ISBN 1934255211
“Men and Women” was Robert Browning’s first published work after a self-imposed five year hiatus, and his first collection of shorter poems since his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett in 1846.
Upon publication in 1855, “Men and Women,” containing fifty-one seemingly random poems, was not a critical or financial success. During this period, Browning felt overshadowed by the stellar success of his wife. Later in life, renewed public interest in his writing would elevate Robert Browning into the pantheon of greatest poets.
Thirteen years after the publication of “Men and Women,” Browning revisited the collection, and a new vision emerged. He separated the simpler, emotionally rhymed poems, such as “Mesmerism” and “A Woman’s Last Word,” and the picturesque rhymed verse, such as “Childe Roland” and “The Statue and the Bust,” from their more complex companions, such as “Cleon,” “Fra Lippo,” and “Rudel”.
Finally, Browning succeeded in producing the dramatic concept he had tried to communicate two decades earlier, not by adding, but by removing stray conceptual pieces. This volume was then published as “Transcendentalism: A Poem In Twelve Books” to a frenzied reception. This large sized special edition contains the restored manuscript of Robert Browning’s unique poetic masterpiece.
