Editing Robert Browning (section)

===First published works===
{{Quote box
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 |title=[[s:Waring|Waring]] (ll. 192–200)
 |quote=<poem>Some one shall somehow run a muck
With this old world, for want of strife
Sound asleep: contrive, contrive
To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive?
Our men scarce seem in earnest now:
Distinguished names!—but 'tis, somehow,
As if they played at being names
Still more distinguished, like the games
Of children.
</poem>
 |source=''Bells and Pomegranates No. III: Dramatic Lyrics'' (1842)
}}In March 1833, ''"[[Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession]]"'' was published anonymously by Saunders and Otley at the expense of the author, Robert Browning, who received the money from his aunt, Mrs Silverthorne.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chesterton |first=G K |title=Robert Browning |publisher=Macmillan Interactive Publishing |location=London |orig-date=1903 |isbn=978-0-333-02118-7 |date=1951}}</ref> It is a long poem composed in homage to the poet [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] and somewhat in his style. Originally Browning considered ''Pauline'' as the first of a series written by different aspects of himself, but he soon abandoned this idea. The press noticed the publication. W. J. Fox writing in ''The Monthly Repository'' of April 1833 discerned merit in the work. [[Allan Cunningham (author)|Allan Cunningham]] praised it in the ''[[Athenaeum (British magazine)|Athenaeum]]''. However, it sold no copies.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Major Works |first=Robert |last=Browning |editor=Roberts, Adam |editor2=Karlin, Daniel |isbn=978-0-19-955469-0 |year=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |series=Oxford World's Classics}}</ref> Some years later, probably in 1850, [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]] came across it in the Reading Room of the [[British Museum]] and wrote to Browning, then in [[Florence]], to ask if he was the author.<ref name="TheCambridge1907">{{Cite book |title=The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 volumes (published 1907–1921) |volume=XIII|chapter=III}}</ref> [[John Stuart Mill]], however, wrote that the author suffered from an "intense and morbid self-consciousness".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://britlitwiki.wikispaces.com/Robert+Browning |title=Robert Browning |last=Stevenson |first=Sarah |access-date=26 August 2012}}</ref> Later Browning was rather embarrassed by the work, and only included it in his collected poems of 1868 after making substantial changes and adding a preface in which he asked for indulgence for a boyish work.<ref name="TheCambridge1907" />

In 1834, he accompanied the Chevalier George de Benkhausen, the Russian consul-general, on a brief visit to [[St Petersburg]] and began ''Paracelsus'', which was published in 1835.<ref name="Browning Poetical Works 1833–1864">{{Cite book |title=Browning Poetical Works 1833–1864 |editor=Ian Jack |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1970 |chapter=Introduction and Chronology |isbn=978-0-19-254165-9 |oclc=108532 |url=https://archive.org/details/browningpoetical00brow}}</ref> The subject of the [[Paracelsus|16th-century savant and alchemist]] was probably suggested to him by the Comte Amédée de Ripart-Monclar, to whom it was dedicated. The publication had some commercial and critical success, being noticed by [[Wordsworth]], [[Dickens]], [[Walter Savage Landor|Landor]], J. S. Mill and the already famous [[Tennyson]]. It is a monodrama without action, dealing with the problems confronting an intellectual trying to find his role in society. It gained him access to the London literary world.

As a result of his new contacts he met [[William Charles Macready|Macready]], who invited him to write a play.<ref name="Browning Poetical Works 1833–1864"/> ''[[Strafford (play)|Strafford]]'' was performed five times. Browning then wrote two other plays, one of which was not performed, while the other failed, Browning having fallen out with Macready.

In 1838, he visited Italy looking for background for ''[[Sordello (poem)|Sordello]]'', a long poem in heroic couplets, presented as the imaginary biography of the Mantuan bard spoken of by [[Dante]] in the [[Divine Comedy]], canto 6 of Purgatory, set against a background of hate and conflict during the wars of the [[Guelphs and Ghibellines]]. This was published in 1840 and met with widespread derision, gaining him the reputation of wanton carelessness and obscurity. Tennyson, jokingly, commented that he only understood the first and last lines. [[Jane Welsh Carlyle]], wife of [[Thomas Carlyle]] (a friend of Browning's who deeply influenced Browning's poetry),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sanders |first=Charles Richard |date=1974 |title=The Carlyle-Browning correspondence and relationship. I |jstor=community.28212026 |journal=Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester |type=Periodical |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=213–246 |doi=10.7227/BJRL.57.1.8 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sanders |first=Charles Richard |date=1975 |title=The Carlyle-Browning correspondence and relationship. II |jstor=community.28212035 |journal=Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester |type=Periodical |volume=57 |issue=2 |pages=430–462 |doi=10.7227/BJRL.57.2.9 }}</ref> quipped that she read the poem through and "could not tell whether Sordello was a [sic] 'a book, a city, or a man'".<ref>Browning, Robert. Ed. Karlin, Daniel (2004) Selected Poems Penguin</ref>

Browning's reputation began to make a partial recovery with the publication, 1841–1846, of ''Bells and Pomegranates'', a series of eight pamphlets, originally intended just to include his plays. Fortunately for Browning's career, his publisher, Moxon, persuaded him to include some "dramatic lyrics", some of which had already appeared in periodicals.<ref name="Browning Poetical Works 1833–1864"/>