Robert Browning Autograph Letter Signed. Four pages of a bifolium, 4.5" x 7", [London]; March 2, 1889. Addressed to [Frederick James] Furnivall, founder of the Browning Society and author of an 1881 Robert Browning bibliography. On "29, De Vere Gardens, W." stationery. Browning discusses his book Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day before asking for Furnivall’s assistance with aiding an ill correspondent of his. It reads, in part: "I should prosaically state the meaning thus: I do not ask a full disclosure of Truth, which would be a concession contrary to the law of things, which applies equally to the body and soul, that it is only by striving to attain strength (in the one case) and truth (in the other) that body and soul do so – the effort (common to both) being productive, in each instance, of the necessary initiation into all the satisfactions which result from partial success; absolute success being only attainable for the body in full manhood – for the soul, in its full apprehension of Truth – which will be, not here, at all events. The sense is much the same whether you place a comma after ‘effort,’ or leave it out as I have done. ‘Effort whereby,’ or general effort, the result of mind’s striving to urge the body to get strong all at once. And now, I have to beg you to do me a very serious favour. Read this letter and the accompanying summary of the writer’s husband’s services. I should be happy to help the poor fellow in the way he wants were I able, but I am not. I cannot apply either to Gladstone or Buckle just now for very certain reasons, nor to Bright either. Can you contrive simple to bring the matter under Gladstone’s notice, he being the person the parties evidently most count upon – I fear, hopelessly…I know you will help me if you can…" Signed, "Robert Browning." With a postscript which reads, in full: "I was much pleased by Mr. Robertson’s article. There is another – an essay in a book of which I never heard till the other day, Cross Lights by I don’t know what person, which highly interested me." Browning and Furnivall corresponded extensively in the 1870s and 1880s, but the relationship was complicated and, at times, fraught. Browning recognized that the Browning Society had significantly aided his popularity, yet he still occasionally clashed with the group. This letter was published in Browning’s Trumpeter: The Correspondence of Robert Browning and Frederick J. Furnivall, 1872 – 1889 (Washington, D.C.: Decatur House Press, 1979, pages 154-156). There it is listed that the man Browning wishes to help is George Barnett Smith, a literary journalist and friend, who was forced to retire due to lung disease in 1889. Condition: Pencil notation to recto. Smoothed folds. HID03101062020 © 2022 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved

Buyer's Premium per Lot:
25% on the first $300,000 (minimum $49), plus 20% of any amount between $300,001 and $3,000,000, plus 15% of any amount over $3,000,001 per lot.