Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Autograph letter signed ("Elizabeth Barrett Browning"), 2 pages (6 1/4 x 4 in.; 158 x 102 mm), Rome, 22 April no year [c. 1860], to Mrs. Hall; formerly folded, inlaid. Half-morocco drop-box, gilt-stamped title on spine.

The poet refuses to contribute to a periodical publication. Written during one of her regular visits to Rome, but at a time when she was contributing to the Cornhill Magazine, Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes to a Mrs. Hall (whose husband is still alive, and thus not William Hall, d. 1847) who has invited her to contribute to a new magazine: "I remember well, dear Madam, Mr. Hall's courtesy to me when I was nothing, and I should be glad to do anything agreeable to either of you. The truth is however that at present I cannot accept new invitations of the kind. My husband and I are adverse generally to the periodical vehicle of publication—I am not strong, & whatever I publish in this way, (with the exception of certain contributions to our friend Mr. Thackeray's 'Cornhill') is absorbed by an American engagement, which, besides paying extravagantly, leaves my poems as good as m.s. [unpublished] for the English public."