A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)

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Title: A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)
Author: Mrs. Sutherland Orr
Release Date: December 28, 2004 [EBook #14498]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANDBOOK
OF BROWNING ***
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A HANDBOOK TO THE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING
BY MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR
"No pause i' the leading and the light!"
_The Ring and the Book_, vol. ix. p. 226.
LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. 1927
_First Published May 1885._
_Second Edition, 1886._
_Third
Edition, 1887._
_Fourth Edition, 1889._
_Fifth Edition, 1890._

_Sixth Edition, 1892._
_Reprinted 1895, 1899, 1902, 1907,

1910, 1913, 1919, 1923._
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNELL AND SONS
PAULTON, SOMERSET, ENGLAND
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
This book was written at the request of some of the members of the
Browning Society, and was originally intended to be a primer. It bears
the marks of this intention in its general scheme, and in the almost
abrupt brevity which the desired limits of space seemed to impose on
its earlier part. But I felt from the first that the spirit of Mr. Browning's
work could neither be compressed within the limits, nor adapted to the
uses, of a primer, as generally understood; and the book has naturally
shaped itself into a kind of descriptive Index, based partly on the
historical order and partly or the natural classification of the various
poems. No other plan suggested itself, at the time, for bringing the
whole series of these poems at once under the reader's eye: since a
description which throughout followed the historical order would have
involved both lengthiness and repetition; while, as I have tried to show,
there exists no scheme of natural classification into which the whole
series could have been forced. I realize, only now that it is too late, that
the arrangement is clumsy and confusing: or at least has become so by
the manner in which I have carried it out; and that even if it justify
itself to the mind of my readers, it can never be helpful or attractive to
their eye, which had the first right to be considered. That I should have
failed in a first attempt, however earnest, to meet the difficulties of
such a task, is so natural as to be almost beyond regret, where my credit
only is concerned; but I shall be very sorry if this result of my
inexperience detracts from any usefulness which the Handbook might
otherwise possess as a guide to Mr. Browning's works. I note also, and
with real vexation, some blunders of a more mechanical kind, which I
might have been expected to avoid.
I have been indebted for valuable advice to Mr. Furnivall; and for
fruitful suggestion to Mr. Nettleship, whose proposed scheme of
classification I have in some degree followed.

0. ORR.
_March 2nd, 1885._
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In preparing the Handbook for its second edition, my first endeavour
has been to correct, as far as possible, the faults which I acknowledged
in my Preface to the first. But even before the time for doing so had
arrived, I had convinced myself that where construction or arrangement
was concerned, these faults could not be corrected: that I, at least, could
discover no more artistic method of compressing into a small space,
and to any practical purpose, an even relatively just view of Mr.
Browning's work. The altered page-headings will, where they occur,
soften away the harshness of the classification, while they remove a
distinct anomaly: the discussion of such a poem as "Pauline" under its
own title, such a one as "Aristophanes' Apology," under that of a group;
but even this slight improvement rather detracts from than increases
what little symmetry my scheme possessed. The other changes which,
on my own account, I have been able to make, include the re-writing of
some passages in which the needful condensation had unnecessarily
mutilated the author's sense; the completing of quotation references
which through an unforeseen accident had been printed off in an
unfinished state; and the addition of a few bibliographical facts. By Mr.
Browning's desire, I have corrected two mistakes: the misreading, on
my part, of an historical allusion in "The Statue and the Bust," and of a
poetical sentiment expressed in "Pictor Ignotus"--and, by the insertion
of a word