The Poetical Works of Robert Browning: Volume VIII. The Ring and the Book, Books V-VIII: (The Poetical Works of Robert Browning)

In old age, Browning always referred people to The Ring and the Book as his finest achievement. This is the second of the three volumes of the Oxford edition presenting this great Italian murder-story, including the monologues of the villain, the aristocrat Guido Franceschini, Pompilia his abused wife, and Caponsacchi, the priest who tries to rescue her from death. The commentary, at the bottom of each page, elucidates Browning's creative and sometimes challenging use of language with reference to his correspondence, his historical sources, and his own rich experience of Italy. Previously unidentified allusions are fully explained, and a newly discovered source from a seventeenth-century Italian chronicle is presented for the first time (in Appendix B), allowing further insight into Browning's engagement with history. The copy text of 1888-9 has numerous emendations to its punctuation, both those authorized by the poet in the last year of his life and those resulting from corrected compositors' errors, and these, combined with fourteen emendations to substantives, produce a text as near as possible to Browning's final intentions.

Table of Contents:
Textual Note to Books V-VIII References and Abbreviations The Ring And The Book, Books V-VIIIIntroduction to Book V Book V: Count Guido Franceschini Introduction to Book VI Book VI: Giuseppe Caponsacchi Introduction to Book VII Book VII: Pompilia Introduction to Book VIII Book VIII: Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis AppendicesA: Molinism B: Caponsacchi's Ancestry C: The Torture of the Vigil D: Yale Variants E: Compositors

About the Author :
Stefan Hawlin is Lecturer in English, University of Buckingham Tim Burnett is Manuscript Librarian at the British Library (retired)

Review :
`Few men have listened to the voice of women with more intelligence or perception than Browning' A. N. Wilson, Daily Telegraph `The magnificent new editon of the poem' A. N. Wilson, Daily Telegraph `Review from previous volume This is the best text for reading The Ring and the Book that I have come cross. The textual apparatus is there for those who need it, but it is typographically unobtrusive, and beneath it, at the foot of the page, are notes which elucidate and explain. ... Browning's great poem has always presented a challenge to readers. This edition, without ever being guilty of nanny-editing, guides the reader gently but firmly, and contains the scholarly apparatus necessary for a full appreciation of Browning's achievement. The editors, and the general editor, deserve our gratitude.' J R Watson, ROES, Vol 50, no 200 (1999)