[Item #56829] Poems Before Congress. Elizabeth Barrett BROWNING.

Poems Before Congress

London: Chapman and Hall, 1860. First Edition. Second impression, with the space after "different" on p.25. Octavo (20cm). Original red cloth, stamped in blind and titled in gilt; brown coated endpapers; viii, [2], 65, [3], 32pp; page listing Browning's works at rear, followed by 32-page publisher's catalogue dated February 1860. Straight and tight, spine darkened, spots of foxing to endpapers: Very Good.

Most of the collection deals with Italian politics. The book "provoked an outcry in England because reviewed assumed the thundering concluding poem, 'A Curse for a Nation', was the poet's curse on her own country (in fact, it was an anti-slavery poem first published in the 1856 issue of the abolitionist annual The Liberty Bell, as a curse on America)" (ODNB). BARNES A12.

Price: $375.00

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