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Tempestuous Victorians: How the Romantic Resonances of the Brownings Fuel an Eternal Fascination

Tempestuous Victorians: How the Romantic Resonances of the Brownings Fuel an Eternal Fascination

His poetry is defiantly sordid, anguished, and repressed; beneath the lines linger a simmering sense of devilishness which is almost seductive in its intensity, reined in only by form and carefully-calculated conceit. Browning – renowned for his place in the literary fiction canon among the Victorians and his relationship with another icon, Elizabeth Barrett Browning – continues to be revered for his prowess in wit, character, dark humour and social commentary. But Browning’s own achievements have often paled to those of his mistress, muse, and wife – a poet who revolutionized Victorian literature while echoes of Romanticism brooded in her rhetoric.

Together, both Brownings produced some truly memorable and definitive works; Browning’s perhaps alarmingly, potentially-biographical “My Last Duchess” and Barrett Browning’s empowering Aurora Leigh have made their way into the syllabi of virtually every academic institution featuring an English literature programme. But it is the mystery and allure of the poets themselves which entice curiosity, even more than a century and half later – perhaps overshadowing their very works as is often the case.

Victorian Excess

While many Victorian literary circles fully-embraced the “carpe diem” mantra – particularly the fin de siècle in later years – the Brownings were not especially hedonistic; many writings verged more on the philosophical nature of morality, society, and critiques of Victorian archetypes. Yet the writers continue to fill the image of the tormented artist, particularly Barrett Browning’s tragic and untimely death (which some even theorize to be at the hands of her husband) and her dependency on opium. Of course, the mere mention of this potent substance immediately conjures up the decadent and hallucinogenic imagery of Victorians cavorting or being transported into the throes of artistic inspiration, as it is commonly romanticized by so many in relation to writers both contemporary and past. But Barrett Browning’s fixation on the drug played a very small role on her creative output. Instead, it was used as a coping alternative for her ailing health, and while she spoke of it like a love affair, Barrett Browning’s words “so far, that life is necessary to writing, & that I should not be alive except by help of my morphine” clearly indicate to what extent she relied on the drug.

The Brownings would relocate to Italy for the purpose of improving Barrett Browning’s health. Sadly, she died in 1861, her death having devastating effect on Browning. Browning’s poetry would continue to be received, however – not only because of its religious influences and allusions to Milton and Dante, but the power it would have to captivate the minds of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. Certainly, the themes covered in much of both Brownings’ works would add to their mystique. And as with all “celebrity pairings”, critics and fans alike have delved into the many-layered verses to decipher not only the social and spiritual resonances but the relationship between the two visionaries as well.

Defiant Spirit

Like many poets of the period, the Brownings were highly attuned to the social condition of those around them. Barrett Browning in particular focused on American slavery in her poem “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” and child abuse and labour in “The Cry of the Children”, urging strong criticisms by those who felt that, as a woman, she was stepping out of her depth. Her husband’s commentary through poems like “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “Childe Roland” would examine the idea of art and poetry as prophecy, as well as its potential for psychological insight through exploring different settings and circumstances (both in literal and figurative form). In many ways, Browning and Barrett Browning alike exhibited a kind of otherworldlyness distinct from contemporaries, though almost a hybrid the mystical nature of works by Tennyson and the more critical, focused material of Matthew Arnold. As poets and prophets, the Brownings succeeded in that balance which tilts on the brink – and becomes fully submerged at times – with another plane of thought, while maintaining an astute eye on the social implications of change, especially regarding human rights, labour, industry, and politics.

Ultimately it is the writings of the Brownings themselves which reveal most about their lives and perhaps confuse, enlighten, bewilder, and entice the reader even more – and perhaps we will never truly understand or disclose the underlying secrets of one of literature’s most powerful couples. But this is exactly what keeps us coming back – to wonder at the strange lives of these brilliant individuals, and be ever enthralled by the masterpieces they have left behind.

This article is by courtesy of Helen Salter

Search for books by the Brownings at Robert & Elizabeth Browning Books

Browse all my books at Hcbooksonline

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Switchover To Faster Server

Switchover To Faster Server Friday 10th April 2015

Apologies to anyone having problems with my website on Friday between 8 and 8.15am my web host was moving the website to a faster server which should improve response times for everyone.

This move did also mean that the email system for sales@hcbooksonline.com was not working for a longer spell whilst the DNS servers around the world synchronised.

Everything appears to be working fine right now but if anyone has a problem please email me at sales@hcbooksonline.com to let me know what the problem is.

You can browse my books at Heron Books

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Anthony Trollope – Oxford World’s Classics Edition

Anthony Trollope – Oxford World’s Classics Edition

Trollope and Oxford University go back a long way – to 1907, in fact, when the first Trollope novel was published in the fondly-remembered hardback World’s Classics series. The Three Clerks was followed 11 years later by The Warden, then by a further 41 titles, the majority appearing in the 20s and 30s, right up until the late 1950s. The then Oxford publisher, Sir Humphrey Milford, was a great enthusiast, and it is not too much to say that he was chiefly responsible for the resurrection of Trollope’s reputation as a serious writer with the general reader.

A List of Titles in Numerical Order

140 The Three Clerks
217 The Warden
239 An Autobiography
251 The Belton Estate
252 The Claverings
268 Barchester Towers
272 The Vicar of Bullhampton
278 Miss Mackenzie
279 Rachel Ray
298 Doctor Thorne
305 Framley Parsonage
317 Doctor Wortle’s School
336 Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite
341 The Kellys and the O’Kellys
343 Cousin Henry
342 Ayala’s Angel
357 The Eustace Diamonds
391 The American Senator
397 Tales of All Countries First Series
398 The Last Chronicle of Barset
423/424 Orley Farm
443 Lady Anna
444 An Old Man’s Love
447/478 Phineas Finn
450/451 Phineas Redux
454/455 The Prime Minister
462 The Duke’s Children
468/469 Can You Forgive Her?
472 The Small House at Allington
475/476 Ralph the Heir
484 The Way We Live Now
492 Is He Popenjoy?
502 John Caldigate
503 Mr. Scarborough’s Family
504 The Golden Lion of Granpere
505 Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel
507 He Knew He Was Right

Known Titles with so far unknown numbers

The Bertrams
Castle Richmond
Early Short Stories
Later Short Stories

Possible other titles

The Fixed Period
The Landleaguers
An Eye for an Eye
Harry Heathcote of Gangoil
Jones and Robinson
La Vendée
The MacDermots of Ballycloran
The Struggles of Brown

Search Anthony Trollope’s books at Heron Books

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Second Charity Book Giveaway Update

Saturday October 25th 2014

Saw the 2nd Annual Great Charity Book Giveaway.

Who would have thought that giving books away was so difficult?

I am still amazed that so many people had difficulty getting their heads around the fact that they could take as many of the wonderful books on offer as they liked at no extra charge.

The chosen charity this year was again Sunshine and Smiles the Leeds Down Syndrome Support Group.

Sunshine and Smiles

Admission was by voluntary donation and helped by a tea and cake stall we managed to raise over £800 which was subsequently raised to over £1,000 by a late donation.

What a tremendous achievement for the second year running.

My sincere thanks to the wonderful team of people who made this possible and to all the people who attended and donated so generously.

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D H Lawrence Collected Editions

D H Lawrence Collected Editions

There are three major collected editions of the works of D H Lawrence.

The first of these is the The Works of D. H. Lawrence “Phoenix Edition” in 26 Volumes published by William Heinemann (1955-), London with the volumes uniformly bound in red cloth.

This 26 volume edition contains;
The White Peacock; The Trespasser; Sons and Lovers; The Rainbow; Women in Love; The Lost Girl; Aaron’s Rod; Kangaroo; The Plumed Serpent; First Lady Chatterley; Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Apocalypse; Twilight in Italy (Travel I); Sea and Sardinia (Travel II); Mornings in Mexico & Etruscan Places (Travel III); The Short Novels (2 volumes); The Complete Short Stories (3 volumes); The Complete Poems (3 Volumes); Phoenix: The posthumous papers of D.H.Lawrence (2 volumes); Boy in the Bush (Skinner, M.L., Lawrence, D. H.)

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The second of these is The D H Lawrence Collection published in 24 volumes in the late 1970’s by Heron Books.

This 24 volume edition contains;
The White Peacock; Sons and Lovers; The Rainbow; Women in Love; The Lost Girl; Aaron’s Rod;
Kangaroo; The Plumed Serpent; Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia;
Mornings in Mexico, Etruscan Places, The Trespasser (also seen as Short Novels III); Short Novels (2 volumes); Short Stories (3 volumes); Poems (2 volumes); Plays; Phoenix Part (2 volumes); Letters (2 volumes); Studies in Classic American Literature and Fantasia of the Unconscious.
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The third of these is the scholarly edition of Lawrence´s works, The Cambridge Edition of the Works and Letters of D. H. Lawrence in 44 Volumes (36 Volumes Works + 8 Volumes Letters) Cambridge University Press, publication began in the 1980s.

 

This edition contains;

The White Peacock; Sons and Lovers; The Rainbow; The First Women in Love; Women in Love
The Lost Girl; Aaron’s Rod; Kangaroo; The Plumed Serpent; The First and Second Lady Chatterley Novels; Lady Chatterley’s Lover and A Propos of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’;
Mornings in Mexico and Other Essays; Sea and Sardinia; Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays; Twilight in Italy and Other Essays; The Prussian Officer and Other stories; England, My England and Other Stories; St Mawr and Other Stories; Mr Noon
The Boy in the Bush; The Fox, The Captain’s Doll, The Ladybird; Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays; Love Among the Haystacks and Other Stories; The Trespasser; The Woman Who Rode Away and Other Stories; The Virgin and the Gipsy and Other Stories
The Vicar’s Garden and Other Stories; Paul Morel; Quetzalcoatl; Late Essays and Articles; The Poems (2 Volumes); The Plays; Introductions and Reviews

View D H Lawrence books at Heron Books

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The Works of DH Lawrence

The Works of DH Lawrence

D H Lawrence (1885-1930), was an astonishingly versatile and prolific writer, being a novelist, storywriter, critic, poet and painter, and one of the greatest figures in 20th-century English literature.

His list of publications runs to well over 100 titles, a remarkable tally for a man who died in his mid-Forties. His poetry is of a high order, “Snake” and “How Beastly the Bourgeoisie is” are probably his most anthologized poems, and his plays are still occasionally performed and not merely as curiosities. However it is as a prose writer that he is best known, and rightly so, he was a master of all forms of fiction, equally at home with the short tale and novella as with the full length novel. It is these works that are most often read today, and form the core of his remarkable body of writing.
David Herbert Lawrence was born on September 11th 1885, the fourth child of miner Arthur and teacher Lydia who constantly criticised her husband’s heavy drinking and bad language. The young David observed well, and the couple’s difficult relationship is explored in the magnificent Sons and Lovers (1913), and his play A Collier’s Friday Night.

Lawrence wrote some of his most thoughtful, angry, and beautiful books after the First World War, most notably Women in Love (1920), which is something of a sequel to The Rainbow (1915). In 1921 came several essays and travel pieces for various magazines, and journals. 1922 saw the publication of Aaron’s Rod, which show the influence of Nietzsche, followed by his finest collection of short stories, England My England. The following year saw publication of his most disturbing novel, Kangaroo (1923), which in essence is an essay on the power, and appeal of fascism. He also published a collection of wonderful poetry, Birds, Beasts and Flowers. The Plumed Serpent (1926), written while living in the US sate of New Mexico, was a vivid evocation of Mexico and its ancient Aztec religion. The Man Who Died (1929), is a bold story of Christ’s Resurrection.

His collected works, among other things, represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, some of the issues Lawrence explores are emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. For a summary of the published collected editions of D H Lawrence just click on the image below.

Lawrence’s opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile. At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, “The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.”

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Don’t Miss The FREE BOOKS on October 25th 2014

Don’t Miss The FREE BOOKS on October 25th 2014

October 25th 2014 sees the second Charity Book Giveaway with Sunshine & Smiles, the Leeds Down Syndrome Charity again being the beneficiary.

Following the amazing success of last years 2013 event when we raised over £1,200 for Sunshine & Smiles we will be sponsoring this years event at the same venue;

The Immaculate Heart Church Hall, 294 Harrogate Road Leeds, LS17 6LE.

Thousands of books are available for FREE and ENTRY to the event is by VOLUNTARY DONATION.

Once inside you can cselect from thousands of books with NO LIMIT on the amount of books you choose.

Last year the children’s books were a great success, this is a family event so please bring your children.

Comments from last years visitors were;

I can’t believe how many books there were, and just how good they were

I hope you are having this event again

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Second Charity Book Giveaway This Month

October 25th sees the second Charity Book Giveaway with Sunshine & Smiles, the Leeds Down Syndrome Charity again being the beneficiary.

Following the amazing success of last years 2013 event when we raised over £1,200 for Sunshine & Smiles we will be sponsoring this years event at the same venue;

The Immaculate Heart Church Hall, 294 Harrogate Road Leeds, LS17 6LE.

Thousands of books are available for FREE and entry to the event is by voluntary donation.

Yes, the books are completely free with no limit on the amount of books you choose.

Comments from last years visitors were;

“I can’t believe how many books there were, and just how good they were”

“I hope you are having this event again”