Beyond the Brownings–William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Posted on October 15, 2014 by melindacreech

Courtesy of The Armstrong Browning Library

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

William Cullen Bryant, who was an American poet, journalist, and editor of the New York Evening Post, is best known for his poems “Thanatopsis” and “To a Waterfowl.”

Although he is mentioned in several of the Brownings’ letters, we have no record that he was a correspondent of the Brownings. The Brownings entertained Bryant at Casa Guidi in June 1858 and Bryant stayed in a hotel next door to the Brownings on a trip to Paris in July 1858.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns one letter from Bryant to Fanny Kemble and an autograph note in the Whittier Autograph Album. The ABL collection includes ten books, one of which, The Complete Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant (1854), is a copy of the book that was given to Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Anna Ticknor.

William Cullen Bryant. The Complete Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant. London: Knight and Son, 1854.

Anna Ticknor was an American author and educator who founded the Society to Encourage Studies at Home, which was the first correspondence school in the United States.

In a letter from July of 1858, Browning thanks his friend, Charles Perkins, art critic, author, organizer of cultural activities, for the music they enjoyed in Florence. He also describes their trip by boat from Florence to France.

… the ship was overcrowded from Leghorn to Genoa and my wife passed the night on the bare deck and a shawl or two rather than try the stifling berths below—thence to Marseilles was a rougher business—but we rested a night got to Lyons next evening, Dijon the following midday and Paris on Tuesday night.

He continues the letter, noting that in Paris William Cullen Bryant is his next door neighbor.

Mr Bryant happens to lodge in the Hôtel next door—which is pleasant to know–

Browning also discusses future plans which include a proposed trip to Egypt, which never occurred.

… we shall certainly set our faces Southward in less than three months, and, I suppose, find you at Florence,—at least provisionally. For us, if we don’t go to Egypt, we shall winter at Rome—or so we say at present.

Letter from Robert Browning to Charles Perkins.
11 July 1858.

Letter from William Cullen Bryant to Miss Fanny Kemble [Mrs. Pierce Mease Butler]. 28 February 1857.

Bryant makes arrangements for Miss Kemble to give her readings in New York in April. He looks forward to her coming, commenting that

…there have been few entertainments of the kind this winter—none certainly that could take off its edge.

Beyond the Brownings–John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by melindacreech

Courtesy of The Armstrong Browning Library

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

John Henry Newman was an important figure in the religious history of nineteenth-century England, providing early leadership for the Oxford movement, a group of Anglicans seeking to return the Church of England to beliefs and forms of worship based on the Church Fathers and to restore ritual expression. Later, Newman converted to Catholicism and in 1879 became Cardinal. He is perhaps best known for authoring many of the Tracts for the Times (1833-41), his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865-66), a Grammar of Ascent (1870), and his lectures, “On the Idea of a University” (1852 and 1858). Newman also wrote “Lead, Kindly Light (1833),” the hymn sung at the funeral of Dr. A. J. Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Browning Library.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns thirty-five letters written by John-Henry Newman, most of them addressed to either William George Ward, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, Catholic theologian and philosopher or his son, Wilfrid Philip Ward, who wrote Newman’s biography in 1912.

Letter from John Henry Newman to Wilfred Ward.

21 June 1886.

This letter was written the year before Newman died. He gives a favorable critique of Wilfrid Ward’s book, William George Ward and the Oxford Movement (1889).

Your book is a capital one, very able, and very kind to me personally.

Newman regrets that he is too old to attempt to write the return letter himself. A secretary has transcribed the letter, but Newman signed with a very unsteady hand.

Letter from [John Henry Newman] to [Unknown].

15 November 1872.

Newman conveys in this memorandum that he doesn’t wish to have a biography of his life written and suggests instead that a compilation of letters and papers would “supersede the necessity of a formal Life.”

I don’t wish my life written—because there is so little to say. This is the case with most lives—and in consequence the writers are forced to pad—and then readers are both disappointed at the meagerness of the composition, and angry with the padding. Moreover, in the Apologia I have virtually written my life up to 1845—and there is little or nothing to say since.

Ward, Wilfred Philip. The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman Based on His Private Journals and Correspondence. London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1912.

Wilfrid Ward did collect the private journals and correspondence of Newman into two volumes, published twenty-two years after Newman’s death.

John Henry Newman. Apologia Pro Vita Sua: Being a Reply to a Pamphlet Entitled “What, Then, Does Dr. Newman Mean?” London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864.

This volume was all the record of his life that was needed, according to Newman’s unsigned letter of 15 November 1872.

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–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.

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 Browning Library & Museum

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

Tag Archives: Beyond the Brownings

Beyond the Brownings–William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Beyond the Brownings–John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

Beyond the Brownings–Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Beyond the Brownings–William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Beyond the Brownings: The Victorian Letter and Manuscript Collection