Page:The complete works of Mrs. E. B. Browning (Volume 1).djvu/18

vi Gregory Nazianzen, and the brief prose pieces upon Carlyle and Tennyson, upon Italy and America, and "A Thought on Thoughts."

The Chronological Bibliography will be found completer than any preceding one, including the entry of the various poems first published in America and not recorded in British or other editions earlier than this.

While acknowledgment is given with pleasure of indebtedness to the work of preceding biographers and to the various collections of the letters of the poet, to the "Browning Love Letters," the best commentary on the "Sonnets from the Portuguese," the editors feel peculiarly indebted for light upon the "Sonnets" and on the poet's life; and they desire especially to thank the Messrs. Harper & Brothers, the publishers of these "Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett," for their courteous permission to make quotation from them.

To the Boston Browning Society, whose valuable collection of first editions was consulted, thanks are also due most cordially, and to its president, Mr. Prentiss Cummings, who has authorized the photograph, taken for this edition, of one of the Society's treasures, the bronze cast, by Harriet Hosmer, of the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Browning.

The marble bust of Mrs. Browning, by W. W. Story, adorning the Wellesley "Browning Room," has also been photographed, for the first time, for this edition, and it is a pleasure to the editors to record here their appreciation of this privilege granted them by Miss Caroline Hazard, the President of Wellesley College.