1742580342000 1718190063000 Standard Record object-110010296 1747160956037 1721919394000 1747159409017 adlib fitz-online adlib-object-110010296 https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/110010296 0f7b1038-1139-3aa4-b395-9653228392fe 1 person reference agent-189587 adlib-agent-189587 bdb516c5-2fc9-3cc4-9b67-8751f8adffc2 Blagden, Isa person reference agent-18959 adlib-agent-18959 39259c5a-4c1e-374d-9773-12b77ff96b14 Browning, Robert Length mm 179 Width mm 149 Leaf 5 Length mm 180 Width mm 148 Leaf 1 Length mm 180 Width mm 148 Leaf 2 Length mm 180 Width mm 148 Leaf 3 Length mm 180 Width mm 148 Leaf 4 content description This is a letter written from Rome, Italy. Barrett Browning says Robert Browning has instructed her to wait to write to Blagden until he reads her book as well but Robert Browning has hardly read recently due to taking up sculpture and Barrett Browning wishes to write now. She congratulates Blagden and says she has exceeded her expectations: ‘a style which sometimes rises into eloquence, & requires only a little unsexing from occasional looseness & incorrectness to be an excellent, elevated manly, distinct & straightforward style—a qualification by no means ordinary in women’s books, .. or men’s.’. She says however Blagden cannot combine being a ‘sister of charity’ and ‘artist-teacher’; she must choose one. Barrett Browning says she agrees with the Globe review that compares the book to Hawthorne. She criticises Blagden on certain aspects of her writing: ‘I criticise you in rudeness & frankness, because I love you enough for that, and because also your talents can bear it’. Of Robert Browning she says he mutters ‘Really superior to what I imagined’ when reading. The delay is only because he has been so out of habit with reading and had to be dragged even to Framley’s Parsonage. Mr Powers has visited them and praised Blagden’s ‘“modesty” in view of [her] literary success’. She was ‘alarmed’ to hear that Dr Gryzanowski was part of the company but understood that Blagden must entertain him for social purposes. She makes mention of ‘poor Mrs Kinney’ who believes herself to be pregnant. In the final postscript, she says, ‘What a struggling struggling letter—written in a net of troubles.’ This letter has been transcribed in 'The Brownings' Correspondence', vol. 29, pp. 108–112 (Kansas: Wedgestone Press, 2023). It is transcribed online via The Brownings' Correspondence project, numbered 4889. GBR/280/MS.1.R-1917/5/168 1 accession number GBR/280/MS.1.R-1917/5/168 110010296 priref 110010296 old reference no. Browning(EB)/182 old reference no. Browning(EB)/184 old reference no. Browning(EB)/218 uri https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/110010296 https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/110010296 reference agent-149638 adlib-agent-149638 7376d833-d0a7-3be0-916e-9c892b7a24d8 The Fitzwilliam Museum 1861 1861 [ca. 9 May 1861] 1861-05-09 reference agent-164438 adlib-agent-164438 134c98ee-69a6-3752-982b-477276489b51 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett MS Letter, Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Isa Blagden object OBJECT