Tau Delta with Dr. A.J. Armstrong (seated left of center) and actors Katharine Cornell (seated center) and Basil Rathbone (seated at far right) in 1934; Photo by Farmer, Waco, Texas (Armstrong Browning Library, Sigma Tau Delta Photo File)

Works Cited:

“Alfred Noyes to Lecture Here.” Lariat 11 Jan. 1917: 1. Web. 4 Sept. 2014.

Douglas, Lois Smith. Through Heaven’s Back Door: A Biography of A. Joseph Armstrong. Waco, Texas: The Baylor University Press, c1951. Print.

To learn more about the life and career of Dr. Armstrong, see:

Lewis, Scott. Boundless Life: A Biography of Andrew Joseph Armstrong. Waco, Texas: Armstrong Browning Library of Baylor University, 2014. Print. Now available here.

The 2,000,000th Volume

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Jennifer Borderud

By Rita S. Patteson, Director of the Armstrong Browning Library

When Jennifer Borderud and I chatted with University of Houston librarians Pat Bozeman and Julie Grob at the annual Rare Books and Manuscripts Preconference in Las Vegas in June, we learned a very interesting fact. In 1998, a special edition of Robert Browning’s Men and Women (Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1908) was the two-millionth volume added to the M.D. Anderson Library at the University of Houston.

And what a volume! It is one of only thirteen copies printed on vellum, hand-decorated and signed by Edward Johnston, and specially bound in 1914 at Doves Press by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson. This two-volume edition contains the bookplates of three noted former owners: “The Doves Press. Ex Libris. Alfred Fowler”; “Ex Libris Cortland Field Bishop”; and “John S. Saks.” It was sold at Christie’s New York auction house as part of Mr. Saks’ Doves Press collection and presented to the Anderson Library by the current and former University of Houston Libraries staff, with assistance from Detering Book Gallery, Inc.

Excuse me for being jealous!

Page 184, volume 2, of Doves Press Men and Women

Page from Baylor’s Doves Press edition (one of 250 printed on paper), alas, not one of the 13 on vellum!

Dr. Armstrong’s “Mammoth” Pied Piper Pageant

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Jennifer Borderud

Ninety years ago on 9 June 1924, Dr. A.J. Armstrong, founder of the ABL and chair of Baylor’s English department from 1912-1952, staged in the middle of Baylor University’s campus what the Waco Times-Herald called in an article on 1 June 1924 a “mammoth” pageant. The pageant was based on Robert Browning’s poem “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” and featured Baylor students as well as 400 Waco school children under the direction of Lillie Martin, professor of primary education at Baylor. Parents of the children who participated in this dramatic presentation of Browning’s poem were instructed to provide their children “with a costume for a rat, something on the order of the brownie costumes, one piece with rat ears, a tail which should be stuffed with cotton or excellsior and perhaps wired. The length of the tail,” the instructions continued, “should vary according to the age of the child.”

Baylor student Annie Lee Truett as the Pied Piper

During the pageant, the children, dressed as white, gray, brown, and black rats, remained out of view of the crowd until they were lured by the sound of the Pied Piper’s flute from their hiding places in the doorways of buildings and the bushes around the Burleson Quadrangle. After scurrying through the crowd, the children once again disappeared as they followed the Pied Piper, played by Annie Lee Truett, later returning to join the crowd as “children” for the remainder of the event.

Crowd at the Pied Piper Pageant. Dr. Armstrong is the man in white holding a little boy in his lap. (Photo: Whayne H. Farmer, Waco, Texas)

The pageant, which according to the Waco News Tribune on 10 June 1924 drew a crowd of several thousand from Waco and all over Texas, was one part of a larger program that featured the dedication of three stained-glass windows for the Browning Room in Carroll Library. Mrs. Moselle Alexander McLendon presented Baylor with a window based on Browning’s “Pied Piper” poem. Mrs. J.V. Brown on behalf of San Marcos Academy presented a window representing Browning’s “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.” And Mrs. E.D. Head, speaking for Mrs. Carrie C. Slaughter of Dallas, presented a window depicting Browning’s poem “The Guardian Angel.” The windows, designed by the Haskins Studio of Rochester, New York, were received by Baylor President Samuel Palmer Brooks.

The Pied Piper Window, Leddy-Jones Research Hall, Armstrong Browning Library

The presentation was preceded by an operetta of The Pied Piper of Hamelin by R.H. Walthew and was sung by Baylor Professor W.N. Payne, Mrs. Royal C. Stiles, Mrs. Harold T. Dawson, and Mr. C.S. Cadwallader. Professor Robert Markham accompanied the performance on the piano. The crowd was invited to view the windows in the Browning Room at the conclusion of the program. The three windows presented to Baylor at the 1924 Pied Piper Pageant can now be seen in the Leddy-Jones Research Hall of the Armstrong Browning Library.

Armstrong Browning Library & Museum

A blog that explores the work of Robert & Elizabeth Browning and 19th-century Victorian literature and culture

Beyond the Brownings–Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Beyond the Brownings–Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Beyond the Brownings–Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

Beyond the Brownings–Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Beyond the Brownings–William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

New Research and Teaching Tool for 19th-Century Studies Unveiled

Beyond the Brownings: The Victorian Letter and Manuscript Collection

Armstrong’s Stars: “Where is Waco, Texas?”

The 2,000,000th Volume

Dr. Armstrong’s “Mammoth” Pied Piper Pageant